I’m sure I am not the only person who feels like her email inbox is being flooded daily with an overwhelming number of solicitation, informational, and junk emails, interspersed with important email communications from clients, suppliers, friends, etc.
And let’s add in there all the newsletters and media sources that feel like they need to keep us up-to-date on the latest “breaking news” multiple times a day.
For me, it’s over 200 emails a day.
Which is probably why “sort by sender” and “delete” are my two most used functions in Outlook.
Sometimes there is information I want to know about. But honestly, I don’t have time to read every single email I receive. And I just hate leaving items in my inbox, in the hope that I will go back and read them, because as my inbox continues to fill up, I ultimately, eventually delete all those “really wanted to read, but didn’t have time” emails.
Enter: Paper newsletters and magazines.
Or rather, “RE-enter.”
Remember when magazines, newspapers, and newsletters were the way we got all of our information? This was before the internet and emails, before Huffington Post and BuzzFeed. We read the daily paper newspaper from our community or region. We subscribed to magazines like Time, People, and Sunset.
And then, as the digital world expanded, the end of the paper-based news economy was predicted. There would be no newspapers and magazines would disappear.
That kind of happened for a while. But now, it seems to me that “everything old is new again.”
With the digital flooding in my inbox, I now look forward to the real paper magazines, newspapers, and newsletters I receive. I can read them at my own pace, whether on a long flight, at the nail salon, or on a leisurely Sunday morning with a cup of coffee.
And I don’t think I’m alone. In my own (produce) industry, I’ve noticed that while I continue to receive dozens of emailed breaking news items daily, it is the paper monthly magazines that get my attention the most. The glossy, color periodicals that arrive on my desk are the ones that I am able to thumb through when I am on hold. If an article is interesting and I want to share it―I rip it out and route it to my colleagues.
So, if you do any kind of communication for your business, social club, or church, I’m not sure you should have a 100-percent digital strategy. Perhaps you should consider the old-fashioned way of keeping people in the loop and send a paper newsletter. You might be surprised at how many of your customers, friends, and colleagues find it refreshing.
Who would have thought that paper would ever be a challenge to digital? I’m sure other surprises are coming too.
Karen
