Online marketing has become very popular around the world and many companies wonder if they even need to do offline print advertising anymore. The comparison between online and offline marketing has several facets to it with cost being only one. In order to get the full benefit of your marketing dollar, you must be prepared to spend a few extra dollars on targeted print advertising. A robust digital marketing plan should, in all instances, also include offline advertising programs.
Costs
No matter how you try to compare them, digital marketing costs are always going to be less than print. One of the big advantages of digital marketing is that there are so many ways to track the effectiveness of your results that calculating return on investment becomes much easier. But before you bury offline advertising for good, remember that print collateral often lingers for months longer than digital. A full-page ad in a magazine could still be getting read on an airplane or a doctor’s office months after it was printed, where most digital content has a solid deadline where it no longer exists.
Exposure
Offline print advertising is accessible to almost anyone. A billboard can be seen by thousands of people who might not own a computer, while an online banner is only seen by computer users. There are millions of computer and smartphone users all over the world who are capable of seeing digital advertising, but there is not a lot of room for the kind of random exposure print offers. A digital ad is usually placed on a user’s computer or smartphone based on their past purchases. But a newspaper or magazine can still put that random ad in front of a consumer that could spark an interest that was never there before.
Working Hand-In-Hand
The truth is that offline and online marketing need to work hand-in-hand if you are going to have a successful campaign. In some demographic groups, such as people over the age of 40, print advertising is a way to add an air of legitimacy to online advertising. Contrary to popular belief, younger audiences also read print advertising and when done properly, print can add a great deal of power to digital marketing.
The key to a successful marketing campaign is to understand your audience and use the right mixture of online and offline advertising. Every demographic group has its own preference when it comes to offline marketing, and you need to exploit those preferences if you want to get your message out to the widest possible audience.
When it comes to brand building, the goal with your marketing is to find the largest audience possible. Offline advertising fills in gaps online advertising leaves behind and creates a more comprehensive marketing plan. If you want your marketing to be a success, then it consistently needs to be some mix of online and offline marketing.