Print Marketing vs Digital Marketing: Which Is the Best to Generate Leads?

An excellent marketing plan is necessary for a business that wants to reach out to a large audience and grow its bottom-line. With a limited marketing budget in their hands, companies need to choose carefully which kind of marketing methods they will use to effectively reach their targeted audience and successfully convert them into paying customers.

Different campaigns as well as different forms of media are used depending on the products and services that businesses offer and it’s crucial to find out the ones that are most suited for them.

As the years passed and technology continued to improve, many businesses have started to focus more on digital marketing since they found it to be the best way for them to realize their goals. Some other businesses, however, have mostly stayed focused on the print marketing and are still using it with great success in generating leads and converting their recipients into paying customers.

Considering both cases, it brings us to one question: Is digital marketing or print marketing better?

The debate between digital marketing versus print marketing has lasted for a long time and is still ongoing. Both marketing methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, and in the end, it really depends on which kind of marketing fits your company the most.

In this article, we will outline some of the advantages and disadvantages of both strategies so it will be easier for you to reach an informed decision.

Reach

Print marketing is highly effective if you are planning to promote your products and services locally since it is easier to create a brand recognition and point your potential customers directly to the location of your business. When it comes to reaching out to people close to your business, then print marketing is definitely a good way to go.

Digital marketing, in comparison, has an advantage of a wider reach since it can help you target both the local and international audience. You can also tailor your marketing campaign to target the wanted characteristics in your audience like gender, age, job, location, preferences, etc., which will make your campaign more effective and precise.

Impression on the audience

Many studies have already come to the conclusion that print marketing is easier for people to engage with and it is more memorable since the consumers are engaging more of their senses when they are interacting with it. People are used to seeing it and trust it more since it usually goes through stricter editing and proofreading in comparison with digital marketing.

Print marketing is simply more personal and it has a higher level of impact. For example, a large majority of people will open a physical letter if they get it in the mail and read through it.

When you compare this to digital marketing on the other hand, there are numerous emails arriving every day. Some of them end up in the junk folder and are never seen, in some cases only the headlines are read and then they are promptly ignored or deleted, finally you end up with a minority of audience that actually reads through the emails.

Interaction with the audience

In print marketing you mostly provide information about your products and services to the targeted audience and hope that some of them will be converted into actual paying customers. This is a known flaw of print marketing since it only offers a one-way interaction between a business and its potential customers.

Digital marketing allows for more interaction with the audience by using emails, social media or instant messengers. With these marketing tools, a business can encourage people to visit their website, to find out more details about the products and services they offer, to buy them and to give their feedback about them.

Cost efficiency

Even if we take into consideration that the cost of paid online ads is on the rise, print marketing still has a higher cost than digital marketing. The reason for this situation is that most of the printing marketing materials are a one-time thing. For example, when we post an ad in the local newspaper, that ad would only be seen on the day it was published. Recurring costs, in these cases, will quickly add up and it will end up costing a pretty penny. 

Digital marketing, on the other hand, is more reusable and longer lasting. Website content can be used for years to come and it would still be able to help attract new customers without any additional expenses. Not to mention that it is quite affordable even for small businesses to start with digital marketing.

Measurable results

It is easy to find out more about the results of digital marketing. Most advertising platforms and agencies give reports and analysis regarding the performance of your campaigns. This data is very accurate since it was obtained using the advanced tracking. The report can easily show you how well your campaign is doing and it can also point out which parts might need to be adjusted to make it even better.

With print marketing, it’s very hard or even impossible to measure the results. It is possible to find out how many people the marketing campaign reached but it would be a lot more difficult to find out how many of them actually acted on it and bought something from you as a result.

Conclusion

A lot of businesses have switched their focus on digital marketing since the Internet is one of the most used tools these days. More and more people are using the web to do their daily activities, and these activities also include purchasing goods and services online. However, the most effective marketing campaigns combine both print and digital media to fully unleash their potential.

Print marketing can help you boost your online sales if you make sure your printed media always ties in with your online presence. Marketing materials such as Flyers and posters need to include links to your website and social media or a nicely designed QR code to redirect them there.

The same situation also applies in reverse. You can use digital marketing to attract attention to your print marketing. For instance, you can announce on your website and social media when your business is featured in the newspapers.

With print and digital marketing supporting each other, they can both achieve a much better result.

Do you have questions about Digital Marketing, lead generation and the promotion of your products?