Wondering whether traditional marketing vs digital marketing is right for you? If you own a business, you are probably aware of the struggle for innovation and improvement in the marketing field. You want to attract new customers, reach more prospects, and build brand awareness. And you want to do this in an innovative and cost-effective manner.
Traditional marketing vs digital marketing are both concepts that can help you in that direction. But which one is best for you?
What’s The Difference Between Digital Marketing and Traditional Marketing?
The one big difference is fairly evident from the terms themselves. Digital marketing refers to marketing done using digital media such as emails, social media, search engine optimization, and websites.
Traditional marketing is what the adjective says: traditional. It does not use digital technologies but instead, includes TV commercials, radio, print advertising, billboards, posters, and so on. Let’s look a bit more closely at each one of them.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing employs digital media to run a marketing campaign for a product or a service. As expected, the more people are getting involved with digital media, the more channels will be used for digital marketing. One thing is for sure: digital marketing is here to stay.
Think of this: you -the consumer- are looking for a product to clean gutters. You have not cleaned gutters before so you don’t know what to use. Or maybe you have done that in the past, but you are not happy with the result and want to try something new.
What’s the first place you are going to look for a new gutter cleaning product? Google naturally! This means that for a business to thrive in our day and age, more digital marketing may be necessary than before.
If you are looking to invest in digital marketing, there are a couple of things you need to know so that you can strategize your campaign. These are the traditional forms of digital marketing:
- Earned Media
This term refers to what people are saying about your brand online. Maybe they are using hashtags with your product or writing raving reviews on social media.
Earned media is exactly what the term says: earned. You do not need to pay for it and it shows how loyal and how appreciative your customers are to your brand. - Owned Media
It is what you own; your website, your social media accounts, YouTube channels, blog posts, etc. You are in control of these media and you can post whatever you think will reach your target audience. - Paid Media
Some forms of digital marketing do come at a cost. When you decide to use paid media, know that you will have a quick payback.
Earned media and owned media can be limited at times because they will not reach as many viewers, i.e. potential customers, as you would like or as it would be needed to sustain profitability for your business. Paid media works to boost your brand’s social standing and reach new audiences.
What Do I Need To Know About Digital Marketing?
When you are investing in digital marketing, you are creating content just for your brand. Posts and other forms of digital marketing allow you to create a personal relationship with your customers due to their forwardness and immediacy. Not to mention that your posts can have a global reach. However, with all this freedom, digital marketing can be tricky.
What Is Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing is exactly what you think it is: paid advertising on magazines, posters, billboards, TV commercials, radio ads, promotional house calls, door-to-door sales, TV show sponsorships and banners, etc.
For years, it has been the only form of marketing and it still keeps going strong. It’s part of our daily routine if you think about it. You cannot watch a TV program without commercials and you cannot listen to the radio without being interrupted by radio ads. When you go for a walk, you see flyers and posters all around you. Even at the cinema, you cannot watch a movie without going through some traditional marketing first.
What Do I Need To Know About Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing is a strategy that has stood the test of time. Particularly when it comes to local audiences, traditional marketing works wonders to get your brand into a local market. Also, think of this: traditional marketing strategies like house calls, commercials, and magazine ads tap onto the customers’ personal views towards your brand. Traditional marketing tends to feel culture-specific, and organic instead of blunt and corporate.
This allows you and your brand to build customer loyalty and get people to talk about your product or service. Traditional marketing is more penetrating and captivating. It’s not easy to forget a TV commercial particularly if it’s a successful one. TV commercial jingles are still being sung and murmured by people.
However, the cost of traditional marketing is significant and in some cases, it may be out of your business’s reach -especially if you are just starting. It also takes time to prepare and launch and even more time to yield results. Not to mention that the risk of it being a flop is high, and you can’t really track the ROI of your campaign the right way.
So, Which Do I Choose? Traditional Marketing Or Digital Marketing?
There is no straightforward answer here. It depends on your brand. Digital marketing may work for most businesses and it will cost significantly less compared to traditional marketing. It can help reach new audiences or capture your existing following immediately.
In turn, this will help you get the information you need to create more marketing campaigns. Still, traditional marketing is not dead. Older people may prefer it- and they are a countable market share. Although traditional marketing seems old and obsolete, think again: it’s still around because it’s efficient.
Some pro tips to help you choose which marketing strategy works best for you:
- Think of your audience
A younger audience may respond better to digital marketing because they are getting their information online and rarely use TVs or radios compared to an older audience. - Think of your budget
The decision may come down to what you can pay for. Indeed, it would be best if you could set aside a sum of money for marketing only when drafting your business plan, but you may miscalculate or simply cannot afford traditional marketing anyway. - Think of your product/service
What are you selling? What is the narrative of your product?
Get In Touch With Our Team Today
If you’re still unsure about which marketing strategy to go for, don’t hesitate to contact us. We can help set up a digital marketing campaign tailored specifically for your brand!
