The Great Debate – Print vs Online Advertising
I will start by saying I am biased. As the owner of an Internet marketing company, I see great value in marketing online. With that being said, I am more concerned with results than media. The key to successful marketing is having a system in place to track the results of your campaign. Statements like, “you have nothing to lose, try both” are dangerous comments. You have something to lose, your money.
Online is Easy to Track
One of the main benefits of marketing online is how easy it is to track the results of your campaign. If you have a website, you should be using an analytics software to evaluate performance. Google Analytics (here is a link http://www.google.com/analytics/) is enterprise level and free. It will show you what websites are referring traffic back to your site and how well that traffic converts. If you tag the url’s of all online ads you are running (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) with parameters using Google’s url builder (here is a link http://bit.ly/bbeAnm), you can track your ads performance with even more detail.
Be Creative, Track Your Print Campaigns
If you do decide to use print media, I would encourage you to create a url that is unique for the campaign. For example, if you are offering a free property evaluation use www.yourwebsite.com/freeevaluation. You will then forward that url to a page on your site attaching parameters to the end of the redirect (use Google’s URL Builder). Assuming your prospects type in the full url, you will be able to see what campaign drove the traffic to your site in your Google Analytics account (I realize this process might be a little confusing. I would be happy to walk you through it if you need help). I would also use an 800 number that is unique to the print campaign, so you can track phone referrals.
Don’t guess what will work better. Test each medium using a small budget and track the results. Then roll out your full budget on the better performing platform.
