Print Advertising - The Pro's And Con's

Print Advertising - The Pro's And Con's.

As we all know there are numerous magazines in circulation that could potential give us a new reach when it comes to marketing our sites to both surfers and webmaster however, apart from the obvious larger costs involved with print advertising what are the other benefits and potential pitfalls we should be aware of when considering running a print magazine ad? This is what we will take a look at in this article.

Print Advertising - The Basics.

Print advertising has been around for decades in a range of forms and in more recent years, studies show that print advertising sales are slowly starting to dwindle however, with that said, the magazine advertising area offers webmasters and companies a great way to hit a targeted demographic with your sites name and brand on a regular basis.

Print Advertising - The Costs.

Print advertising rates, as you may or may not expect are much higher than regular button and banner advertising often a single ad can run upwards of $4000 but, you also have more cost effective methods available to you and whilst these more cost effective methods may not draw huge numbers instantly, over a period of continual advertising in the same publications they can build your brand name and recognition to the audience you want to target.

The Benefits Of Print Advertising.

The one main benefit of print advertising that will instantly become apparent and that has already been mentioned is that you can specifically target one main demographic for instance, if you are looking for gay surfers, you may wish to advertise in a publication such as Cybersocket or GayWebMonkey and, whilst the costs for these ads may be more than what a banner or button on a resource site would cost you know that the individuals reading these publications are looking for gay specific products, sites and services.

The other main benefit of print advertising is that, for all intents and purposes, you have no limitations on what can and cant be mentioned in your commercial, after all, there is only so much information one can place on a 120x60 or 468x60 button or banner. Of course with this information you also need to consider both the size and placement of your ad in the publication.

The Downfalls Of Print Advertising.

The primary downfall of print advertising is that you have absolutely no way of judging its effectiveness. you may spend $500-$5000 on a print ad and not know whether you only received 1 visit to your website or 1000 visits to your site and, for the most part with banner advertising you will at least be able to see referring urls if you do not have click tracking on your campaign.

Another downfall of print advertising is that, although you may be targeting a specific demographic, you are also closing the reach of your advertising, just because you are looking for say, webmasters working the gay market, that doesn't mean that they only read gay lifestyle or community publications.

Of course in addition to this you also have the cost factor, often print advertising as mentioned above can be excessively expensive especially when compared to regular button and banner advertising which, if you spent the same amount on as your print commercial you could in all likelihood get double the exposure in the same highly targeted market place.

Print Advertising - An Overview.

When all is said and done in my honest opinion I do feel there is a place for print advertising when it comes to both webmasters and surfers however I also feel that it is not for everyone. In fact, at this moment in time I would say unless you have the money to 'test' the effectiveness of print advertising I would stick to regular button and banner space when it comes to attracting bother surfers and webmasters to your sites.

Article written by Lee.

http://www.webmasteradvertising.com