The Push of Traditional Advertising versus the Pull of Search Engine Optimization
The migration of advertisers away from traditional media and toward the internet continues to grow each day. While there are many reasons for this migration, one of the primary ones is the different approach required of each venue.
The push of traditional advertising
The hallmark of traditional advertising has always been “push marketing”. Push marketing is essentially outbound communication in the form of direct mail marketing, newspaper/magazine ads, and television/radio ads. These formats have several factors in common including:
* Expense – Each format can be extremely expensive, mostly due to the fact that these types of advertising methods are rarely successful on a “one and done” basis. It’s common for campaigns to take months before they generate any meaningful measures of revenues. For many small to medium sized businesses the cost of these campaigns is so high that they are not even contemplated.
* They can be seen as an interruption or intrusion – People rarely look forward to seeing commercials on television or getting junk mail soliciting them for the next big thing. The development of “Do not call” lists is further evidence that consumers do not want their lives interrupted with sales calls. To compensate for the decreasing appeal of push marketing advertisers are now required to fund larger and more expensive campaigns thus pushing them further out of the reach of business owners.
* Push advertising is difficult to quantify and measure – A familiar quote “I know half of my advertising budget is completely wasted, I just don’t know which half” attests to the difficulties of measuring what is working within a campaign. While print circulation or television viewers can always be estimated, it’s impossible to know how many people are actually seeing or acting on the ads. This leaves the effectiveness of any type of campaign of this nature open to debate.
* The campaigns are temporary – Once an ad is run or a mailer is sent, that specific event has run its course and must be repeated, one of the primary reasons these formats are so expensive. Once the campaign is stopped, it’s over.
The Pull of Search Engine Optimization
An SEO campaign is basically designed to increase the visibility to consumers who are already looking for a company’s products and/or services thus pulling consumers toward them. Pull marketing then, sits on the opposite side of the coin from push marketing on a psychological basis because the consumer is already looking for a company’s product or service . This pull on consumers has several advantages over push marketing:
* Affordability – Search engine optimization campaigns can be tailored to the budget of a small business. It’s not uncommon for months’ worth of SEO work to cost less than a single print advertisement.
* A growing medium – Estimates show that between 60% and 80% of consumers use the internet prior to making a purchase.
* Search engine efforts are quantifiable – Unlike traditional advertising, search engine marking efforts can be analyzed and quantified in many different ways, allowing for visibility into what is working and what is not within a campaign.
* Search engine marketing efforts remain in the public view – Search engine marketing materials will stay on the web indefinitely whether a campaign is ongoing or not.
Business owners looking to maximize the return on their advertising dollars are increasingly seeing the value presented by search engine optimization over traditional advertising methods. For a free consultation on what a search engine optimization campaign can do for your business, call the Gervais Group today at (770) 529 2262.
