Making Sense Out of Print and Digital Advertising?

Twenty years ago, if a marketer said they needed a new advertising campaign, we all knew what that meant. The marketer called an agency’s account team. The account team composed a brief capturing the strategy and called in the creative team to bring it to life. The writers and designers applied their art to one or more of these four finite canvases: the television commercial, full-page print ad, radio ad or billboard. The public played along, too; with no ad blockers or DVRs, they just consumed advertising (or ignored it) en masse. It all just worked.

Not anymore! Now, there is no machine or even consensus on the basic definition of advertising. And that is the source of both opportunity and crisis.

Today’s media landscape keeps getting more diverse—it’s broadcast, cable and streaming; it’s online, tablet and smart phone; it’s video, rich media, social media, branded content, banners, apps, in-app advertising and interactive technology products. In this crazy and confusing how can one keep everything in place and yet make sense of it all. Do you find yourself asking “what form of advertising should I be doing and how much?”

So in today’s digital world, what use do we have for print advertising? You might be surprised, once you start looking into it. Physical manipulation (such as scrolling) distracts our focus from what we are reading, and the lack of physical dimension also seems to interfere. Multimedia features, such as links, videos, and animations, tend to distract and also leave little room for imagination to come into play. The result is that people do not fully absorb digital media in the way that they absorb print media information.

Print advertising is absorbed in a linear and user-controlled manner. The reader decides how long to stay on each page, and when to move away. It’s actually easy to observe the difference if you spend time in an airport terminal. Watch the people reading magazines and those reading on their laptops or tablets. You will notice that people reading magazines spend more time on each page (compared to how long people spend on each screen), and that they tend to be more relaxed and leisurely about what they are doing. People using digital devices tend to tap, mouse, scroll, and swipe as they skip from screen to screen fairly rapidly.

Digital ads don’t have the “share of eye” that print ads have. And while there are an over-abundance of aggravating pop-ups and interstitial pages that beg the reader to search for the “X”, Skip or Close button, there is no such thing as a full-screen digital ad. When a reader turns to an impactful full-page ad, it tends to catch and hold attention, giving you room to engage and communicate more deeply. Digital ads are sold in banner ads and skyscrapers that just don’t have the same effect as the print full-page ad.

Don’t get us wrong, we still strongly believe in digital advertising and have seen how together with a great print campaign, can produce significant results. In fact, we recently completed a study here at TheHomeMag where we looked at a Murphy Bed company’s web traffic for 90 days. We found that during the 3 days each month when TheHomeMag was delivered, their website traffic increased by 18.5%. Print and digital can be a effective one/two punch that drives your marketing efforts to the next round.

The key point to remember with advertising is consistency. Your potential clients can’t find you unless they know you exist; moreover, on top of that, you have to constantly keep reminding them about you. Determining the right marketing mix may take a little tweaking, but print and digital is a great place to start. But whatever you marketing mix is, we can’t stress enough how important it is to continue to market so your business can continue to stay relevant.

To read our Free eBook on How To Buy Print Media click here. It’s a short easy to read guide that gives you more detailed information and provides links to online resources.

At TheHomeMag, we are always looking for different ways to help you grow your business.

Happy Marketing!