It’s a debate that’s as old as time itself: when it comes to your entrepreneurial success, is it better to focus on offline or online marketing?

Whether you’re running an established brick-and-mortar company or you’re hoping to make 2012 the year you open your own business, here’s what you need to know about the benefits and drawbacks of both offline and online marketing…

And which one is the best for your business needs!

Advantages of Offline Marketing

As a brick-and-mortar business, you’ll often find that offline marketing will help you establish a strong and local clientele base. Also, when it comes to offline marketing, there’s something to be said for having an easier way of measuring your marketing success. With offline marketing, you can easily investigate how well your business is doing: you have a stronger idea of who your customers are, you can track sales easily, and you have a better idea of the impact your business is making in your industry.

Offline marketing also allows you to tap into a customer segment that brings in money: your friends. When you’re first starting out with your business, it’s easier to use your friends to spread news about your company via word-of-mouth – and as several business experts have argued, word-of-mouth reviews can lead to serious income potential.

Finally, offline marketing allows you different opportunities for advertising. You can choose to market via traditional media platforms like television and radio, or you can use the power of direct mail to reach out to more clients. Similarly, you can sponsor events in your hometown, giving your business great brand exposure.

Disadvantages of Offline Marketing

So what are the disadvantages of offline marketing? Well, for starters, it’s harder to build a huge clientele base in less time. Within a local market, it may take a great deal of time before your business starts to turn over a significant profit – that’s because the market is smaller. Additionally, offline marketing tends to be pretty expensive, especially when you start looking at direct mail or media advertising. This can often be prohibitive to a small business’s advertising efforts, which in turn affects your total bottom line.

Advantages of Online Marketing

So now that we’ve explored the ins and outs of offline marketing for your business, let’s focus on the disadvantages and advantages of online marketing.

To put it simply, online marketing puts the world at your fingertips. Thanks to the global reach of the World Wide Web, your business isn’t just visited by a local market – in fact, it has potential to reach the entire world. This means more business at a faster pace, which can make all the difference if you’re hoping to expand your brand beyond your physical location.

Online marketing, if done correctly, can be much cheaper than offline marketing. While you’ll still have to pay for website maintenance and online advertising, many of the most powerful marketing tactics revolve around social networking sites, blogs and articles, all of which are free. In fact, it’s not unheard of for someone to start a multi-million dollar online business using nothing more than a website, a great product and tenacity.

Disadvantages of Online Marketing

So what are the disadvantages of online marketing? Well, for small business entrepreneurs, it often comes down to the sizeable learning curve. Making money online isn’t as simple as logging onto a website and selling products. Between developing a great SEO strategy, building a website and competing with companies in your industry from around the world, it can seem like a pretty daunting task. Additionally, if you find yourself to be pretty technologically challenged, online marketing can seem insurmountable. Add to the fact that you often have to pay professionals to help with your campaign, and it’s easy to see why a poorly planned online marketing strategy can become so expensive.

Conclusion

Now that we’ve explored these two marketing types in depth, which one is the best for your entrepreneurial dreams?

The winner is clear: online marketing!

If used with the guidance of an expert, online marketing has the power to turn a website into your own personal ATM. The Internet is also an expanding source of income, as it turns over profits of several billion dollars each year. And as there’s no limit to the number of leads you can develop online, your income is limited only by your imagination.

So when it comes to online marketing and your entrepreneurial dreams, don’t go it alone. Get the guidance you need, and you’ll see those dollars start pouring into your bank account.

BY: Carol Minarcik