It’s All About the Power of Deep 3 D Content Over Skinny 2 D Content

What’s the difference between 2-D marketing and 3-D marketing you might ask? Plenty!

Think of all the junk mail you receive at home or at the office.  Tons of envelopes and a few postcards.  Virtually everything but the bills will be tossed–and much of that without anyone looking at the individual pieces.  There is no depth to all that stuff.

But what if you receive a well-designed magazine that clearly matches your interests, even if you haven’t requested it?  What’s the likelihood that you will spend at least a few minutes leafing through the magazine.  Thus, the 3-D marketer will have made a memorable and positive impact on you and/or your business. The 2-D marketer will wind up in the wastebasket.

3-D analog marketing does very well.

A single page promotional flyer is obviously two-dimensional in a literal sense.  It is also two-dimensional in the figurative sense of lacking real depth.  After all, how much can you communicate on a single sheet of paper? This is similar to a one sheet product sheet sent to a business or an announcement of a 50% off sale at a department store.  Although you can convey important information–and perhaps relevant information, you are extremely limited in how much you can convey.

Let’s take it to the next level.  Think of a carefully targeted custom publication with 32 pages.  Best Magazine from Best Buy provides an excellent example. 

As we have written in Get Content Get Customers, Best Buy’s magazine targets their very best customers with an enthusiast’s paradise chock full of product information about everything from iPods to sports cars.

This is an enthusiast’s magazine in the best tradition of favorites such as Sports Illustrated or Car and Driver. As such,  Best Magazine is three-dimensional analog marketing at its best, providing both literal and figurative depth.

3-D online marketing does brilliantly—and for a much lower cost.

Let’s take 3-D marketing onto the Internet. Imagine a well-designed website with content that is a relative to your needs, tells you everything you need to know in order to make a buying decision, and makes it incredibly easy for you to complete that buying transaction.  This is 3-D marketing taken to its logical extreme.

In the analog world, 3-D marketing beats out 2-D marketing, but at a significant cost differential.  As paper, printing, and postage costs increase, it becomes more challenging to generate a meaningful return within the analog universe.

Conversely, in the digital world, 3-D marketing gives you infinite reach with virtually zero incremental cost.  Better yet, the more depth of content you provide, the more powerful this marketing weapon becomes.

Marketers must understand, however, that a Web presence in and of itself is meaningless.  Great content gives meaning and power to the three dimensions. If your site lacks that content, you might as well go back to mailing postcards and product fliers.

It is worth noting, of course, that you do not need to wear special glasses to get full benefit from 3-D digital marketing.

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