Buy a domain, launch a website, and start talking up your product on Facebook. Many small business owners over the past decade have been made to believe that this is the way to success nowadays.
Too bad they are wrong, for the most part.
“When you run a small business, it can be easy to think that the only ways of advertising that matter are those that are free – your Twitter Account, your Facebook page, and so on,” writes Boris Dzhingarov in Tech Co.
“However, these styles of marketing do have their faults. In a lot of cases, it is better to spend a little bit of your budget on advertising your business, rather than just going with the things you can do on the internet for ‘free’,” he continues.
Why? For starters, consumers pay more attention to print than digital ads.
According to Dzhingarov, “when it comes to advertising…people see endless online adverts every single day. It doesn’t matter whether it is a text only ad on their Facebook, a visual ad while they are searching on Google, or a full video ad before they watch the piece they chose to see on YouTube, there are always ads on every website that you visit online. As a result of this, people have become desensitized to advertising.”
And while “free” is certainly tempting to an under-funded company, print media is surprisingly affordable.
“You can get a really good return on your investment because you are using a way of approaching people that they won’t have already seen 500 times today. You are giving them something tangible that they can keep, and will refer back to,” Dzhingarov says.
Lastly, your print ad offers permanence that can’t be replicated by digital (unless you…ahem…print it out).
“Never underestimate how much people like to have something they can hold, touch and retain. You can’t get that with a web ad or even a TV commercial, but with a print ad they get in the mailbox, you can achieve it.”
We see small businesses struggling every day to figure out social media and SEO. Those things can be useful, sure, but they certainly shouldn’t form your entire marketing strategy. Think print and gain some instant exposure.