The Advantages of Internet Advertising vs. Traditional Advertising
Advertising per say is the most effective and powerful means of promoting a particular product or service. However, with the outbreak of the internet in the market, advertising has also reached a different dimension all together. The advantages that are derived through Internet advertising far exceed that of traditional print publication. Right from costs, availability, wider consumer markets, and the potential for increased profit margins, internet advertising has the upper hand.
The traditional print methods and distributions have been an effective method however; the technological trends of the Internet surpass it at each level of the marketing process. Traditional print advertising is composed of common marketing collateral. These collaterals are brochures, pamphlets, newspaper advertisements, billboards, business cards, and so on. Internet advertising is the conglomeration of electronics—a computer, or server, and the marketing collateral is on a professionally designed website, which is also better known as an electronic storefront.
In evaluating costs in traditional print publication, heavy expenses are incurred through ad design for each campaign or promotion, printing fees, and storage facilities to store the containers and bundles of material. Furthermore, there is the distribution cost to be considered like the costs of labour, transportation and the postage itself. Above all , if these advertisements are aired on television or radio media , the expense will soar up to five to six times more than the actual advertising cost. The initial start-up costs of an Internet website may be at times comparable to that of a one-time promotion in traditional print media, the costs are considerably lower because; there is no postage to affix, no expense for storage, delivery, or repeated design fees for each new promotion.
Coming to error rectification, a traditionally printed promotion may incur nearly all of the costs to be paid. Even for something as simple proof-reader’s oversight it costs more. In contrast, the advantages of Internet-based advertising, the error modification incurs little to no costs to repair typographical errors and wrong promotion dates. It’s much easier to fix an oversight instantly, and often only takes a moment.
To throw light on the availability of a business, traditional print promotions are time-centred. The hours of a business or service are limited to the hours they are physically open, hence potential sales to consumers during the non working hours are limited. The promotion is also possible for only a set tenure, and when the session gets completed, the whole process is repeated with additional cost. On the other hand, the availability of an Internet website allows consumer access to information, and more importantly access to sales twenty-four hours per day, throughout the entire year.
In analysing the advantages of Internet versus traditional print methods, the consumer market potential is extremely limited in the traditional advertising with geographical restrictions in most media being available only to the local viewing area.Rarely can a small-mid-size business approach sales on a national, or global level. By comparison, the Internet marketing is advantageous since it caters to the global market and has no physical or geographical limitations.
The website is readily available to any consumer with a computer, and in this day and age, includes the majority of consumers throughout the world. There are no additional costs in reaching the expanded global markets. Since the Internet advertising extends to the global audience, the chances of potential customers are more and hence the profit margin is also on the higher side. The bottom line is that the advantages of Internet advertising is much more than that of its traditional print forerunner, in lessened costs, availability, expanded consumer markets, and largely in the overall profit margin .
