Defining Traditional Marketing
There are many facets of traditional marketing and examples business cards, print ads in newspapers or magazines. It can also include posters, commercials on TV and radio, billboards and brochures. Traditional marketing is anything except digital means to brand your product or logo. Another overlooked means of traditional marketing is when people find a particular business through a referral or a network and eventually you build a rapport with them.
Defining Digital Marketing
The world of digital marketing continues to evolve and as long as technology continues to advance, digital marketing will as well. Examples of digital marketing include things like websites, social media, YouTube videos, and banner ads.
Specifically, digital marketing is similar to traditional advertising, but using digital devices. However, digital marketing is considered a form of inbound marketing and its goal is for people to find you. Businesses put content (or ads) out for individuals to find. People may conduct an organic online search, a paid search, find your business on a social network or by reading content that has been published online such as a blog or an article. The more they see you or your content, the more familiar they will become with your brand and they will eventually develop a trust and a rapport with you through this online presence.
Benefits of Traditional Marketing
You can easily reach your target local audience. For example, a radio ad might play in one location: your city or region. Or mailbox flyers will go to households in a select number of suburbs.The materials can be kept. The audience can have a hard copy of materials of which they can read or browse through over and over again.
It’s easy to understand. It can be easily understood by most people because they are already exposed to this kind of strategy.
The technologies used in this study were eye-tracking and high resolution measurement. The three key metrics evaluated in the study were
- cognitive load (ease of understanding),
- motivation (persuasiveness), and
- attention (how long subjects looked at the content).
Benefits of Digital Marketing
You can target a local audience, but also an international one. Further, you can tailor a campaign to specific audience demographics, such as gender, location, age and interests. This means your campaign will be more effective.
Your audience can choose how they want to receive your content. While one person likes to read a blog post, another person likes to watch a YouTube video. Traditional marketing doesn’t give the audience a choice.Most people hate receiving sales flyers in their mailbox or phone calls at inconvenient times on stuff that they have little interest in. Online people get the choice to opt in or out of communications and often it is relevant because they were the ones searching for it in the first place. Don’t underestimate the power of market segmentation and tailored marketing.
Interaction with your audience is possible with the use of social media networks. In fact, interaction is encouraged. Traditional marketing methods don’t allow for audience interaction. You can encourage your prospects, clients and followers to take action, visit your website, read about your products and services, rate them, buy them and provide feedback which is visible to your market.
Digital marketing is cost-efficient. Though some invest on paid ads online; however, the cost is still cheaper compared to traditional marketing.Data and results are easily recorded. With Google Analytics and the insights tools offered by most social media channels, you can check on your campaigns at any time. Unlike traditional marketing methods, you can see in real time what is or is not working for your business online and you can adapt very quickly to improve your results.
Level playing field: Any business can compete with any competitor regardless of size with a solid digital marketing strategy. Traditionally a smaller retailer would struggle to match the finesse of the fixtures and fittings of its larger competitors. Online, a crisp well thought out site with a smooth customer journey and fantastic service is king – not size.
Real time results: you don’t have to wait weeks for a boost to your business like you would have to waiting for a fax or form to be returned. You can see the numbers of visitors to your site and its subscribers increase, peak trading times, conversion rates and much more at the touch of a button.
Brand Development: A well maintained website with quality content targeting the needs and adding value to your target audience can provide significant value and lead generation opportunities. The same can be said for utilising social media channels and personalised email marketing.
How We Use Both Digital & Traditional Marketing
Our traditional marketing methods support our digital marketing efforts. The two do not operate in exclusion from each other. But we only use hard copy marketing materials to further strengthen a relationship with a contact, referral partner or client. We don’t invest in television or radio ads, for example, but we will give brochures to someone who is interested in our services.
Rather than taking an all or nothing approach, it appears that a multi-channel approach that leverages the unique benefits of paper with the convenience and accessibility of digital will perform best.
