Marketing 101... Print matters. Sure, we're all wired (or wireless) in this Internet world. But real estate still demands effective print communications. And I certainly enjoy reading a well crafted marketing message in print.

"You have an extra day this year! ... Why not use it to think about your real estate needs?"

That’s from a mailer that I picked up in March visiting Colliers Turley Martin Tucker in St. Louis.

I like the allusion to February 29, Leap Year Day, as a "free" day. Of course, we're only dreaming. Nobody has any free time. Still, it makes me smile.

Likewise, I enjoyed the article Designing a Better PDB: Big Type, Color Codes in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal (May 4, 2004), describing techniques to make a plain text document, the Presidential Daily Brief, more readable (to clarify the image, move your mouse toward the bottom of the page, wait a second and click the symbol to enlarge).

In this case, a designer "blew up the headline and broke out significant details in boxes across the top. He color-coded it based on the government's terror-alert system and signaled severity by assigning the brief a 'threat matrix' number (he suggested nine out of 10)."

Of course, real estate rarely rises to the importance of the Presidential Daily Brief. But the article reminded me of the value of paper communication in our digital world.

What do you think? How "paperless" will the real estate industry become? Ten years from today, will you still send out paper fliers? Will you report to clients in print?

--Peter Pike