As everyone knows, the Internet has become a huge part of most people’s everyday life. Consumers use it to research and buy products, services and everything in between. With the Internet providing a proactive, instant, rich media experience, print advertising and in some cases print in general, is having less impact. Rather than waiting for the newspaper to land on the door, many people simply go online with laptops, PDAs or Kindles to get up-to-the-minute information; in most cases, for free. Rather than digging through the Yellow Pages to find service providers, consumers can go online not only to find businesses, but to evaluate them based on their website and customer reviews. When you consider the effectiveness of the Internet experience, you have to wonder if print advertising is still worth doing.
Advertising in print can be very expensive and limited in its ability to target or track results. While subscription numbers may still be hanging on, fewer people are reading and they are spending less time reading. Consumers who see print ads are presented with a static experience. In contrast, Internet advertising is able to reach a large, highly targeted population of consumers, including the growing number of people who avoid paper. With Internet advertising, business owners can target consumers visiting sites that are relevant to his or her line of work. For example, chiropractors can present an interactive, rich media ad on medical health sites. What’s more, a good Internet service provider will be able to tell them how many times per month the ad was viewed and clicked and among those clicks what further actions the consumer took after visiting the chiropractor’s website. With this type of advertising, business owners can choose to pay per impression, if the goal of the campaign is for branding, or if the goal of the campaign is lead generation or sales, they may choose to pay per click. With all of the targeting possibilities and intelligent reporting that Internet advertising provides it often results in better results at a fraction of the price.
Internet advertising can help your business by allowing a relevant audience to easily find you and you to find them at lower cost than print. As a business owner, you decide exactly when, where, and how long you want your Internet ad to appear and exactly how much you want to spend. You can test ads against each other and get results instantly. While print advertising still gets eyeballs, the numbers are dwindling and the possibilities are limited. Internet Advertising vs. Print Advertising. Which would you rather do?
The Internet has seen an outpouring of new marketing money from all areas of the economy. It has, without question, changed the way business is done, nearly eradicating constraints to starting your own business. Despite the internet money-spinner that business owners have unveiled, not all barriers have been abolished. Marketing costs continue to climb and it’s increasingly challenging for any business owner to keep up with rapidly evolving technology.