SEO Outperforms Print Media

In times of recession, one of the first things that corporate bean counters tend to reduce is their spend on advertising and marketing. Of course we know that this should be one of the last things to go! In some instances, though, it appears that a new trend is emerging. Companies appear to be shifting away from traditional media and increasing their focus on Internet marketing and search engine optimization. Many companies appear to be voting with their checkbooks that SEO will outperform print media, especially during a downturn.

The current decline of traditional media outlets, such as print and radio, can be seen in the mid-2009 Clients – Agency Economic Outlook Report by Reardon Smith Whitaker. 32% of clients surveyed said they had increased spending on SEO this year, some quite significantly. Agencies seem to be accelerating the trend with 50% saying that their SEO spend was considerably higher than last year. Other studies seem to agree that a majority of companies are maintaining or increasing their spending on search engine marketing.

SEO has some significant advantages over traditional media. For example, a newspaper ad can have a very short shelf life – a day or less, whereas a correctly constructed website can be visible for months or years. The traditional yellow page ad, for example, could cost tens of thousands of dollars per year and yet studies now show that a majority of consumers tune in to Internet search engines for information as opposed to thumbing through the telephone book.

Online marketing is definitely the cheapest way to tell the world about your business and people who find your site through SEO tend to be much more educated and more motivated to buy from you.

Most advertising in traditional media is traditionally not very focused, whereas advertising online, such as through the use of pay-per-click marketing, can be very highly focused indeed. In short, if you run your PPC campaign well, you’re only paying for qualified leads who visit your primary portal to – hopefully – purchase your product or service. With traditional media, such as a newspaper ad, you are paying no matter who sees your ad and a very considerable proportion of these people will have no interest in your wares, whatsoever.

As the draw of the Internet continues to grow at a pace, the effects of the recession will only help to increase the focus of company marketing executives. The proportion of funds spent on SEO and Internet marketing versus traditional media is likely to continue to grow.

Is there still a place for print media in modern marketing?

Adam Toren