Advertising is one of the most effective ways to reach customers in a competitive marketplace with many players. Research has shown that companies that use effective advertising techniques do better and generate more leads, better brand awareness and more sales. However, the catch comes where a business has to choose between an offline against an online strategy where the adverts are concerned.
The question that begs to be answered is, how effective can a business leverage both worlds. Rather, which one between the two is the best?
Offline advertising
Offline advertising entails all the conventional mediums of advertising that have been around from time immemorial. Some of the most popular forms of offline advertising include editorials in magazines and general print media like newspapers, bulletins and so forth. Offline advertising also includes niche seminars, exhibitions, TV, personalised door mats, flyers and many more.
Some of the advantage of offline advertising is the fact that most adverts have a more direct and universal feel such as TV. The other advantage that comes with offline advertising is the personalized nature of each advert. Besides, when editorials come with a face that’s so believable to the readership or viewership, the conversion rates and leads for a particular brand can be quite impressive.
The other advantage of having your adverts offline lies in the fact that most of them have a better, physical presence, which seems to work best within a local market setting. Truth is, most buyers want a personalized experience.
Online advertising
Online advertising on the other hand employs banners, directories, and advertorials on other websites, content marketing, email campaigns, social media, online PR, blogs, search engines and websites, among others.
Some of the best features that characterize online advertising is the better targeting of customers because some platforms like social media or email campaigns send the product, services to specific target audiences. When compared to most offline campaigns, which send general message to a blast customer base with the hope of converting to sales, online advertising works better.
The other way in which online advertising is seen as the better option lies in the fact that it requires less effort and hence, costs less. This means that a business can end up spending so little on the general expenses needed to set the campaign up, compared to an offline campaign, which is more expensive. Moreover, the measuring of impact on online advertising seems to be better, compared to metrics provided offline (some of them can’t be measured). Given that measuring the results is much more efficient online, it’s in order for one to conclude that online advertising is much better.
Overall, offline and online marketing can’t be blanket best or worse, according to experts. Research has shown that offline advertising can produce better results on certain advertising objectives compared to online advertising. However, without delving away from proven scientific research findings done recently, scaling online adverts has been better than offline advertising because of the larger population/audience online. Online advertising is also better at optimizing conversions, efficient market targeting, lower campaign costs and so many others.
Both offline and online advertising should be combined in order to get the most out of your business whether you have a brick and mortar business or an online business. Most very successful businesses having strong elements of both offline and online. More online marketers need to be aware of this. Many don’t even have business cards.