Advertising truly makes the business world go round, but how we advertise changes constantly. In today’s market, one question continues to come up: which is better, print or digital advertising?
Here at Hyport Digital, we’ve weighed the pros and cons of both and came to the conclusion that print and digital advertising can balance each other. Instead of asking which is better, ask what’s best for your business. You may find that the answer is to use both.
Target Audience
One benefit of both print and digital advertising is targeted messaging. Print publications cultivate and research a specific local audience, so having the backing of their market research and expertise can help you make your advertisement especially effective and get your message into the right hands. When you choose to advertise in a publication, you’ll immediately know who your ads will reach. However, it can be tricky and time consuming to change your audience once you’re published. If you find yourself frequently needing to update the kinds of people seeing your ads, you may want an advertising strategy that offers a bit more flexibility.
Digital advertisements can also target audiences effectively, especially with the ability to select multiple locations and demographics on a granular level. With technology growing each day, and the amount of knowledge we have on individuals in different markets increasing, you can customize your audience to fit the individuals interested in your business, and easily make adjustments if those audiences change. Although this digital targeted advertising may not always have the established rapport and credibility that print publications have with their readers, with digital, you can reach more people in a shorter amount of time and still reap the benefits of targeted advertising.
In the era of globalization, a wide and fast reach can be powerful, but keeping a level of audience specificity can be just as effective. Digital advertising offers an efficient and flexible strategy with the ability to reach millions of potential customers at once. However, because digital advertising is highly competitive, it may be beneficial to lean on established publications to provide a tried and true environment where you can share your ads with their audience.
Think about the needs of your business. How specific of an audience do you want to target? Does your target audience or strategic messaging change frequently? Are you in a competitive market? The balance between print and digital often offers solutions to business owners who find themselves in an ever-changing, competitive market where they need both flexibility and an established audience.
Feedback & Data
The technology behind digital advertising has come a long way, and with that, it has also become easier to track ad success. Almost every form of digital marketing includes a way to measure how your advertisement is performing. In the digital world, feedback is easy and virtually immediate, allowing you to understand what performed well and use that information to craft more effective advertisements for the future.
While print advertising holds a lot of credibility with its audience, one downside is that it can be hard to receive data on how exactly it performs. Unlike digital advertising where you can track how users interact with specific ads and campaigns, print can’t provide that immediate feedback. Attributing calls and sales to your ads gets a bit more tricky.
If you’re still developing your branding and working on your marketing campaign strategy, you may want to choose digital advertising for its flexibility and measurability. Use that constant feedback to strengthen your strategy, better target your audience and craft more powerful messages. If you already know what a strong audience looks like for you, or once you learn who your target audience is after using digital ads, choose a print publication that targets your chosen audience and put that excellent marketing strategy into action. This method will give you a powerful print advertisement that reaches your intended audience in a new way, drawing new customers who haven’t responded to your digital ads.
The backing of digital marketing research combined with the credibility and longevity of a print advertisement is a perfect example of how print and digital marketing can balance one another to reach new levels of marketing success.
Impact & Flexibility
When advertising in print, you can really take the time to craft something truly impactful. Because printed publications and ads remain in the public eye much longer than digital messages, it is important to spend time designing and refining what it says about your business. This method not only gives you more time to mold your message, but also lends print publications more credibility, making print an excellent medium for a first impression. On the downside, it can take longer to change your ads, as well as their messaging.
Digital advertising can also help give a first impression for your business, but it may take a little longer for that impression to become credible and stay in the minds of viewers. However, because digital advertising thrives in such a fast-paced environment, some forms of digital strategies work really well with special offers, flash sales and targeted offers when you need to change your messaging on short notice. While the digital advertising market may call for more advertisements and some repetition for best results, the fast-paced nature of digital advertising makes a repetitive strategy relatively easy and often worth the work.
When it comes to the timing of your ads, think about how and when you want potential customers to see them. Flipping through a magazine is a different experience than scrolling through your phone, and they both leave a different kind of impression. It is also important to consider how many different messages and strategies you want to send out to your customers. If you find yourself wanting to leave a strong first impression, and also have the flexibility to update your ads frequently, both print and digital advertising might be right for you.
Experience & Ease of Use
Another benefit of digital marketing is that it offers the advantage of convenience. For example, should you choose to send an email advertisement, you can add a link that will take readers directly to your website, making the purchase or subscribe option only a few clicks away. With digital ads, if a viewer sees your ad, they can click on it to learn even more about your business, taking them to your website or a landing page. This is great with audiences who are comfortable surfing the web to get more information, but what about those who are less experienced with navigating ads and websites?
Print advertising is a great way to reach older audiences, or those who choose to avoid digital media. While digital advertising can reach a wide range of individuals, it may not be as effective in some areas. This is where print can supplement digital to ensure you reach the exact audience that your business caters to. While digital advertising may provide close proximity to your website or the action you’d like your customers to take, print advertising can provide your brand with close proximity to your target audience. Together, the two options provide a well-rounded experience for you customers and more success for your business.
The Conclusion: Synergy
Both print and digital advertising offer powerful methods to attract and inform customers. While some businesses may find one more beneficial over the other for the strategy they need, the two options together can offer the right balance to maximize your reach and provide better results than either could on its own. Hyport Digital offers a variety of products and services to help you strike that balance and make the most of your marketing.
Contact us today to get started.
