A Basic Website vs. A Traditional Marketing Package (a sample cost analysis)

The following is a simple comparison, but it sets a very strong foundation supporting the fact that if you market your business using traditional marketing methods, yet do not have a well developed (albeit basic for this cost example) website, odds are you are not optimizing your marketing budget.

Let’s have some fun with a mock scenario and see how the numbers play out…

(One important note here – We need to assume for this post that you have good content [text & images] already.  In future posts I look forward to discussing “proper” content development)

Let’s say you are the owner of a small business that sells a product or service that warrants an average 8 page, 8.5″ X 11″  brochure to help motivate prospective clients and to establish company credibility.

The general fees associated with having a professional firm develop such a piece is (roughly) as follows:

Design and Layout: $4,000.00 +/-

Match Print: $99.00

Let’s use a conservative number of only 2500 copies:

Brochure Printing (full color / 80# cover stock / full bleed): $2,575.00

2500 8.5 X 11 Envelopes: $595.00

Shipping (Avg. Ground UPS based on weight / QTY): $136.00

Avg. Investment: $7,705.00 +/- (let’s leave local Sales Tax out of this shall we)

Now the clock begins ticking.  You have 2500 opportunities sitting in your office, but you need to send each one separately to prospects, and they then need to have it handy when they are ready to refer to it.

Let’s hope you are fortunate enough to have 2500 prospects ask for all 2500 media kits within 12-18 months, or at least before the print brochure is out of date due to changes and enhancements in your company or product offering.  To be fair, you would be handing out many, so let’s use only 1/2 being mailed to prospects for this example.

Packaging and Shipping:

Budget to prepare (insertion, labeling etc.) $1,538.86

Standard Mail $1.09 per piece: $1,362.50

[If you are wondering how I estimated the preparation budget it was assuming an employee needing to prepare and label 1250 packages would minimally need 3 – 4 minutes per package which would equate to just shy of 2 weeks payroll]

Final Cost Estimate: $10,606.41
This investment results in a traditional tool that depreciates in value to your business as you have new things to say to your prospective buyers.

Conversely…

You may invest the same budget into a website, and even initially only representing the same 8 pages worth of content we used for the print example, the following shows the potential upside:
(all assumptions from above apply)

• The website will represent your company 24/7 and is available whenever your client wants information and from anywhere they have internet access
• You can cost effectively add, edit or remove information whenever it makes sense to do so
• You now can establish immediate correspondence with your prospects via the site
• You can gather usage information and report on activity for better marketing intelligence
• There is no limit to the number of prospects who may access your information

These are just a few of the many benefits a website provides your company.

Even if you wanted to send a 6″ X 9″ full color postcard mailing to the 2500 prospects we referenced earlier in this post, the entire print and mailing budget would be under $600.00.  That said, doesn’t it seem to make sense to invest the remaining $10K in a marketing vehicle that appreciates rather than depreciates and enjoy the return on your investment?