While having a marketing plan and budget is crucial for business growth, it is equally important to invest these resources in the right marketing mediums.
It’s important to understand both traditional and digital marketing to help your business reach your target audience in the best possible way.
Adopting the right marketing tactics has a huge impact on the time, budget, performance, and overall results of your marketing efforts.
Now, let’s delve into the finer details of both traditional and digital marketing.
- What is Traditional Marketing?
- What is Digital Marketing?
- Digital Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing, the Big Debate
- Digital Marketing, the Better Option for the Future
What is Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing refers to conventional modes of marketing, which uses traditional means like newspapers, television, and radio to connect with the target audience. It comprises the most recognizable means of marketing, encompassing advertisements that we hear and see every day. Some of the traditional marketing methods include:
- Print advertisements
- Television advertisements
- Radio advertisements
- Billboard advertisements
- Referrals
- Signage
- Direct Mail
- Flyers and Brochures
- Direct Marketing or Face-to-Face Marketing
- Cold Call or Telemarketing
- Public Relations
- Events
Though traditional marketing has evolved much over the past few decades, the fundamentals still remain unchanged.
What is Digital Marketing?
With the concept of the global village and the evolution of technology, modern marketers use digital platforms as a marketplace to communicate and influence their audience. This is known as digital marketing. Here, marketers use online devices and techniques to achieve the company’s business goals. Some of the digital marketing platforms and tactics are:
- Social media Marketing
- Websites Design and Development
- Video production
- Email marketing
- Pay Per Click Advertising
- Content Marketing
- E-Commerce
- Search Engine Optimization
- Graphic Design
Businesses use different marketing tools to strengthen their strategy and draw the attention of their target audience while providing relevant solutions to their problems. Digital marketing can be both organic or paid, and both of them have the intent of generating favourable results for businesses.
Digital Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing, the Big Debate
Over the past few decades, the marketing world has changed significantly. The mass adoption of the internet has not only changed the flow of everyday life but also the buying behaviour of consumers. In such scenarios, the paradigm of buying and selling continuously shifts from traditional to digital platforms. So, as the debate between traditional and digital marketing continues, it is essential to understand that both can play an important role in promoting a brand.
Before a brand makes a decision on digital marketing vs traditional marketing, it is important that they understand their business’s micro and macro environment. This lets businesses capitalize on the best-suited marketing technique based on current marketing trends, their competitors, their consumer, their industry, their company and much more. Finding a marketing technique that fits best for your business’s micro and macro environment will help you make the most of marketing.
Why Choose Digital Marketing?
Today, more than 60% of marketers across various industries are shifting to digital marketing. The target audience they are looking for nowadays browse the internet for a proper solution to their problems. Thus, when 80% of a company’s prospects prefer digital platforms rather than the traditional one, it is wiser to invest the majority of their marketing budget towards digital marketing activities. In such a scenario, to enjoy a high return on investment and see favourable results, marketers should prioritize digital marketing in their business strategy.
Why Choose Traditional Marketing?
While digital marketing may be the better option for targeting some audiences, traditional marketing can be more favourable for others. In areas that digital marketing can prove to be limiting, such as attempting to reach an audience that spends very little to no time online, traditional marketing is king.
Traditional marketing encompasses every individual’s daily activities. It can be found outside through billboards and face to face marketing, inside your own home through TV advertising and direct mail, and everywhere else in-between through telemarketing and radio advertising.
Digital Marketing, the Better Option for the Future
Every business looks for a marketing strategy that can fetch them a significant profit. Thus, while choosing between traditional marketing and digital marketing, companies face the dilemma of relevancy. However, as both of them aim at drawing the attention of the target audience and building a strong brand image, companies must learn the differences between the two before deciding where to invest.
Targeted Marketing
Promoting a company through traditional media like television and billboards can prove to be challenging when attempting to reach a targeted audience. Since digital marketing mediums often have analytical data about prospects, it can be easier to target an audience based on specific characteristics.
Reduced Cost
Advertising on digital channels like search engines and social media platforms is generally more cost-effective than advertisements on traditional media like newspapers, television, and radio. Advertisement activities of traditional marketing are generally more costly and have a much less favourable ROI than that of advertisements on digital platforms.
Enhanced Communication
Modern marketers encourage customer reviews and online discussions to learn about their customers’ experience through digital marketing channels. They even use email and social media marketing techniques to reach potential customers and build a strong relationship, thus, propagating two-way communication. However, in the case of traditional marketing, more often than not, it is a one-way communication focused on showcasing the brand to the audience.
Data-Based Results
Unlike traditional marketing, the results of digital marketing can be tracked and registered easily. This is mainly due to modern technologies like search engines and social media tools that give opportunities to enhance the performance of the overall marketing campaign.
Every day, an increasing number of people are exploring the digital marketplace in search of their desired product. In such a setting, even if a company has already invested in traditional media, it needs to consider embracing digital marketing in the strategy for better leads and profit.
