Using print advertising for marketing, cost versus benefits

Spending on advertising is huge.It is estimated that worldwide companies spend over $400 billion dollars advertising each year. Most companies large or small,rely on marketing to create customer interest.For some business, little advertising may be done.Instead money is spent on other promotions such as personal selling through a sales team.For others, advertising may consist of an occasional advertisement in the local newspaper.Before you begin any marketing campaign you should find out an essential fact about your advertising and promoting efforts.Are my efforts for this marketing campaign worth the time and the money involved?Your cost can be measured monetarily, while your benefits can be an immediate return or long term benefit.Below is a list of ways to do print advertising and the costs and benefits of each.

1. Placing ads in newspapers, magazines or other publications
Monetary cost:ranges from free to $50,000
Time cost: varies, depending on if your are creating your own ad
Benefits:No one can predict if an ad will work or not.

2. Bookmarks/flyers/give aways
Monetary cost: ranges from free and up, depends on
Benefits:having something to give to someone during a conference or promotion setting is important; this reinforces your business but doesn't necessarily mean they will purchase something from you.

3. Postcards and letters
Monetary cost: between 35 and 85 cents each to print and send
Time cost:depends on how much of the printing and mailing you are doing yourself
Benefits:alerts audience to new services, products or other information about your company and reinforces your business

Before you begin any printing advertising you may want to do a cost benefit analysis.A cost benefit analysis is done to determine how well, or how poorly, a planned action will turn out. Although a cost benefit analysis can be used for almost anything, it is most commonly done on financial questions. Since the cost benefit analysis relies on the addition of positive factors and the subtraction of negative ones to determine a net result, it is also known as running the numbers. A cost benefit analysis finds, quantifies, and adds all the positive factors. These are the benefits. Then it identifies, quantifies, and subtracts all the negatives, the costs. The difference between the two indicates whether the planned action is advisable. The real trick to doing a cost benefit analysis well is making sure you include all the costs and all the benefits and properly quantify them.
You may have to try different things and figure out what works best for your business and what doesn't.Adjust your time and money accordingly.