Print vs Web: Comparing costs

With internet penetration in South Africa at 10.5%, and online media being the "new" media, clients are often hesitant to allocate a substantial portion of the budget to online campaigns. Clients tend to rely heavily on traditional media such as print, due to the wide reach and relatively low costs. In this (brief) post, we'll look at the cost benefits of online over print.

• When comparing print versus online costs, one has to compare the cost of production, distribution, and CPM (cost per thousand)


• With web, there are no printing or distribution fees


• You can easily update content online for a fraction of the cost that it would cost to correct a print ad


• The cost of delivery of online content continues to fall due to cheaper bandwidth and hosting, while printing costs will continue to rise


• The online medium provides for richer and more in-depth content, as well as having content in video and audio format


• With web, your return on investment can be measured accurately by tracking conversions (sign-ups, sales, leads), whereas with print it cannot be measured accurately


• E-books are cheaper and more ecologically viable, compared to print production and distribution
  

While internet usage is only at 10.5%, this continues to rise. In addition, more people are spending most of their time in front of a computer, and getting most of the information online. Even newspapers has seen a recent much faster decline due to the internet, forcing a mass migration online to sustain their audiences.

Companies in more technologically advanced countries have seen their markets turn to the web, both for convenience and costs. While there is still a valuable place for print, online media is becoming an all-pervasive medium, one that cannot be ignored, even in a developing country such as South Africa.