In a world drowning in digital, is paper making a comeback?

{Unsplash photo by @indieground}

Last week I dished out 20+ business cards at a conference. Beautifully printed, they were a conversation-starter and I noticed how people rubbed them between their thumbs and forefingers. 

I’m currently working with a client who’s trying to reach small business owners. We knew that cold emailing them would be pointless, so instead sent personalised letters on ‘solicitor-grade’ 120 gsm Conqueror paper. It generated an excellent response. Yes we had to put the work in to research, personalise, buy the paper and envelopes and stamps, print and post them out, but that’s the point: recipients noticed that we’d put the effort in and it caused them to take us seriously.

A branding agency boss told me that each month he sends a bespoke, handwritten letter to the CEO of a company he wants to work for.  He boldly diagnoses their brand challenges and opportunities and lays out his ideas for addressing them. Each letter takes him at least a whole day of work. But they’re highly effective: he tells me they lead to hundreds of thousands of pounds of new business for his agency each year.

Last spring, Outline, a trendy boutique in New York’s Boerum Hill neighbourhood, replaced its e-commerce with analog altogether. Customers were mailed an exquisite catalog, beautifully shot and tactile to the touch. They call, email, text or DM over Instagram to place an order. Apparently it was so effective that the shop repeated it this year. Commenting in the New York Times the owner said “we started the store because we were so exhausted by shopping online.”

In a world drowning in digital, could paper be making a comeback?