Marketing is essential to any business whether small or large. It is especially crucial to small businesses. Due to the limited budgets of small businesses, business owners need to ensure they make the most of it by spending in the right direction. A business should have a clear approach and strategy for its marketing campaigns – a wrong marketing approach can be catastrophic for a small business.
Print or Digital?
Some decades back, the main method of advertising and marketing was print media. Nowadays, more and more businesses are realizing the potential of digital media. For many small businesses out there, finding the “right marketing” method is not always an easy task.
By understanding the differences, advantages and disadvantages of both print and digital marketing methods, businesses are able to make better decisions regarding which approach is best and how they need to apply it. That being said, as more and more businesses are moving online, digital media is quickly becoming a popular method of marketing. While a case can be made for each marketing approach, many marketing experts consider digital marketing superior to print advertising.
Why Digital Is Better
For any business to be successful, they have to make sure that they get more bang for every buck that they spend of marketing. To be able to do this, they have to be able to not only measure their marketing campaigns, but also test and monitor them. In this respect, digital marketing is better than the traditional print advertising methods.
Do not get me wrong, you can still measure the effectiveness of print advertising campaigns; but my guess is that you will end up using a lot more time and resources.
Testing
For small businesses, especially new ones, testing is crucial for identifying what their target audience responds to. Digital marketing offers business cheaper ways of testing and to interact and reach their audience. For example, a business may decide to run two different ads on the same platform (e.g. Google or Facebook) to see which one their audience responds to better. With digital media, the business is able to see the results within a few days, and in some cases even hours.
Measuring
Using the example above, a business can measure various things from their marketing ads. For example, Using the data analytics metrics and tools available for digital marketing, they can measure the impressions each ad got over a specific period of time, CTR, CPM, leads or sales, etc. With this information, the business will not only be able to decide which ad is better, but also how the ad performed and how they may improve it to make it more effective.
Monitoring
Monitoring marketing campaigns is essential for any business. Still using the same example, the business still needs to continue monitoring their chosen ad even after ascertaining that it is converting well for them. This helps the business take corrective action, or replace the ad, down the road if there is reduced response from their target audience. If the ad continues to perform well, the business may decide to increase expenditure for that specific add.
Final Verdict
A great marketing strategy should always involve testing, measuring and monitoring. Well look, we are not saying that this cannot be done when using print media; it takes a lot more time and resources that a small business does not have. Digital marketing platforms offers much more effective tools and metrics to analyze marketing results, and at a fraction of the cost. The best thing about this method of marketing is that is provides real time results something traditional marketing methods cannot.
