Business Advertising: Mass Media or the Internet

     Regular studies by analysts, marketers, and advertisers consistently show significant growth in online advertising volumes. Its budgets keep growing, and it provides wide audience reach. At the same time, the conversion rate and the number of tools for launching advertising campaigns are increasing.

     Many entrepreneurs and some marketers are already abandoning traditional advertising methods and stopping their ad placements in mass media, counting on the higher efficiency of online advertising. Is this correct, and where will advertising placement bring greater benefit to the business? 

Is online business advertising effective? 

     Online advertising provides unlimited opportunities. However, the pushiness of online ads and their relatively low cost compared to television do not always create ideal conditions for successful marketing.

     Online advertising has a number of advantages over traditional mass media:

1. Better return on investment.

If an online campaign is set up correctly for ROI, it can deliver greater efficiency than a publication in a newspaper or magazine. At the same time, the cost of advertising placement is significantly lower, and conversion rates — higher.

2. Ease of control

Controlling advertising online is much easier, and there is a whole set of effective tools for this. Any marketer has the opportunity to observe the audience's reaction in real time, which is especially convenient on social networks. Users send clear signals to the advertiser with their likes, reposts, and comments. Based on these signals, the advertiser can adjust their product to increase its efficiency.

Control over the audience's level of interest is carried out using   special UTM tags, which are unique links for tracking traffic: the user's website visit request, what interested them, the entry channel, which ad caught their attention, and so on. Based on these markers, the advertiser selects the optimal option for advertising placement. It is impossible to establish such effective control in traditional mass media.

3. Narrowing the audience

A very important factor of online marketing is targeting, or sorting the target audience according to certain parameters. Sorting in mass media is also possible, although the targeting accuracy rate will be several times lower. However, traditional newspapers, magazines, television, and radio have their own advantages in advertising a business. 

     How effective is business advertising in traditional mass media? Let's consider several different options. 

Efficiency of advertising in newspapers and magazines

 Despite the decline in the circulation of traditional print publications, they have formed a long-standing audience that influences the effectiveness of this channel. Advertising in mass media gives a business a number of advantages:

• loyalty of the audience buying print publications — they are receptive to numerous ads if they are presented in an interesting and readable way;
  
  
• audience specificity — a narrow circle of readers of certain publications (gardeners, hunters, fishermen, needleworkers, etc.) who are interested in this advertising. A publication on specialized forums will enjoy less trust compared to a newspaper or magazine version;
  
  
• duration of contact — the reader keeps periodicals and rereads them from time to time, while television and online advertising are quickly forgotten. Features of radio advertising

     A very powerful channel for delivering targeted advertising messages to the target audience — radio advertising. It is still quite popular, since the number of radio listeners remains high and it does not compete with the internet. Radio advertising is divided into several types, which depend on the duration of the audio clips, the program format, and the placement of the ad within the program.

Types of radio advertising:

1. Simple audio clip — the most common format, broadcasting a short message that contains information about the advertising object, brand, promotions, and discounts, along with other brief information.

2. Advertising from program hosts, when they insert advertising messages into the pauses between the thematic presentation of information.

3. Advertising programs, where a radio broadcast is dedicated to an individual business company or product — in the form of an interview with the product manufacturer or service provider.

Advantages of radio advertising:

• low cost;
  
  
• large audience reach;
  
  
• ease of creating audio advertising.

Features of television advertising

     A very popular information medium — television. It is particularly attractive for advertising placement, as it ensures a wide reach of viewers. However, such advertising is a rather expensive pleasure, especially during prime time.

Types of television advertising:

• video commercials shown during breaks in movies and programs. They are created by professional directors who ensure a high-quality advertising product that viewers remember;
  
  
• partner materials, when the program hosts or its participants speak favorably about a particular product or service;
  
  
• product placement, placed softly and unobtrusively in TV series, movies, and programs, when a character uses a certain brand of product and talks about it. 

Advantages of television advertising:

• affects different senses — the viewer both sees and hears it;
  
  
• large audience reach, as many people watch television;
  
  
• reaches a large middle-aged and retired audience who are not active internet users.  

     So each of these channels has its place, because the effectiveness of advertising depends directly on the audience for which the advertised product is intended. To choose an advertising medium, test the channels of different advertising tools to achieve the most successful result.