With the development of the Internet, there are new marketing opportunities. Therefore, we do not agree with this use of the concept of marketing – it is much wider than advertising and promotion.
However, we have retained the author’s use of the concept of “marketing” in translation. Otherwise, in our opinion, the article is useful in terms of parsing the possibilities of promotion in traditional and digital marketing.
Marketing budget plays an extremely important role in small businesses’ lives, but it is equally important to spend it in the right direction and make the most of it. But how to know how to spend a budget when it comes not to traditional but digital marketing?
It is not easy for many companies to find the right “marketing” solutions, although their impact is huge.
Clarity about digital marketing will help businesses better understand which marketing method, digital or traditional, is more appropriate and how to apply it. For example, if you choose to use social media marketing to build a brand and increase your customer base, you can do it yourself or hire a digital marketing firm.
A successful business is not just a niche choice or a high-quality product. It is also about using the right marketing strategies to reach the target audience and turn them into potential or actual customers.
Some companies don’t like marketing, but if a serious firm wants to increase profits, you need to allocate a proper budget for marketing purposes.
But even if you recognize the need for effective marketing, confronting digital and traditional marketing can baffle you. This confusion arises because the scale of digital marketing is growing steadily, even though most marketing activities are still conducted traditionally.
Yes, there is a percentage of people who do not use the Internet for transactions. However, a large part of the population regularly uses it for various purposes, including daily transactions. If you have your own business, you need to stay ahead of your competitors. This means that you can no longer use outdated marketing methods. You need to go beyond the usual and understand how to apply the latest digital marketing techniques, expanding their capabilities. Before we delve into how digital marketing works and compare it to traditional marketing, let’s look at basic concepts.
- DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL: WHAT IS TRADITIONAL MARKETING?
- DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL: THE FLIP SIDE OF THE TRADITIONAL APPROACH
- DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL: WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?
- DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL: WHAT DOES STATISTICS SAY?
- DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL MARKETING: WHERE TO INVEST?
- DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL: WHY DIGITAL IS PREFERRED?
DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL: WHAT IS TRADITIONAL MARKETING?
Traditional marketing is not a new form of marketing; you have come across it. This is the usual marketing method that helps reach a partial audience through offline advertising and various promotion methods.
Traditional marketing is hard to ignore; it includes the traditional advertising that we encounter daily. Most of the common and most proven offline marketing tactics fall into the following five categories:
- Printed media (magazines, newspapers, etc.)
- Broadcasts (TV, radio, etc.)
- Direct mailing list (catalogs, postcards, etc.)
- Phone (telemarketing, SMS marketing, etc.)
- Outdoor advertising (advertising billboards, leaflets, etc.)
Traditional marketing has evolved and modified over the past few decades, but its fundamental aspects remain unchanged. Today’s sales methods are largely based on four marketing principles: product, price, location, and promotion.
Any successful entrepreneur knows that creating the right sales funnel requires a holistic approach. Using four main marketing areas, the business can manage its potential customers and simply customers through a sales funnel while getting favorable results.
Let’s take a quick look at each of the four items that make up this form of marketing:
- Product: Effective marketing starts with a good understanding of your product. It can be an intangible service or a product that meets the demand of the target market.
- Price: The total cost of a product depends on how well you know it. Price is always the determining factor for things like supply, demand, profit, etc.
- Promotion: the way you talk about your product and advertise it to your target audience is called rise. Any method that promotes the development and enhances its visibility/recognition is a promotion, whether it’s billboard advertising or creating a Facebook ad campaign.
- Location: Traditional marketing largely depends on whether your product is in full view of the target audience at the right time and place. Which also implies the correct location. In the world of marketing, accommodation plays a crucial role. Because when a product is in the perfect location, the chances of converting potential customers into actual customers increase many times.
At first glance, digital marketing is very different from the traditional one because of the fourth paragraph in the 4P scheme, namely because of the promotion. However, digital marketing is effective just because it does not ignore any of the scheme’s four points. It rather uses each of the items uniquely, and sometimes even better than traditional marketing.
DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL: THE FLIP SIDE OF THE TRADITIONAL APPROACH
While traditional marketing is still effective, it is not the only way to popularize the target audience. Today, technology allows companies to keep in touch with their audiences like never before. Therefore, it is worth considering the shortcomings of traditional marketing before investing in it.
- There’s not much interaction. One of the biggest and most obvious limitations of traditional marketing is that there is virtually no interaction between customers and the media. Traditional marketing is a one-way street where businesses can broadcast or provide their target audience with information about a product or service. This is a branding exercise, made in the hope of attracting the attention of the right people and perhaps turning them into customers.
