Marketing is a crucial aspect of running a business, as this is what builds your business and helps it become a successful one. Without marketing, companies won’t be able to reach their target market, promote their products and services, and manage their brand’s reputation and image.
In this article, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of traditional marketing and digital marketing. Learning these things should ultimately help you decide which type of marketing is more suitable for your business.
Traditional Marketing: An Overview
Traditional marketing involves advertisements and promotions presented through television, newspapers, billboards, flyers and other print materials, radios, and mails. The greatest advantage of traditional marketing is that it uses a proven and tested method of reaching out to clients and potential customers. This approach is something that every consumer can easily comprehend and act on.
Despite the constant improvements in technology and the internet, there are still some segments of the population who cannot relate and do not use mobile devices, computers, and the social media. With this, if these segments are part of your target market, it would be difficult to connect with them through digital channels. In short, traditional marketing is the safest way by which you can execute your marketing strategies. Traditional marketing efforts are very popular, and success is easy to gauge or measure.
Digital Marketing in a Nutshell
In today’s digital world, reaching your target market has become easier, faster, and more cost-effective. Nowadays, modern marketers promote businesses and offerings through social media, online content, emails, banner ads posted on websites, and other digital means.
The primary advantage of digital marketing compared to traditional marketing is that it can yield a high success rate even for new businesses because it allows you to connect with a lot of people instantly and in one go. This is something that traditional marketing cannot achieve. Furthermore, this type of marketing is more inexpensive, and it allows you to interact with your target market more directly.
How to Choose Between Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing
Just like any other business decision, choosing whether to implement a traditional marketing and digital marketing plan can be a challenging task. So to help you decide, we will discuss the different factors to consider:
Costs
Whether you admit It or not, your budget is one of the most important things to consider when deciding on the marketing efforts that you will employ for your business. So ask yourself, how much are you willing to shed for traditional marketing and digital marketing for your business?
When you compare the costs of marketing through traditional and digital means, you will see that traditional marketing is actually way more expensive than digital marketing. In traditional marketing, you need to have a budget for printing, ad space, mailing, or airtime. On the other hand, you can perform social media marketing, content marketing, forum marketing, and other types of digital marketing for free or at a low cost.
However, the good thing about billboards and print ads, for instance, is that they can reach consumers who may never see your website in other ways. What you can do to integrate the digital aspect in these traditional methods is to direct your target market to your company website through these forms of advertising. When creating content for traditional marketing, you can write your call-to-action in such a way that will make your audience access your company website for further information.
Metrics
While it is easy to track the number of responses that you get from your direct mails and flyers, it is more difficult to know who watched your advertisement on television or heard your radio ads, and who changed the channel or station. Though it is not impossible to learn this information, it is undoubtedly easier to track and measure your results or gauge the overall performance of your digital marketing efforts.
Relevance
This factor depends on the nature of your business or your products and services, as well as your target market. However, it doesn’t mean that this is purely related to age or technology usage. So how do you choose between traditional marketing and digital marketing?
For instance, if your target market is new mothers and you are selling baby stuff, you need to consider that although they may be comfortable using computers, their new responsibilities in the family may result in very little free time to browse the internet. With this, instead of targeting them through social media—where they may have less time to spend in—it would be better to place your advertisements in baby changing rooms and other relevant areas.
Basically, what you need to do to be able to implement a relevant marketing strategy is to understand your target market and your offerings.
Accessibility
In terms of accessibility, digital marketing appears to have an edge than traditional marketing, especially now that mobile technology is taking off. Through the internet and social media, you can reach out to millions of consumers instantly. Furthermore, by establishing a mobile presence, prospects can gain access to information about your company and your offerings wherever they are and whenever they want to. Meanwhile, traditional marketing methods are only more accessible if your target market is based locally.
Final Thoughts
The decision on whether to execute a traditional marketing and digital marketing strategy largely depends on your available budget, the age range of your target market, the nature of your business, and of course your personal preference.
As the world has become more digitally inclined, as evident in the emergence of digital magazines, online banking, and other aspects of our lives that have transitioned into the digital environment, it seems like it’s pretty obvious that entrepreneurs should invest in digital marketing campaigns. However, this doesn’t mean that traditional marketing no longer has its place in the modern world. Time and again, traditional marketing has proven that it is still relevant and effective especially when the target is the local market.
With this, instead of taking an all or nothing approach, it makes more sense to implement a multi-channel strategy—one that will combine traditional marketing and digital marketing into a unified marketing plan. Once you manage to pull this off, you will get to experience the advantages of these two different frameworks.
If you need assistance with the planning, execution, and management of your digital marketing campaigns, Infinit3solutions’ team is always ready to give you a hand. Reach out to us and let us discuss what’s best for your business!
By: Camille Ivy Tadena
