Traditional Marketing Vs Online Marketing – A Cost Comparison

How much do you currently spend on your marketing?
Do you ever feel like you should be getting more for your money?
Many business owners are cautious about spending money on internet marketing. Maybe it’s because it’s less physically tangible? Maybe it’s because it feels like stepping into the unknown? Whatever the reasons, if you are investing your marketing budget in old ‘outbound’ marketing, you are really missing a trick.

The Cost of Outbound Marketing

What would you get for £500 if you spent it all on old ‘outbound’ marketing? You might expect two short adverts in your local paper, 1000 sales leaflets sent out or a few seconds on a local radio station.
Though these techniques do sometimes provide the odd lead, they rely on your advert coming into contact with the right person at the right time, purely by luck!
The other downside to this type of marketing is that once it’s gone, it’s gone. If it doesn’t work instantly, it’s not going to work at all.

What About Online Marketing?

Online ‘inbound’ marketing works in a very different way. If it’s done properly, any money you invest in online marketing will be spent on creating and marketing content which will bring visitors to your website for years to come.
These days, if people want to find a product or service, they use Google. They don’t want their daily lives interrupted with advertising. They want to do their own research and find the best product or service using search engines and social media. The successful companies of the future will be those that adopt these new channels now.
Think about it: which is more efficient; randomly targeting as many people as possible in the hope that some will be interested, or creating a mechanism for getting those who are interested to find you?
Online marketing is that mechanism – and it works.

Does it Deliver More Value?

If you pay for an advert in your local paper it will probably cost you £250 to appear for 1 week. As a result of this advert you might get 5 enquiries. The following week you’ll need to pay another £250…and so on.
With online marketing you might pay a similar amount (or less!) for a company to manage your marketing. For that same money they would create and market content which attracts and engages your ideal customer. They would use it in a way which achieves maximum visibility in the search engines and promote it on various social media channels to potential customers who have all been carefully targeted. They would provide a short term influx of targeted visitors to your website, but also greatly contribute to your long term search authority. Each month, your search visibility would increase. Over time, your reputation, search visibility and customer relationships would ALL improve.
Though online marketing will provide more leads, the most important benefit is that these leads will be of a much higher quality. If it has been done properly, the path that each lead will take will have involved reading and watching content which will have answered their questions, addressed their fears and re-enforced their confidence in you. When they finally get in touch, they won’t want to ask simple questions or ask how your service works, they will want to BUY!
Online marketing is both a short and long term investment, and in both cases, it represents much greater value than old ‘outbound’ techniques.

Look at Also: Why Wouldn’t You Outsource Your Online Marketing?

Are you struggling to see the value in traditional advertising? Want to feel like you are getting something back?
We have a flexible and affordable online marketing management service which is designed to give our customers a great return on their investment. If you’d like to talk to us about what we can do for you, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
By Angus Findlay

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