The advertising universe is expanding at a fast rate, and organizations and marketers have become part of a huge rat race to emerge as the best and the most successful player of the field that they operate in. Being a part of the competitive and the fast-paced world, there’s no option but to strive for the best, be it the best advertiser, the best advertising method, the best advertising cost, the best reach, or the best advertising campaign.
Advertising has become an indispensable part of businesses today. In order to survive, to create brand awareness, to attract customers, and to generate leads, businesses have to resort to using advertising tools. Smart businesses have realized that the competition is ruthless and just won’t be quitting, while customers have a tendency to forget fast as they are faced with tons of clutter in a constantly changing market. In order to be at the top of their game, and to be customer magnets, businesses need advertising.
Advertising not only helps businesses establish a strong brand identity in the minds of its consumers, and create credibility through the advertising medium, but also retains existing customers. This is necessary for growth and survival of the company. However, there are so many advertising mediums to choose from, and it definitely becomes a challenge to choose the ones that would give a greater Return on Investment (ROI), and also best manage to put your message across to your consumers.
If money wasn’t a consideration, businesses would have been easily able to decide to use all of the advertising mediums available to target their consumers, but unfortunately, that isn’t a possibility. The sheer truth is that even if you have a robust advertising budget, it would still be a challenge for you to create adverts that strike your consumers and create the right impact. Even if you manage to create a perfect advertising campaign, you will have to choose a combination of advertising mediums to target your consumers at different touch points, and here is where cost comparisons of different mediums step into the picture.
Businesses generally purchase advertising slots on the local television throughout the year, or schedule their adverts in different flights. A 30 second ad copy that they produce may cost them between $4000 to $45,000, or even more, to run on local television. Even though local television reaches many consumers, it doesn’t reach as many people who are the target audience for a particular ad.
As compared to local TV, the costs of advertising on network television are exorbitant, as running a 30 second ad in prime time can fall in the range of $80,000 to $600,000. Therefore, businesses usually purchase slots only in small flights. Despite of the high cost, this medium reaps a very low ROI, although it reaches a generous number of consumers.
In comparison with network and local TV, cable TV seems to offer a better bargain in terms of reach as well as costs. Albeit it reaches fewer consumers, it is more effective at reaching the target audience of the ad. The campaign can be advertised throughout the year or in scheduled flights, and falls in the range of $5000 to $8000 for running a 30 second ad in prime time.
Radio is another popular medium that is quite reasonable, because a 60 second ad can be aired on radio for a cost between $200 to $1000 depending on the radio station chosen. The reach of a radio ad also depends on the radio station you choose, but you can choose to advertise on radio at the time of specific events or purchase ad timings in flights. With this medium, you can get good reaction rates from consumers, but they come at a greater cost.
Advertising in magazines is done by many businesses around the globe, but usually, the response rate associated with magazines is quite low. However, the response is also dependent on the circulation. Magazines are sold monthly, annually, in specific months, and special issues are published sometimes too. Placing an ad in a local magazine can cost up to $120 for around a 1000 issues, whereas placing in national magazine, an ad incurs a likely cost of $50 for a 1000 magazine issues.
Direct mails tend to receive a very poor response from the email recipients, as they tend to classify them as clutter and mostly toss them into the trash, but the best thing about them is that unlimited emails can be sent out through the year at a minimal cost. The cost is only incurred for buying envelopes, 1000 envelopes can be easily bought for around $15-$20, while a single sheet inserted into a newspaper can cost around $25-$40 for a 1000 issues.
SEO is a relatively new advertising medium, yet has gained immense popularity because of the exceptionally high ROI that it delivers. It targets customers just when they are actively seeking specific business products and in a way transforms them into regular customers too. An SEO campaign usually lasts for a 6 or 12 month period, and costs around $15,000-$75,000 annually.
If you get a hang of it, you will realize that SEO is one of the top most affordable ways to advertise in terms of the remarkably high ROI that it offers to businesses. According to the picture painted by the different advertising costs, you may be able to easily judge that SEO is not the least expensive of all the advertising mediums. Yet, it is all the more effective, and presents a quite less cost per conversion than its competing advertising forms.
Video marketing is the latest talk of the advertising town, as it is one of the best ways to reach consumers. The statistics are showing that consumers are increasingly spending more time watching videos online. Video ads have been resulting in greater leads and conversions, and two years ago video SEO was on the way to bag the position for being the top most area of advertisers’ investment.
Video marketing has the strengths of cost and time advantage, which it is leveraging remarkably. Videos are comparatively more affordable, and quite easy to share with the target audience using the plethora of social media networks online. Thus, they essentially reach a larger target audience within a very short period of time. We all have heard of videos going viral in a matter of just a few hours, haven’t we? Yes, that is the power that only videos can hand over to advertisers. Just imagine, what power your video would have, if you use video SEO and your video comes up as the first item in search engine results.
As shown by the cost comparisons, SEO on its own is quite an effective medium. Why not add it with the booming popularity of video, and witness the wonders that these powerful mediums can perform when combined together?