The world of marketing has changed dramatically in the last few decades. The explosion of affordable online advertising options has given even the smallest businesses a broad menu of advertising choices. However, offline advertising media, such as direct mail, print advertising and vendor events still have a place in most business marketing plans.
While each approach has their benefits and drawbacks, we don’t believe there has to be competition between the two. Together, both approaches can drive traffic to your website and help make your business successful. The trick is to know when to use each type of advertising.
Online advertising comes in many forms like email marketing, social media management, or search engine optimization. It can be the big banner ads that you see across the top of web pages or informational blogs educating the customer about industry trends.
There are a number of reasons why you might choose to use online advertising. Since there is no print and postage costs associated with online advertising, it can be generally more affordable than print or direct mail campaigns. You also have the opportunity to create as small (or as large) a campaign as you need with the ability to track each page view, click, conversion, and more.
Online advertising makes sense when...
Despite the many benefits associated with web-based advertising, there are still a number of reasons to use traditional advertising methods like brochures, TV commercials, and radio ads.
Offline advertising makes sense when…
For most products and services, the best marketing plan will combine both online and offline advertising options. The main deciding factor when choosing online or offline advertising is determining where your target audience spends the majority of their time. If they are in the age demographic that spends a significant amount of time on Instagram and other social media platforms, digital marketing may be your best bet. Whereas, the baby boomer generation may read the newspaper or watch TV more.
Before getting started, it is important to take the time to get to know who you will be targeting and your budget to determine which advertising tactic is best for your business.
Here at Splash Omnimedia, we do it all. What's your next move? Whatever it is, we can help.