- There’s no time control. Traditional marketing depends on promotion methods that cannot be influenced after using them. Whether it’s a static text printed ad in a local newspaper or a TV commercial, you’ll have to place a new ad instead of an old one in case of any changes. At first glance, this is not so important, but it is important in the long run. For example, you run a magazine ad promoting your latest widget. You then make a major update to it that can have a significant impact on your sales performance. Can I change my ad on the fly? Of course not, and this can seriously affect your marketing budget.
- Higher costs. Recurring costs in traditional marketing can be huge investments that may or may not generate good returns. Your ad in your local newspaper will only be effective if the target audience sees it on the day of publication. What are your chances of doing so? If you want to reach your target audience again, you need to create and launch a new print advertising campaign. The creation and distribution of posters or leaflets in the region is a one-off investment. Compare this to content on your website that can attract targeted visitors for years at no extra cost.
- Limited settings. Do you want to target customers who work in a particular industry and belong to a certain age group? Traditional marketing does not help you in this; it is not able to reach specific customers. Traditional marketing methods can be used to advance in a particular segment, but you won’t reach out to target customers. When using online advertising, you have the opportunity to reach out to the right customers and show them offers intended for them.
- It’s not easy to update. Let’s face it; the flexibility of updates is one of the strongest aspects of digital marketing. This sets it apart from traditional marketing, where any setup requires effort. Imagine that the print advertising contains the wrong percentage discount, how to fix it if it is already released? Only a few clicks are enough to edit digital content.
- It is not possible to disclose the full price information. Traditional marketing has always attracted people with discounted prices or sales. However, when it comes to more unique, customized pricing options, you can lean against the wall. If you analyze the choices you’ve provided in print marketing, you don’t find the space you need to host all the pricing options, although this could help you convert more people into customers.
- A bad campaign dimension. When implementing a traditional marketing strategy, it is important to know how effective it is to not invest in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, the results of traditional marketing cannot be measured so easily and effectively. However, you can easily determine what you’re doing wrong by running an online marketing campaign, whether your campaign is successful or not. This alone makes digital marketing much more efficient than its traditional counterpart.
DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL: WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?
Digital marketing or online marketing refers to work that a business does over the Internet or an electronic device, such as a mobile phone. Any company (regardless of its size) can use digital marketing to enter the target market, connect with potential customers, and turn them into customers. Everything from search engine marketing to Facebook marketing is called digital marketing.
The reason why digital marketing is critical to business these days is that the Internet is becoming one of the most used tools. More and more people are going online to do everyday activities, including buying goods and services.
Over the past decade, online marketing has grown exponentially. When it comes to comparing digital marketing and traditional, it becomes clear that digital marketing gives a certain advantage.
Successful marketing requires the business to work with potential customers and factual clients in the best way possible, bringing a real return on investment. Because most people (especially millennials) spend time online, businesses also need to use it.
As technology evolves and new digital ideas come to life, so does the world of digital marketing. One of the reasons it continues to produce results is that it is a form of engaging marketing. It means that it is not you who are looking for people, but they are finding you. Whether it’s advertising on Google or creating marketing content for a blog, it’s a story about attracting a target audience and spreading information.
The idea is to become visible. Because the more people learn about your website, your brand, and the products you sell, the more people will learn about your plan. Which ultimately leads to a close relationship or rapprochement that develops based on trust.
The Internet gives businesses a great opportunity to gain credibility in their niche and expand their online presence.
DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL: WHAT DOES STATISTICS SAY?
Given the current growth of digital marketing, especially in the United States, digital advertising spending will soon surpass traditional, including television. Today, 60% of marketers in various industries have already focused their efforts on digital marketing.
Here are some more statistics to help you understand how digital marketing is growing…
- More than 80% of customers do research online before investing in a product/service.
- Nearly 60% of U.S. adults regularly use Facebook.
- 94% of B2B marketers actively use LinkedIn for marketing.
- Mobile phones account for more than 70% of digital advertising spending.
- 90% of B2C companies consider promotion in social networks the most effective tactics of content marketing.
No matter what you do, it is imperative to consider the importance of digital marketing. Or you can lose out in the competition if your competitor takes advantage of the latest digital marketing methods.
It’s not easy to understand digital marketing trends and use methods that are right for your business. This may take considerable time and investment before the desired results appear.
DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL MARKETING: WHERE TO INVEST?
Setting a marketing budget is one thing, and making sure you get a good return on your investment is another. That’s why you should focus only on those marketing channels and methods that are more likely to give you the most bang.
