At Strictly Business, we adopted a little mantra a while ago—”Print Proud, Digital Smart”—and it kind of became our personal hashtag. It’s even at the bottom of every page in the magazine!

I looked back at my president’s letter from September of 2018 when I was first introduced to this motto. It reminded me of why the meaning behind “Print Proud, Digital Smart” became so important to me and the magazine as a whole. As Strictly Business continues to stay proud of our strong print-media roots (many thanks to our amazing and loyal client base!) and we keep getting smarter in the digital-media realm, I felt like it was a good time to reinforce this sentiment and talk about how it’s still at the forefront of our values today as a local business magazine.

In my 2018 article, I pulled a lot of great information from a Freeport Press blog post by David Pilcher titled Calling a Truce Between Print and Digital. Rereading this definitely took me back to a place in time where I was still fully embracing the way the two formats could work well together without competing against each other. In the blog post, David brings in a quote from Samir “Mr. Magazine” Husni:

“There is absolutely no reason that [print and digital] can’t live side by side…At the end of the day, it is audience first, not digital or print first.”

This really resonates with me. As David noted, “When you understand how your audience interacts with your content, then you can begin to carve out a print and digital relationship that meets their needs – and yours. Print and digital aren’t at war – they are both valid tools and can work beautifully side by side.”

Four years later since highlighting this message, I can honestly say that Strictly Business has ran with the “Print Proud, Digital Smart” attitude and kept our audience/clients as our top priority.

In addition to growing and strengthening our physical distribution each month, our presence online and on social media has been taken to new heights. Last year, we revamped our websites to give visitors a more user-friendly experience and optimize the mobile view. Equally significant, we dedicate time each month to publishing articles online and link them to our clients’ websites for their SEO benefit. The numbers speak for themselves! Our clients’ posts have made over 6.53 million impressions in Google search results over the past year with 55,300+ clicks.

We also share all major editorials on our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages for our clients. With social media, I’m sure many people feel that their feeds feel crowded with content, but to reinvent the classic “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” saying…you’ll receive 0% of brand awareness from the content you don’t share. This is what Strictly Business is here to help you with!

Furthermore, we recently launched a new IN THE ISSUE email blast to break down each issue of Strictly Business in a clean, concise, and easy-to-digest digital format. This gives our readers more accessibility to the magazine and adds more value to our advertisers.

All of these efforts to stay powerful online only enhance our print presence in the local marketplace. Strictly Business lives out how print and digital go hand-in-hand. We are also cheerleaders for the many amazing ad agencies and digital marketing companies here in Lincoln.

Talking about our progress and success over the years makes me extremely grateful for our advertisers who have trusted Strictly Business to tell their story, our readers who see the value in our magazine, my awesome team that works diligently to deliver the highest quality to our clients and readers, my supportive family and friends, and God for the health and desire to keep doing what I love.