By
•
Apr 1, 2016
As more and more people use Facebook worldwide, it comes as no surprise that many businesses are now going digital.
Most are opting to promote their goods and service via Facebook ads over print ads since an increasing number of people prefer to consume content online than on paper.
Even magazine and newspaper companies recognize this unstoppable shift and have established their social presence, ensuring that they stay relevant in this modern era.
They have also created an online version of their magazines and newspapers so they won’t get overshadowed by digital marketing ads.
But despite this, many businesses still pay a huge sum of cash to promote their products or services on paper. Is it worth it? Are print ads still effective? Is it the best platform to help your business grow in this digital era?
In this article, we will compare Facebook Ads and print ads, so you can decide which form of advertising is best for your business.
When it comes to costs, print ads are way more expensive compared to Facebook Ads.
On average, a full-page ad on a magazine can cost you anywhere from $20,000 to $500,000. For big corporations that have millions of advertising budget, it may seem like a fair amount. But not all businesses have that much to put in ads.
Fortunately, with Facebook ads, you can spend as little or as big as you want.
When it comes to CPM, can cost as low as $2 to reach a thousand people with Facebook Ads, while newspaper and magazine ads will cost you around $26 to reach the same number of people.
I don’t know about you, but for us, that’s a big difference!
The best part about using Facebook Ads to promote your products or services is that you’re sure that every cent of your advertising budget is spent on your potential customers.
It allows you to set who you want to target and then Facebook will make sure that your ads reach them.
You can target your audience based on the following parameters:
· Age, gender, sex, location
· Behavior, interests, language
· Income or job position
· Political beliefs or religion
On top of these, Facebook has other powerful targeting strategies that can get your business in front of very specific segments of your audience.
You can dig deep with these parameters and layer them on top of each other to make sure that your ads only reach the right people and drive results.
With print ads, it’s difficult to target the audience you want to reach. Sure, you can choose to advertise on magazines or newspapers your target audience will most likely read, but how many people are still reading them?
If you want to spend your advertising dollars wisely, we suggest you go with Facebook Ads.
Facebook lets you determine how much you should spend on a campaign, how long you want it to run, and who to target. You just need to decide on these things and then Facebook will do the rest.
Plus, you only need to pay for the individual clicks that your ads get, making sure that every bit of your budget is spent on people who are likely going to do business with you.
Placing an ad on a magazine or newspaper feels like you’re aimlessly hitting on a target. You’re paying for everyone to see it- even those who will never be your customers. It feels like wasting money.
For example, you set your budget at $1,000, but your ad only generated $500 worth of clicks. So, you only need to pay $500 nothing more and nothing less.
But if you run a $3,000 print ad and only 100 people see it, you can’t get your money back. There’s also no way of knowing if any of those 100 people turned into a paying customer, which brings me to my next point.
Print ads are difficult to track.
There’s no tangible way of monitoring how they’re performing unless you ask your customers one by one where they heard about you.
But with Facebook ads, you can automatically measure your ad’s success through their analytics. It allows you to identify how many impressions, clicks, and actions your ad garnered.
It also tells you who your audience is and how’re they’re interacting with your page.
This is great because it enables you to improve your ads, get rid of any ineffective strategies, and make sure that every campaign you run generates the best results.
With print ads, once they’re on paper you can no longer edit or make any necessary changes. However, with Facebook ads, you have the option to publish changes right away or save and publish them later.
You can improve your ads as you go along the way, extending their duration, increasing their budget, incorporating new ideas, edit typos, and other changes you want to make.
For example, you launch an ad and you notice that it’s gaining a lot of love from your audience. To optimize it, you can extend its duration and increase its budget to reach more prospects and get it in front of your existing customers to motivate action.
Facebook Ads allow you to micro-target your exact audience through different parameters. It also provides you with various targeting strategies like the following:
· Target users based on their recent purchasing behavior
· Life events targeting
· Weather-based targeting
· Facebook custom audiences
· Lookalike Audiences
· Layered targeting
Each of these helps further refine your targeting to make sure that your ads reach the right people and boost your conversion rate.
Remarketing can convince people who already visited your site to either buy from you or convert in any way. This strategy works because these people are already interested in your products or offerings at some level.
So, a little nudge from you through Facebook Ads will push the non-converters to convert.
Once you’ve found who your high-converting customers are, you can identify new leads who are exactly like them.
These are qualified leads who are likely interested in your business. Doing this helps eliminate the guesswork out of the user acquisition process, allowing you to generate qualified leads.
It makes you more efficient and effective with the customer acquisition process. It can also help increase your revenue.
As we reach the peak of digital transformation, there’s a possibility that traditional media may no longer exist in the incoming years and will be completely overshadowed by digital media.
Shifting to Facebook ads from print ads is one of the best ways to future-proof your business and grow it in ways you never thought possible. Invest your advertising dollars in digital ads today to see your business skyrocket to success tomorrow!
As your go-to digital marketing company, Digital Resource is here to help businesses like you reach new heights through effective digital marketing.
If you need help creating effective ads and identifying who your target audience is, we’re the right partners for you! Contact us today.
Think you've got what it takes to hang with the pros at Digital Resource? Check out our Careers page to browse current job openings!
