With the growth of the internet and social media, digital marketing has become the gold standard for growing your business. Traditional marketing lives on, but it has changed drastically over the past several years. Despite the reliance on digital marketing by most major companies globally, traditional marketing has some benefits that can make it worthwhile — especially with certain demographics.
What Is Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing is much more complicated than digital marketing and can require plenty of research and time to execute correctly. Traditional marketing utilizes more conventional mediums such as posters, newspapers, radio advertisements, and TV commercials. You can still reach a vast audience with these types of ads, but there are many things to consider and it is much harder to get accurate data about the exact effects of your advertisements.
The major problem with traditional marketing is that you don’t have access to data about your customers like you do in digital marketing. It’s nearly impossible to gauge precisely how many people you reach with traditional advertisements, and you also won’t be able to tell who you’ve reached with an ad. Without knowing the customers your ads appeal to, it’s harder to cater your brand to their needs.
What Is Digital Marketing?
As the name suggests, digital marketing covers digital spaces such as social media, blogs, websites, and more. A significant advantage of digital marketing is that you have access to specific information about the customers you are reaching with your advertisements. By utilizing the demographic and engagement information that is made available to you, you can tailor your business and all of your future campaigns to your customers’ exact needs.
Another significant advantage of digital marketing, and something that makes it very different from traditional marketing, is the communication it can facilitate between you, the business owner, and your customers. With digital marketing, you can conduct polls or surveys and respond directly to customers through comments and likes. This direct communication allows you to build a strong relationship with your customers, who, as a result, will be extremely loyal to your brand.
Where Should You Focus Your Marketing Efforts?
While there is no definitive answer to this, digital marketing can be considered easier and possibly even more effective than traditional marketing in a majority of cases. You can run a successful and targeted digital marketing campaign at a much lower cost than a traditional one. You can even market digitally for free with enough effort, so it’s a great choice even for small business owners. It also allows you to reach a global audience that you can interact with directly to foster your customers’ loyalty.
On the other hand, traditional marketing can also be beneficial because it gives you a bit more creative flexibility when it comes to specific advertisements. With an average of 15 seconds of screen time for TV ads, your advertisement can quickly convey a lot of information that might be difficult to express with a text-based ad on the internet.
Ultimately, it’s up to you which type of marketing you focus on because it should depend on your business’s needs and the product, service, or brand you are marketing. Thoroughly evaluate the pros and cons of each so you can decide which method of marketing would be best for you and your business.
Have more questions about digital or traditional marketing? Schedule a free discovery call and we would be happy to answer your questions.