When you develop a marketing campaign, a careful consideration of the available marketing outlets must be part of your plan. Every media outlet comes with its own individual pros and cons. A great marketing option for one company may not be good for another – even in the same industry.

In the article below I have provided a pros v. cons evaluation of the top marketing options widely in use today. If you would like to contribute to this article please post additional marketing outlets along with their pros and cons below.

Newspaper Ads

Pros: Newspapers target a large audience, make geographic targeting possible, provide split-run testing ability, and offer immediate exposure.

Cons: Newspapers are cluttered and print with poor quality reproduction, most ads focus on sales and promotions (rather than branding), and they have a very short shelf-life.

Magazine Ads

Pros: Magazines offer specific demographic targeting, longer lasting shelf-life, greater reader involvement, and high quality reproduction and color.

Cons: Magazines have a longer lead time, higher costs when compared to newspapers, smaller audiences, and require more catchy and creative ad design (higher cost).

Yellow Pages

Pros: Yellow Pages appeal to “ready-to-buy” consumers, are relatively inexpensive, offer a long shelf-life, and provide easy results tracking.

Cons: Yellow Pages have very long lead times, ads are always positioned directly next to the competition, and creatively in ads is limited.

Television Ads

Pros: Television ads reach out to a large audience, capable of involving more senses (sign and sound), and they are excellent for branding and imaging.

Cons: Television ads involve a vary large creative and production cost, lead time for ideal spots can be rather long, and time constraints can be limiting.

Radio Ads

Pros: Radio reaches a large audience, offers niche targeting, can provide personality to the ads, and offers negotiable pricing.

Cons: Radio ads work best when several stations are covered, repetition is a must, and it relies on the memory of the listener to complete call-to-action.

Direct Mail

Pros: Direct mail is a precisely targeted medium, can be personalized, keeps marketing information away from your competitors, permits split run testing, and it takes very little creative investment.

Cons: Direct mail pieces require a long read time by the viewer, involve extensive mailing list management, typically require follow-up letters or calls to be effective, and they involve extensive production time.

Billboards

Pros: Roadside billboards provide a great medium for increasing brand awareness, permit geographic targeting through placement, and they are very cost effective given their reach.

Cons: Roadside billboards must have a very brief message to permit reading from passing vehicles, rely on the memory of consumer for locations and phone numbers, better for brand awareness than direct call to action.

Telemarketing

Pros: Telemarketing can be more cost effective than door-to-door sales, permits accurate results tracking, and telemarketing databases can often double as direct mail lists.

Cons: Telemarketing is one of the more intrusive methods of marketing, can often do more to hurt branding than help your image, and it requires professional callers and well executed scripts to be effective.

Press Releases

Pros: Press releases can establish solid credibility, they often lead to reprints which extend the story life, can be used as marketing collateral, and they can often drive traffic to a website.

Cons: Press releases offer no guarantee that your story will be syndicated, often require a long lead time, and they do not provide total creative control.

Trade Shows

Pros: Trade shows provide an engaging and personal selling environment, allow for hands-on product demonstration, provide an opportunity to watch your competitors, and they provide great networking opportunities.

Cons: Trade shows can be very costly (fees, travel, preparation), require staff training and planning, and trade shows can be very fatiguing events to attend and staff.

Event Marketing

Pros: Event marketing can forge relationships, offer complete creative control, and well executed events offer many opportunities to garner additional press and media attention.

Cons: Event marketing requires a substantial planning investment, time and extensive marketing are required to build a loyalty, and results can be very difficult to quantify and evaluate.