The debate about digital marketing versus traditional is a bit outdated, but they are far from over. However, given the advances in technology, there is no denying that digital marketing can help businesses generate qualified leads/sales without sacrificing the wallet. The risk is lower compared to traditional marketing.
If you look around, you’ll find that companies of all sizes are taking advantage of digital marketing, especially because of the lower cost/barrier of entry than offline marketing methods, such as print advertising. While print advertising can help build a brand, digital marketing provides a solid foundation for effective promotion. And it can be done with a much smaller budget.
INVESTING IN PRINT ADVERTISING
There is no doubt that print advertising works great if done correctly. However, without consistency, print advertising will not produce positive results. If you decide to advertise in a large magazine or a local newspaper, you should be willing to spend a lot of money for a long period.
Also, when it comes to print advertising, companies don’t understand what circulation is. The number of readers who will see your ad will be less than the number of magazines released because a large percentage of magazines will remain unsold.
INVESTING IN DIGITAL ADVERTISING
Digital advertising is easier to set up than print advertising, making it less risky. For example, if you’re running a search engine campaign, you can target your ad to a specific audience and later change it. Making adjustments and adjusting ads according to real-time data is easy. Then there is the question of the price for attracting thousands of visitors because advertising in magazines can be expensive. According to Gaebler, full advertising (black and white) costs about 120,000 U.S. dollars, and the price for a thousand impressions – 50 U.S. dollars.
Compare that to a digital marketing channel, such as Google Display Ads, where you pay for a click, not a show. This means that the price for attracting thousands of visitors can, in some cases, cost you zero dollars. So if you have a limited-budget business and want to increase your chances of success, it’s best to choose digital marketing.
If you go back to the example above from Blue Fountain Media, the company determined that advertising in the magazine was more expensive. This suggests that the level of customization and tracking in digital marketing is higher. You have much more control over the effectiveness of advertising and deep analytics for further improvement.
DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL: WHY DIGITAL IS PREFERRED?
Some brands, especially those known with a huge offline audience, cannot ignore traditional marketing. But for many small companies that are struggling to succeed on a tight budget, digital marketing is a real salvation. That’s why new and old firms are taking advantage of digital marketing opportunities and rethinking the marketing funnel.
NO1: HIGHER LEVEL OF CUSTOMER INTERACTION
Traditional marketing does not allow direct interaction with customers, while digital marketing offers a higher engagement and interaction level. Whether through social media comments or emails, you can instantly connect with your target audience through various digital marketing channels. Your brand can also easily build better and longer-term relationships with customers by interacting with them through videos, surveys, or webinars. The business works more efficiently if it works following the requirements of customers. And digital marketing allows you to do this because you can interact with customers and solve their problems without wasting their time.
NO2: EASY TO MEASURE RESULTS
When you hand out brochures, distribute flyers, or advertise in magazines, you don’t know how successful such marketing will be. You may be moving in the wrong direction, but you can’t say for sure. Unlike traditional, digital marketing allows you to measure results. It will enable you to be astute rather than playing marketing games blindly. You have access to an array of information about potential customers and actual customers, which will help you understand where you are going. How many people visit/leave your site, and what percentage of them are converted into customers? Imagine the level of refinement/testing possible with digital marketing, which is absent from traditional marketing.
NO 3: LARGE AUDIENCE RANGE
Traditional marketing is limited in many ways, but one of its biggest limitations is the inability to go beyond regional or local audiences. If the business is not geographically limited, so why limit the scope of its advertising? Using digital marketing, you can create a personalized campaign and expand your reach beyond cities or countries. It’s worth saying goodbye to traditional marketing and welcoming digital – it will allow you to change your campaign depending on how far you want to go.
NO 4: CHEAPER AND MORE EFFICIENT
When it comes to investing in marketing, your profit is a deciding factor because it determines your entire business’s success – plus or minus. Unsurprisingly, digital marketing gives better ROI because it is cheaper than traditional, and advertising is promoted in several ways. What would you pay more willingly for performance-based advertising or expensive newspaper advertising for a limited audience? Digital marketing allows you to spend less and get more. For many companies, it is as clear as a white day.
TIME TO MAKE A DECISION: DIGITAL MARKETING VS. TRADITIONAL
Thanks to these data and facts, we hope that digital marketing is the perfect way to advertise for small businesses. If you’ve tried traditional marketing before but haven’t achieved the desired results, try digital marketing. It entails a little risk and can give a large reward. Needless to think, such luck rarely happens in business.
