Digital Marketing Vs. Print: Which Is Best for Your Business?
Digital marketing and print advertising both come with their own strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, one form of marketing may prove more effective for some businesses than others. There’s a lot of factors that go into determining which method of marketing is right for you. By educating yourself on the advantages and disadvantages of both types of marketing, as well as learning what both involve, you can get a clearer idea of which route you’ll probably want to take before building a strategy.
Marketing Tips: What Is Print Advertising?
Print advertising involves the use of physical forms of marketing, such as brochures, magazines, newspapers, and mail to reach a target audience. Printed ads are the oldest and most respected form of product promotion, going back as far as ancient Egypt – when papyrus was utilized to display wall posters and sales messages.
Digital and Print Pros and Cons: Print Advertising
Pros:
- Allows for a different marketing approach. Meaning that instead of just depending on your target audience to view an ad online, you can provide them physical material to view in the real world.
- When consumers are able to physically hold an advertisement while reading it, they’ll likely retain content within the ad for longer, making it more likely to generate a sale.
- Additionally, people tend to trust printed adverts more, since they were put through a thorough editing and proofreading process prior to being released to the public.
- Research has shown that people are more likely to make a purchase after reading a paper advertisement than something from a digital format.
- Printed ads can be a great way to reach senior consumers, since most of your elderly audience favors newspapers and magazines to navigating the internet for their news and sales.
Cons:
- Determining where to place printed advertisements can get far more tedious than digital forms of marketing. To reach your target audience with printed advertising, you’ll need to do extensive research into your audiences’ daily habits. Things like where they shop, what they read, etc. will determine the effectiveness of your campaign.
- You won’t be able to reach as many consumers exclusively with printed advertising. Your range of influence is going to be narrowed down substantially in comparison to digital.
- If you’re looking to market your brand exclusively through print, you’ll need a far larger budget. An advert in a magazine alone, for example, is likely to cost you between $500-20,000. Printed ads are often not cost-effective.
Marketing Tips: What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing, which first gained traction during the technological evolution that took place in the 1990s, utilizes the internet and online outlets to spread the word on brands and products. Some of the ways digital marketing can be used include social media, Ecommerce websites, and email. In present day, it’s the marketing method of choice for many brands due to the speed of which it can spread from customer to customer.
Digital Marketing and Print Pros and Cons: Digital Marketing
Pros:
- The possibilities are endless for what type of content you can produce to market your brand – videos, blogs, social media, influencer marketing. There are more than enough options available to choose from.
- Digital marketing affords you an easier way to narrow down your target audience and market to that precise audience. There are plenty of sites available online where you can view details about your target demographics’ online habits and what trends are popular among them.
- Digital marketing is also incredibly cost-efficient compared to print advertising, which is why many companies are turning to digital platforms to expand brand awareness.
- You can engage with your target audience on a much broader scale, and far quicker, using the internet to market your brand.
Cons:
- Since there are so many businesses utilizing digital marketing as a primary method of promoting their brands, you’ll need to develop a unique marketing campaign to stand out. There’s a lot of competition, no matter what you’re selling, so you’ll really need to get creative if you want to get your audiences’ attention.
- Managing a digital marketing campaign can be a handful, especially when it comes to posting content on every social media platform, running a business website, and developing online advertisements to spread the word on your brand. Trying to go it alone can lead to a full-blown burnout.
- If you’ve had a few negative comments on a product or a customer had a bad experience with your business and wrote about it on Yelp, whether the fault was on you or not, people will easily be able to see that feedback online, which may sway their decision of whether or not to shop with you.
Marketing Tips: Which Form of Marketing Is Better?
The truth is – both digital and print marketing are effective in their respective methods of promoting products and businesses. The fact that they’re both effective, however, doesn’t always mean both will provide you the same successful outcome. Smaller businesses with tighter budgets are often better off exploring digital marketing as a way to market their products or services. On the other hand, larger, more established businesses may fair better with print advertising. Alternatively, if you have the means – consider mixing both into your marketing strategy. There’s no rule saying you have to select print or digital marketing and stick to one exclusively. In the end, planning your strategy and determining your marketing budget are going to help you decide which method is right for your business.
Conclusion
Marketing isn’t easy, especially for small businesses or businesses just starting out. That’s why marketers like us are here – our goal is to make your marketing goals possible and ensure your brand receives the attention it deserves. We’re not out for a quick cash grab – we love what we do and we take a lot of pride in knowing that we’re playing a role in the success of every business we work with. If you’re trying to market your brand and need help getting started on creating the right strategy for your business, call Olive Group and schedule your free marketing meeting today!