By Kristin D’Agostino
GateHouse News Service

Cameron Brown, president of the design and marketing firm King Fish Media, is ticking off examples of how the printed page is evolving.

“The two Chicago papers stopped home delivery,” he says. “… Newsweek subscriptions have gone down. …”

Brown speaks in the matter-of-fact tone of someone who has crossed over to the other side safely. The advertising guru left the world of print eight years ago to start his own integrated marketing firm in Salem. King Fish Media has thrived, in part, because of the variety of choices it offers clients — everything from printed media to monthly e-mail newsletters, Web site design and interactive videos.

The greatest advantage of digital marketing, Brown says, is it yields results that are often more easily measured than print. While print publications can’t guarantee that people are seeing its ads, digital media can be often tracked and tallied.

“[Traditional] print media can’t guarantee [the ad] is going to an audience you want it to,” he says.

E-mail blasts, digital ads sent out to a targeted audience, are effective because the firm can track whether someone has opened them and signed up to receive more information about a product or service.

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