According to a recent study by the Newspaper Association of America, the newspaper is not dead just yet. This study, part of a series entitled “American Consumer Insights,” examined the impact newspaper advertising has on consumer shopping and spending patterns. Early results indicate:

• Nearly six in ten adults (59 percent) identify newspapers as the medium they use to help plan shopping or make purchase decisions
• 82 percent of those surveyed said they “took action” as a result of newspaper advertising, including:

  - Clipping a coupon (61 percent)
  - Buying something (50 percent)
  - Visiting web sites to learn more (33 percent)
  - Trying something for the first time (27 percent)

• 73 percent of adults regularly or occasionally read newspaper inserts
• 82 percent have been spurred to action by a newspaper insert in the past month

And you know what? I’m all for it. In fact, I’m ready to fight for my good old Sunday paper. I’d like to keep it around for a while. Nothing beats coffee, breakfast, and that morning’s news on your doorstep.

Here’s the thing I don’t get. If you’re placing media in newspapers – which appears to still be an effective place to direct marketing dollars – why on earth wouldn’t you add a compelling mobile call to action to your ads?

A few reasons why this makes sense:

• Mobile permits you to measure the effectiveness of the medium directly, by measuring hits to your SMS prompt
• It creates direct interaction with your consumer, personalizes the exchange, and incentivizes them to act through coupons and premium offers

And perhaps most importantly,

• Mobile gets your target customer one step closer to making a purchase

In many conversations with traditional / old media advertisers, I’ve heard their #1 concern about placing SMS prompts in their print ads:  they’re worried about cannibalizing their own conversion rate.  And thus far that fear has kept many traditional advertisers out of the mobile mix.

My polite rebuttal?  If your mobile call to action is smart and strategically minded, then you’d be crazy to not at least give this medium a try.

Here’s a simple example:

Big Retailer X is announcing a sale on Tuesdays from 3-6 PM, one that is designed to get more bodies into the store during traditionally slow hours.  The company runs its normal ad in the Sunday paper to advertise the sale.

The following week, Big Retailer X adds one line of copy to the ad:

“For an extra 10% off, text RETAILER to 44144“

And what does Big Retailer X get by spending very little incremental dollars on a trial like this?

• Big Retailer X can determine how many of its customers are interested in mobile coupons
• They can build another marketing channel – one that directly communicates with customers
• They can drive some incremental bodies into the store
• They can also compare this channel to others, thus gaining an independent measure of marketing channel effectiveness

In other words, the marketing director at Big Retailer X would suddenly have lots more data to work with – data he or she could use to reach more potential customers and create more sales.

For only a few extra dollars, why wouldn’t you make your media dollars work harder for you?