Digital vs. Traditional Marketing

Digital Marketing Vs. Traditional Marketing:
Which One Generates Great ROI?

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You are an entrepreneur, and you are thinking of ways to market your business to reach a wider audience. Faced with two marketing methods: traditional and digital marketing, which one is your best bet?

Before we delve into making choices, you need to fully understand these two types of marketing, their benefits, and their drawbacks. This will ultimately help you decide which one is best suited for your business.

Let’s get started!

Digital Marketing

We’ll begin with digital marketing, the method that has been growing in popularity for several years now.

What is digital marketing?

The term digital marketing, also known as online marketing, refers to marketing efforts or activities done online. With so many consumers spending large amounts of time online, the goal of digital marketing is to meet these consumers where they are. Some of the most common channels of digital marketing include social media marketing, websites, email marketing, affiliate marketing, content marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

The benefits of digital marketing

  1. Higher level of customer engagement

    One of the best things about digital marketing is that it offers a higher level of customer engagement and interaction. Whether it’s through social media comments or email messages, there is a way digital marketing channels allow you to interact with consumers. Your target audience can easily connect with you, and you can build better relationships with them. This will help you gain a better understanding of their wants and needs.

  2. Measuring results is easy

    Many digital marketing tools allow you to measure the results of your efforts. You can be certain about what you are doing and where your campaign is heading. You’ll have access to plenty of information about your prospects, customers, individuals engaging with your brand online, the success (or failure) of campaigns, and much more.

  3. Reach a larger audience

    In today’s world, you don’t have to limit your business to a specific geographical location. Because almost the whole world is online, you can use digital marketing strategies to customize your campaign for a global audience. Any business, no matter its size, can leverage digital marketing to acquire the attention of a broader audience.

  4. Less expensive and effective

    As a business owner, you need to find ways to reduce expenses and maximize profits. Marketing can be quite expensive depending on which channel you are using. When it comes to the money you spend on marketing, your ROI is what determines whether or not your campaign was a success.

    Digital marketing tends to be on the inexpensive side, as you pay according to performance rather than according to a set fee. When your campaign is successful, not only are you certain of how many people are clicking your ads or visiting your website, you are also saving money and increasing your ROI.

  5. Personalized ads

    Digital advertising has made it seamless to contact consumers on a more personal level. When users click a few links on your website, your business can then have the opportunity to know who is poking around your website, and you can develop targeted ads that will be specifically attractive to each individual customer.

Traditional marketing

Now that we have explored digital marketing, let’s take a look at traditional marketing.

What is traditional marketing?

Traditional marketing involves using traditional channels such as billboards, TV ads, newspapers, magazines, radio, flyers, and brochures. As a consumer, traditional marketing can be quite difficult to ignore. It is always in your face. For instance, it can come in the form of a TV commercial that you can’t skip. If you want to watch your program, then you must watch the ad.

The traditional marketing strategy generally implements the four P’s of marketing:

  • Product

    Effective marketing generally starts with a good understanding of your product. In traditional marketing, the product has to be presented in a way that is pleasant and solves the end user’s needs. Everything from branding to packaging should make the product more attractive to the user.

  • Price

    As you develop ways to attractively present your product, you should also consider questions about price: How much do you set the price at? How much are your competitors charging for their products and services? Will you still make profits even if you lower the price to attract customers? This will help you determine the price for your product. Traditional marketing strategy generally carries price along with the product.

  • Promotion

    Promotion has a lot to do with all the activities aimed at making a brand get recognized and make more sales. When it comes to promotion, traditional marketing makes use of strategies like TV and radio commercials, billboards, and one on one advertising as well as discounts, vouchers, and other strategies.

  • Place

    Finally, place refers to the location of the business. How do you place the office or factory in a way that you can meet your customers at their point of need? Traditional marketing generally relies heavily on getting your product in front of your target audience at the right place and time. When a product is placed in an ideal location, the chances of prospects converting to customers are pretty high.

Drawbacks of traditional marketing

  1. Can be very expensive

    Running a traditional marketing campaign requires much more funding, you can’t be certain if it will even give a good ROI. The cost of traditional marketing is what sometimes deters marketers from using it, especially marketers who want to use fewer funds and gain returns quickly.

  2. Cannot be updated easily

    One of the best things about digital marketing is that it can be easily adjusted and updated. But this can be pretty hard to achieve with traditional marketing. For instance, if your print ad has the wrong percentage discount, it’s hard to correct that after it’s been published in a newspaper or magazine. However, in a digital marketing campaign, you are able to correct a mistake almost instantly.

  3. Little interaction

    Another drawback of traditional marketing is that it offers little to no room for interaction with customers. Traditional marketing is typically one-way communication where a business can provide information to its target audience about its product or service. The aim is to attract the attention of prospects and convert them into customers.

  4. Difficult to measure results

    With traditional marketing, it is quite difficult to measure results. That’s because when you distribute fliers or advertise in magazines, there are no tools to track how effective those marketing tactics will be. You may be heading in the wrong direction for your campaign without even noticing.

Digital and traditional marketing: which one can drive a good ROI?

Digital marketing is still arguably the best marketing method to generate a good ROI. As mentioned above, almost everything is shifting toward online, including shopping. So, it makes sense to use a marketing strategy that can help reach the numerous people spending time online. This is where digital marketing becomes crucial, especially for small businesses that are still running on a tight budget. Currently, more than 60% of marketers across various industries have shifted their marketing efforts toward digital marketing.

On the other hand, well-established businesses that have a huge offline audience cannot ignore traditional marketing. They may end up losing a lot of potential customers. Traditional marketing can also help brands to solidify the level of trust that consumers have in them.

All in all, you can still choose to use these two methods of marketing since they can work together to create the best campaign or strategy that can drive traffic and increase conversions.

If you want to switch to a Digital Marketing strategy, or you want to enhance your existing one, consider our services and contact us here so our experts can assess how we can help your business grow and prosper.

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