We met with a Winston-Salem orthodontist who was spending $48,000 a year on print: full-page magazine ads, neighborhood mailers, and inserts in the local newspaper. His website had been built in 2003, looked like it, and had no measurement attached. We made a single recommendation: cut the print spend in half for one year and put the difference into a new website plus search marketing. The results changed how he thought about marketing forever.
What Print Advertising Actually Buys You in 2010
A full-page magazine ad in a regional Triad publication runs $2,000 to $5,000 per insertion. A neighborhood postcard mailer to 10,000 households runs around $5,000 with printing and postage. The newspaper insert is similar. None of it is measurable beyond a "how did you hear about us" question at the front desk that customers usually answer with "I do not remember."
What That Same Money Buys on the Web
- →$5,000 funds a complete professional website redesign built around lead generation, with on-page SEO, mobile-friendly templates, clear calls to action, and conversion tracking from day one.
- →$1,500 a month covers a serious AdWords campaign targeting high-intent local keywords for a Greensboro, Winston-Salem, or High Point service business. Every click and call is measurable.
- →$1,000 a month buys ongoing SEO and content, compounding into permanent organic rankings that produce leads for years after the work is done.
- →Total annual spend below $40,000 with full measurement, dashboards, and the ability to scale up or down based on results, instead of being locked into 12-month print contracts.
Why a Website Is Not "Done" After the Redesign
Many Triad service businesses think of their website as a one-time project. That mindset is what created the 2003-era sites still running in 2010. A modern website is a marketing asset that needs ongoing investment in content, SEO, conversion improvements, and measurement, the same way a print ad needs renewals. The difference is that the website asset compounds.
When Print Still Makes Sense
- →High-end personal services targeting affluent older households where the print publication has high credibility and physical presence. A few luxury home builders, estate planning attorneys, and private wealth advisors still see returns from glossy magazine placements.
- →Brand reinforcement, not lead generation. A print ad that complements a strong web presence can build trust. A print ad that replaces a web presence cannot.
- →Hyperlocal neighborhood mailers for hyperlocal businesses (a single-location restaurant or a neighborhood-only HVAC company), provided they are tracked with a unique offer code or phone number.
The Winston-Salem orthodontist above redirected $24,000 of print spending into a new website, AdWords, and SEO. Inside 14 months, new patient inquiries from web sources passed inquiries from print and have stayed there.
Read the companion pieces on shifting Yellow Pages budget to the web and building your first email list from existing customers, or have our digital marketing agency redesign your website and build the marketing engine behind it.