Advertising in a newspaper or having your own website? Which is the better value?

I wish I had a dollar for every business person who said that websites are too expensive to have done. Yet many of these businesses take out full page ads in their local newspaper and some of the major ones. And a website is too expensive – really?

A newspaper life cycle

Let’s examine the life cycle of a newspaper and ergo, a newspaper ad.

A newspaper lands on the front step at 7:00 in the morning. By this time if someone is commuting, they probably don’t have time to read the entire paper before rushing out the door to the car or the bus. The reader is going to scan the headlines, maybe read it on the way to work. Said reader will likely remember the news stories of importance but will they remember the advertisements in the paper? Probably not, unless it’s something they really need that day. Or if the newspaper arrives after they have left for work they will likely read the paper that evening if they have time between getting dinner ready, the kids out to soccer, band, choir, whatever practice. By the next day the paper is put in the recycling box.

The cost of newspaper advertising

Now let’s consider the cost of advertising for one day. One of Canada’s largest newspapers charges $1,543.11 (Monday to Friday) or $2,047.13 (Sat) for a 2″ x 2″ ad. How much information about your business can you cram in that little space? You could get a little more information in a one-eighth page ad which is 5-3/16″ x 5-1/8″ at a cost of 9,398.27 (M-F) $12,461.11 (S).

And a one-time ad isn’t going to get you noticed, it might if you have a really, really clever ad (and how much will you pay an ad agency to design that clever ad?). It can take up to 20 times for someone to see your ad before they call or come into your shop. “Info Press” has a great article on their website about frequency of advertising – http://www.abiederman.com/marketing/advertising-frequency-how-many-times-is-it-effective.html.

So you are going to run your ad, let’s assume you’re on a budget and you’re going to go with the 2″ x 2″ ad and run it and being budget minded, you’re going with 10 insertions:

$1,543 x 10 = $15,431

When those ten issues of the newspaper are in the recycling box, so is your ad – still think print is a better deal?

Print advertising used to be the only affordable game in town. That’s changed in recent years.

The cost of a website and online advertising

For the first 20 years of websites they used to be really expensive too – they had to be coded and that was beyond the skill level of most small business people – and updates had to be done by the coders as well. Large companies could afford to have staff who could do that but the smaller business couldn’t.

That was then – this is now!

Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress make it easy for anyone to manage their own website. The biggest cost is having the site set up and a theme designed and receiving some training but after that, you have an advertising vehicle that keeps on going.

A website designed by Silver Maple Web starts at $1,500 (plus the cost of webhosting and that doesn’t cost a huge amount like it used to either) – about the same cost as that 2″ x 2″ newspaper ad mentioned above. Our price includes a couple of hours of training and two weeks of support so that you aren’t alone while you learn how to update your website. You can add your weekly specials, have a sign up form to capture addresses of potential customers –  those desired warm prosepcts as opposed to the cold prospects who are looking at your print ad. We can help you set up an email marketing campaign so you can send out weekly or monthly emails to these prospects who have opted-in, who want to know what’s happening in your business. How great is that!

It takes time to get your page to the front page of Google, but you can speed that up by paying for an Adwords campaign on Google or a Facebook ad campaign or Facebook business page (depending on your audience).

Google Adwords campaigns are effective because your ad is listed on the top of Google search results or the sidebar. They’re cost effective because they are pay-per-click, which means you don’t pay for the times your ad shows on the search results (“impression”), you only pay for your ad when someone clicks through to your website which means they are interested in your product or service. Again, a warm prospect.

A Facebook business page allows you to interact with your potential customers. If they’ve liked your page, guess what, they’re interested in your product/service and that makes them a warm prospect. You can do giveaways, have contests, it`s another affordable way to get the word out!

So for the small investment in the infrastructure of a website and Facebook page along with a Google or Facebook ad campaign, you can reach more prospects.

So, do you still think a website is too expensive? If not, give Silver Maple Web a call today at (416) 365-3332. We’re here for you!