Traditional Marketing vs Digital Marketing an Analysis

Traditional marketing and digital marketing play complementary roles in your customer acquisition, nurturing and retaining process.

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They do this while building and affirming your brand’s authority in your niche.

Definitions of Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing

To get a better understanding, let us start by defining these two roles. However, let me briefly paraphrase these so as not to stress you out.

Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing refers to any promotion, advertising or campaign that has been in use by companies for years, and that has a proven success rate. Methods of traditional marketing can include print advertisements, billboards, flyers or pamphlets, TV, newspaper, radio, and much more.

Traditional marketing refers to the conventional methods of marketing used for decades such as newspapers, television, radio, and much more. These have all been ideal mediums for business owners to market their products or services to the masses.

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the promoting of goods and services via PCs, smartphones, mobile phones (both SMS and MMS), smartphone apps, email, social media, display advertising, search engine marketing, video games and so on.

These days, for your business to thrive, you need a digital marketing strategy. As noted here, in this digital economy, only the companies and entrepreneurs that are adaptable to change in their marketing strategies will succeed.

Benefits of Traditional Marketing

Traditional media is still relevant in some circumstances. For instance, I’m sure you always have your business cards, brochures or other marketing materials that people can hold in their hands.

When it comes to traditional media, the ability to touch, feel, see and physically use a piece of merchandise will always engage more senses that a virtual element can. It, therefore, makes the whole branding process a lot more effective. Moreover, if the experience is a good one, to begin with, traditional media will help to enhance it.

Depending on your industry and buyer persona, these traditional media are still relevant. When it comes to creating brand credibility with your target audience, traditional media such as TV, outdoor and print media are far more effective than digital.

According to this article, billboards are still one of the top ways to advertise in specific markets, reaching more than 90% of the population.

However, the internet has allowed business owners to reach a broader audience in more fascinating ways than traditional media.

Traditional marketing has its merits, but there is no doubt that the global digital marketing age is not a fad.

Benefits of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing allows you to target your ideal audience and personalise your marketing message to your perfect buyer. When you consider that a significant percentage of mobile searches are related to a specific location, then, knowing how to boost your local and global marketing efforts is vital.

Digital marketing is not just another channel for advertisements. It comprises of a multitude of marketing opportunities such as blogging, vlogging, mobile, social media, email marketing, search engine marketing, and so much more!

Another benefit of digital marketing is that it is more cost-effective than traditional marketing. You can run affordable campaigns on Google or Facebook at a fraction of the cost of a billboard or TV campaign. Moreover, according to this article, knowing what you spend and what you get in return is the key benefit of digital marketing versus traditional advertising.

Digital marketing is the best suited for our digital age. According to this, in our increasingly digital world, you can count on a growing number of customers to be tech-savvy.

According to these statistics, over the last year or so traditional marketing had fallen nearly 160% while in the same time frame expenses for digital marketing increased by over 14%.

Also, this article notes that over one-third of CMOs believe that digital will account for 75% of marketing spends in the next five years. So understanding what makes digital so vital is the first step in gearing up your business to make a mark on the internet.

Another benefit of digital marketing is that it provides the means to track, measure and optimise your marketing campaigns. According to a recent study, consumer engagement is through likeability (86%), trust (83%) and price (81%) with convenience only ranking in importance for 55% of consumers. What’s more, the article goes on to note that customers that you retarget online are 70% more likely to convert to paying customers.

As you’ve seen from all the above, digital marketing helps to increase your ROI. It is easier to calculate the ROI of digital marketing in your business compared with traditional marketing. It’s safe to say that it is the clear winner over traditional marketing.

However, for you to enjoy the best of both worlds, you need to combine digital and traditional marketing for an integrated marketing campaign.

Integrated Marketing

A few years ago, during my master’s program in marketing, my professor predicted that soon there would be no distinction between traditional and digital marketing. They will integrate into one marketing.

Therefore, at a live Q&A session titled Welcome to the end of digital marketing, the audience was encouraged to have a mindset shift from “digital marketing” to “marketing”. Then, I asked a question on who in an organisation (the CEO or the marketer) should champion this mindset shift, and the answer was very enlightening. Watch it.

Conclusion

Do you want your business to enjoy the best of both worlds through an integrated marketing campaign? Would you like to stay ahead of your competitors? Then schedule a meeting with me today to discuss your traditional marketing and digital marketing needs. You have nothing to lose but everything to gain.

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