Against a background of rapid change it can be hard to generalise, but an important British Market Research Bureau survey reveals the (unsurprising) fact that those channels which put decision makers in control still outperform alternatives which are perceived to put the focus purely on selling.

The research looked at how business decision makers view different marcomm channels. Undertaken on behalf of the Association of Business-to-Business Agencies it demonstrated very clearly that customers like brochures, and still respond positively to printed promotional material. In short they like brochures more than online and trade advertising, more than sales emails, and a lot more than sales calls from people they don’t know which 80 per cent admit avoiding.

Most of all they prefer material they can take away and read where and when it suits them. Professionally designed and written brochures with space to describe in detail a business and its products and services. Brochures which have an immediacy and visual impact which really works. Brochures which legitimise a company in a way that a simple business card or website simply never can, and brochures which deliver the reassurance that new customers want and need.

It seems it does, and it’s bright. Journalists read them and smart companies make sure that citizen newshounds are also able to gain access. And they share what they read and like best through Facebook, Twitter and other social channels. It’s still marketing, of course.

(http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/27623/3-Characteristics-of-Successful-Modern-Day-Press-Releases.aspx )

Inevitably this changes the audience, and so the content has to change as well. Flabby won’t do. Reams of information will lose the audience immediately. And readers – which include members of the public as well as the press – will turn off in droves if faced with stale business jargon or irrelevant information.

Professionally produced press releases still carry weight and authority, giving credibility to the issuing company. They also deliver the full story in its most compact form – which is vital when attention spans are shrinking, and aids portability for recipients who wish to share. But the content also has to be richer, because increasingly consumers wish to experience the news rather than just reading it and passing it on.

Digital delivery has certainly reduced the cost of distribution but the medium is still only as good as the message. No longer is it enough to be headline-grabbing, so the most effective releases need to incorporate tweetable headlines and engaging facts, keywords and links which are truly search-engine-friendly, and compelling visuals which can be posted and reposted across Facebook, Google+ and other networks.

Unfortunately more than 90 per cent of consumers still report receiving irrelevant material of this sort on a regular basis, with nearly three-quarters of them failing to act on it even assuming the material gets read (which much of it does not). Clearly junk mail is just junk mail whatever the medium, but the situation changes markedly when recipients feel they have a measure of control over what they receive.

When this happens more than four fifths of respondents say that they are happy to receive the material, meaning they are more likely to respond to it. If nothing else, such a statistic underlines the need for companies to professionally manage their email campaigns, ensuring a proper content marketing strategy is in place to correctly deliver targeted, relevant information.

Content is obviously critical. Genuinely new information always proves popular when it is well targeted, and the products and services that receive the strongest responses from customers are the ones which get shared among recipients and their friends and colleagues.

Just as Media Digest keeps its readers up-to-speed with the media, so this monthly newsletter is geared to keeping content issues in front of an exclusive audience of comms professionals.

That such huge numbers are coming into play means social media’s value to business is something few companies can afford to ignore. With consumers using mobile devices to access Facebook and Twitter round the clock, new and existing customers can be targeted faster and much more effectively. It also means links to targeted website content and lively, compelling posts have become a proven way for companies to boost their profile and sales.

Even so, it seems that the vast majority of businesses using social media marketing are evidently squandering the opportunity. According to A.T. Kearney nine out of 10 companies recognise that social media presents a myriad new opportunities for growth, but fail properly to engage with potential customers.

Instead of exploiting the medium’s interactivity, too many companies are conducting what are effectively just one-way conversations. Using feedback received from prospects but failing to respond directly to potential customers despite good evidence that more active engagement means more sales.

That affluent consumers are the ones who spend the most time on-line only serves to heighten the need for this two-way conversation, and for such growing companies to seek out professional expertise to ensure they are better able to interact with customers.

The big mental shift required by the inhabitants of planet Facebook et al is that social media is primarily a smart, sophisticated and oblique marketing machine. It costs nothing to join because by joining you’ve paid the network’s owners with your name & contact details.

Customer magazines are clearly thriving, and last year accounted for 23 of the UK’s top 100 magazines by circulation. According to the Association of Publishing Agencies more than 100 leading brands have invested in the medium during the past six months. Their readers are also spending longer reading them too – typically 25 minutes per magazine – leading to a 32 per cent improvement in brand loyalty.

As highly targeted ambassadors, these magazines combine two strong levers of engagement in branded content and direct marketing. But their editorial content must be excellent and inspiring rather than just free, because like a paid-for title a customer mag has to be valued if customers are to reach out and take it. When people praise Waitrose Kitchen they do so because they actually read it and share it with family and friends. Magazines with content which is only so-so will always head straight for the bin – just like the rest of the junk mail.

One significant study, HubSpot’s 2012 State of Inbound Marketing report suggests a quarter of these companies consider their business blogs to be excellent lead generators and ‘critical’ to their communications and marketing efforts. Another third describe theirs as ‘important,’ recognising the significant role they play in expanding the web presence of a business and helping to generate profitable activity through enhanced content marketing.

Search and social media have now to be counted among the primary channels for research and communication. We know, too, that intelligent and engaging content – when tailored to your business and professionally produced – is proven to raise a company’s visibility across the widest spectrum of new marketing channels.

Linking to articles and blog posts through such channels is probably the single most effective way to increase website traffic, and from this to generate more leads and more conversions. Indeed the Hubspot survey underscores just how well a company blog can outrank every other form of inbound marketing when it comes to outreach – including Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter.

Only fresh, unique and reliable content – regularly updated – acts as an effective way to whizz up the Google rankings. Techy tricks only work for a short time and are extremely expensive compared against well researched and written words.