Ever since the late 90s, when electronic opportunities began to take over our lives, I have been saying "print is not dead." Clearly, in the last couple years, marketers have had to learn a lot of stuff that we would have sworn would never interest us; geeky computer stuff. And, that is especially true for high-ed marketers, many of whom are targeting the youth demographic.

But some want to go so far as to eliminate more traditional forms of communications...and I think that's really dangerous. The reason for the temptation is obvious.  "Can't we just REPLACE our viewbook with some online tool or content?"  Well, no...that would be too easy, you see. I think it's fair to say our lives are getting LESS easy or rather MORE complicated. And, trade-offs such as these are simply not realistic.

So, there's this article today called "Even Younger Demographics Prefer Direct Mail" on ChiefMarketer, which reinforces my feeling that print is actually not dead and probably not even dying. So, hey, I figure I'll blog about an article that reinforces my firm opinion!

The article loosely sites some research (my only criticism), that says that 18-34 year olds harbor "nearly the strongest preference for communication by direct mail." And, their preference for direct mail communication varies significantly by product category. I am sure they probably didn't test high-ed, but would be willing to be it's in the same universe as "over the counter medication," for which 18-34 years old prefer direct mail over electronic forms of communication.

My advice? Don't throw away your collateral materials yet......