The Positive and Negative Sides of Print Media Advertising

Advertisements conveying product ideas and messages are means to reach the target audience while communication media provides the required platform for displaying ads.Those who are about to step into the world of business,need to choose the right media for best advertising their products or services.For a small enterprise where every dollar is precious the promotional campaigns should render higher sales ratio and generate profit.In such cases print media can do a good job.
Here are the good and bad sides of print media most frequently used by enterprises.

Newspapers

In the print media category newspaper is the most traditional medium of advertising used by big and small businesses alike.
Advantages:
• It allows the advertiser to reach out to a large number of people in a specific geographic region.
• Gives a good exposure to the advertising message as readers can get back to it as many times as they want
• Newspapers ads are flexible as it gives scope to decide the size and placement of the ad in the paper.
• In an evolving market condition newspaper ads are ideal as they can reach your customers within one or two days from the day you submit copy
• Advertisers get assistance in creating and producing ad copy without additional cost

Disadvantages:

• Ad space is quite expensive
• Poor printing quality can mar creativity hence make the ad less attractive
• The advertisement will receive great competition from other ads especially the huge ones buy giant companies
• It can be a wastage of money as the advertising message might miss out the actual customers and reach to those who will never need your products
• Advertisement have short life as readers usually go through the newspaper once and then forget about it
• With the advent of electronics media and World Wide Web people are less interested in reading the print version of news papers

Magazines

Magazines are more precise and even more expensive version of print media.This medium allows the advertiser reach upscale consumers who are among highly targeted prospects.

Advantages

• Concentrates on specific target audience as a certain category of readers buy particular magazines that specialize on certain topics to the buyers'interests.
• Magazines ensure greater reader involvement which imply more attention to the ad
• Quality printing and paper allow full-color ads to stand out with better resolution

Disadvantages

• Ad space and designing costs are very high
• Delayed turn-around implies monthly or weekly ads
• Longer lead time also increase the risk of the advertisement getting overtaken by events
• Less flexible compared to newspapers in terms of placing and formatting ads

The types of media from which advertisers can select also include audio,video,Internet,as well as posters and hoardings.There is no hard and fast rule for choosing media.Every medium has its own advantages and disadvantages to consider.Good advertising strategy
focuses on three aspects while selecting the appropriate media.These are - marketing goals,marketing budget as well as the characteristics of the target audience.Nevertheless,advertisers need to ensure that quality of the advertisement match the quality of their products in order to get the desired effect on product sale.