Print vs Digital Advertising: Which is Best for Your Business?

17 Dec Print vs Digital Advertising: Which is Best for Your Business?

Print vs Digital Advertising: Which is Best for Your Business?

With all the noise around digital marketing, it’s easy to believe that online is the only game in town. There are advertising banners and pop-ups everywhere you look on the internet, search engine results give priority to advertisers who have paid to be at the top, and every social media channel is cluttered with advertising sponsorship.

But business owners and marketers who blindly follow the trend towards online are missing an important point. When looking for real news and engaging content people still prefer to read a glossy magazine to surfing the net. And when you consider that anyone can buy an online advert for just a few pounds, it’s no wonder that most adults harbour misgivings about trusting everything they see and read in cyberspace.

People still love print

We recently saw an interesting study that backs this up. Newspapers and magazines are still popular as a news and information medium with 63% of consumers, compared to just 25% for the internet. As we’re in the business of promoting printed magazine advertising, we were pleased to see the recent 2017 National Readership survey showing that 75% of UK adults regularly read a print newspaper or magazine. Add in the fact that 33% of consumers don’t trust brands that don’t offer printed communications as well as digital content, and you can see that print is very much alive and well.
Print advertising especially conveys a level of professionalism that encourages consumer trust in an organisation, if only because buyers tacitly realise that print requires a higher level of marketing investment than online. The smart marketing money relies on a mix between online and offline media channels, recognising the need to be integrated and balanced to maximise ROI.

Want to know what works? Mix it up!

The optimal mix of marketing media for your business will depend on a number of factors, such as your target market, your ideal customer, your marketing budget and the type of business. Your goal should be to leverage a wide variety of channels to amplify your brand, reaching as many people as you can, rather than rely on just one or two routes to market. Many organisations have found that print advertising provides credibility to their online campaigns, with repetition of their key marketing messages increasing exposure and driving incremental sales.

Each channel has its own pros and cons. Online advertising may be cheaper, quicker, more immediate and accessible, but print advertising is more ‘real’ (i.e. you can touch and feel it), read, remembered and trusted; to consumers, a business isn’t considered legitimate unless it has a website, and its marketing isn’t to be trusted unless it also appears in print!

There’s a well-known marketing metaphor when debating online vs traditional media: The first is a net, while the second is a spear. Modern marketing is a cross-medium and multi-platform discipline. So don’t dismiss one channel in favour of another.

If you need more information about advertising with us, contact our sales team by email or on 01494 725878. We’ll be only too happy to help

Author: Raj

Owner