Digital Marketing V/S Traditional Marketing – Which is better

The most essential aspect of any kind of business is marketing which cannot be ignored. However, most of the small businesses struggle while choosing the right type of marketing strategy since their budget allows them to only stretch to one or the other but not both. An entrepreneur is however required to answer a lot of questions such as which method of marketing would give him the most bang for his buck, how would he know if his marketing is working or who should he trust with for his marketing. The decision of choosing the kind of strategy, digital marketing over traditional marketing or traditional marketing over digital marketing is not easy because we live in a generation where a huge part of the population does transactions only online while another chunk still does not know how to use the internet.

Thus, the article below would help an entrepreneur to make a wise decision between digital marketing and traditional marketing since it states comparison between the two.

But before proceeding with the comparison, let us first understand the two terminologies.

WHAT IS TRADITIONAL MARKETING?

A conventional mode of marketing that has been used since the beginning of marketing and advertisements and includes tangible items such as business cards, print ads in the newspapers or magazines. It also includes posters, commercials on TV and radio, billboards and brochures. It is anything excluding the digital means of promoting one’s brand, product, and services.

WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?

Digital marketing is a form of inbound marketing in which the business uses ads to generate leads. The advantages of digital marketing are that the people become more familiar with the brand and develop a trust with the business through its online presence. Marketing modes can be building a website, blogging, social media platforms, retargeting ads, search engine optimization.

TRADITIONAL MARKETING VERSUS DIGITAL MARKETING – WHICH IS BETTER?

Comparison based on the following parameters would help us to understand as to which one is better :

TARGETING THE AUDIENCE

Traditional marketing being static leaves no way to interact with the audience and its outreach is only restricted to the limited local audience. On the other hand, digital marketing can help you reach more people. Also, you can reach the local audience with the use of campaigns.

HIGHER ENGAGEMENT

Digital marketing helps a business to increase its brand awareness and to create a consistent image of the company. However, on the other hand, traditional marketing through advertisement aired on the radio or newspaper posts does not enable the business to interact with the audience.

MEASUREMENT OF RESULTS

Digital marketing enables the business to see everything in real-time including :

• Number of visitors
• The most active time of the day
• Conversion rates
• Bounce rates

With the help of google analytics and the insight tools offered by most of the social media channels. Thus when one has the results in real-time, one does not waste any time in taking action.

OPTION WITH THE AUDIENCE IN THE WAY THEY WANT TO RECEIVE THE CONTENT/ NON INTERRUPTIVE

Different people have different preferences. While some people like to read a blog post, others would like to watch a YouTube video. Most of the people hate to receive sales flyers in their mailbox or phone calls at inconvenient times on stuff that they have little interest in. Online marketing offers the audience the choice of time and media in which a person always has an option to skip the online ads if they are not interested. However, under traditional marketing, the audience does not get an opportunity to choose.

COST EFFICIENCY

Modes of traditional marketing such as newspaper ads, television ads cost a lot. In digital marketing, costs can be done half and you can achieve your goals easily.

STRATEGY REFINEMENT

Online advertisements need a good strategy to get business online. This gives the business a chance to know how things are going down and to improve them. However, a host of negative feedback in traditional marketing does not give time for the business to readjust its strategy because a business might have already gone down the drain by the time it receives them.

BRAND DEVELOPMENT

Digital marketing involves business to have a website instead of just having a column in a newspaper just like traditional marketing. This space allows the business to create a consistent image for the company. Traditional marketing is only limited to an advertisement that is done on the radio or in any newspaper.

HOW CAN TRADITIONAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING GO HAND IN HAND?

In today’s world businesses must have a website to interact with the consumer. In order to keep up in today’s world, it is important for the business to take advantage of digital marketing. However, a business should use a multi-channel approach rather than just having use of paper in this digital world.