Compare Internet Marketing to Print Marketing

When you’re debating which marketing strategy to use, it’s not always easy to know which style reigns supreme. The rise of the digital age has changed the way businesses attract and market to their audiences. Compare internet marketing and print marketing to determine which strategy will best meet your needs.

Types of Media

Print and internet marketing use drastically different types of media to share marketing messages. Print marketing uses media such as newspapers, magazines, brochures, and billboards. It retains a tangible quality, useful for referring to it at leisure and making it easy to distribute on the go. Think of how many roaming eyes may come across ad—it’s how billboards draw so much attention.

Internet marketing focuses on digital media and includes websites, blog posts, social media platforms, email, search engines, and podcasts, to name just a few. Marketers have many interesting varieties to choose from, each with its own benefits.

Performance and Results

The results of digital marketing strategies are practically instantaneous. Your ability to track hits, clicks, and visits online gives you immediate statistics and answers as to whether your efforts are successful or need adjusting. You can easily track your return on investment. You can understand your cost per lead and cost of acquisition. Tools, such as Google Analytics, make it easy to analyze the impact of your strategy. Online marketing allows prompt and easily accessible feedback so you can quickly adjust your strategy.

Print, on the other hand, has one moment to shine—its first printing. It’s harder to accurately gauge the number of readers who saw it. Its impact is indirect, which makes evaluating success and effectiveness difficult. After all, how can you really tell if your ad had an impact on a customer’s purchase? There’s no way to track your efforts.

Cost

Struggling to justify your marketing budget to your boss? Internet marketing is significantly cheaper than its print counterpart. The cost of printing and advertising in newspapers and other publications adds up, quickly draining your predetermined budget. It costs even more if you’re paying for prime real estate in those magazines or subway trains.

Digital is preferred for its flexibility and budget control. This type of marketing presents the opportunity to choose from more cost-effective options, such as pay-per-click. Your cost per lead is significantly lower and your efforts continue to work for years—ensuring a great return on your investment.

Exposure

Digital marketing’s lasting presence is one of its best benefits. With print, newspapers are recycled, billboards are rotated, and ads are taken down. Contrast this with the internet, where your marketing efforts snowball over time. The longer your blog post is up on the internet, for example, the more views it will get over the long term. It’s never taken down unless you decide to do so.

It should be clear from this comparison that internet marketing is the most effective form of marketing today. Print advertising has had its day but it’s time to move on to more low-cost and effective marketing methods.