Over the past few years, companies have had to choose between focusing on digital marketing vs traditional marketing. Much of this is because quite a large number of firms will only have the budget to focus on one and achieve results.
While this comparison has often led to many businesses hiring a digital marketing agency to help with their needs, they often don’t know what to look for. However, quite a significant amount of business owners might not know what they’ll need for their advertising efforts.
The majority of this is because firms will have quite a limited marketing budget, which is especially true for start-ups and SMEs. As a result, they’ll need to determine where their resources should best be used, with much of this being focused on gaining as large a return on investment as possible.
However, this isn’t only focused on choosing between digital and traditional marketing. In contrast, it also involves determining where a firm’s advertising efforts are best placed. This will mean that companies will have to leverage the most appropriate methods possible to gain an audience.
Alongside this, they’ll need to make sure that these efforts convert as many viewers as possible into leads and sales. This can be much more difficult than many people might think, which is why many firms choose to hire digital marketing companies.
However, this doesn’t mean that business owners shouldn’t know the key differences between digital and traditional marketing.
Though the majority of this can be figured out by speaking with a top digital marketing agency, there are a variety of considerations that need to be taken into account. Much of this will be focused on whether digital or traditional marketing will be the right one to focus on.
As the majority of digital marketing companies can attest, there are quite a few differences between the two niches. This should mean that firms will need to spend a large amount of time comparing the two areas.
These differences can be much larger than you might think. As such, it’s worth looking into what these differences are and whether one could be more beneficial for your company than others. To do so, it’s worth looking at what each of these are and where they can best be used.
Why Market Your Business?
While the majority of business owners will know that they’ll need to advertise their business, there are a few that might not. In these cases, entrepreneurs typically think that a traditional sales funnel is all that they need. This usually means that they’ll concentrate solely on prospecting and other sales techniques.
However, this could mean that they’ll lose out on a significant number of customers. While traditional sales processes will still be a vital aspect of growing a business, firms will need to differentiate themselves from their competition.
Though products or services will typically be one of the primary ways to do so, they might not be effective if customers aren’t aware of it. This is where advertising comes in, as it’s a way to gain attention for your products or services.
By doing so, you’ll be able to turn them into leads. This should subsequently mean that your company’s sales team will be able to convert them into paying customers. As such, marketing can be seen as a part of any firm’s sales funnel, with this often being integral.
Despite how vital it can be to a business, many owners may have difficulty choosing which marketing methods they should take advantage of. The majority of this will be focused on picking between digital and traditional marketing strategies.
Both can have a variety of pros and cons. This should mean that you’ll need to spend a certain amount of time determining which one will be best suited for your needs. To do so properly, it’s worth looking at what these two areas focus on and how they can help your business.
While they both might seem complicated, they can be much easier to understand than you might imagine. Despite this, they can be more difficult to take advantage of effectively. As such, knowing what’s involved in digital and traditional marketing may not be enough to attract the number of customers that you may want.
As such, it could be recommended that you hire a marketing firm to help you. Before you do, however, it’s worth looking at what these marketing efforts are.
What Is Traditional Marketing?
As you might have guessed from the name, traditional marketing has been around for a significant amount of time. As a result, it’s something that all of us would have been exposed to at some point, although many of us might not have paid too much attention to it.
Typically, this is a term that’s used to refer to any marketing efforts that aren’t online. As such, it’s quite a broad term that many of us might want to be refined somewhat more. There are a few approaches that the term is used to encapsulate, including:
While these methods have changed somewhat over the past few decades, the fundamentals of traditional marketing have always remained the same. This has typically meant focusing on the four P’s of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. These can also play quite a significant role in your sales process.
While these four P’s can play a large role in digital marketing, they can be just as essential to traditional advertising. Though the promotion aspect will be the most obviously tied to marketing, each of the other P’s will feed directly into it.
The main reason for this is that highlighting a product in a traditional ad may not be enough to convince a potential customer to buy from you. Instead, they’ll need a certain amount of information to consider before they do so. Naturally, they’ll need to know what the product is and how much it costs before they buy it.
While the majority of these P’s will be obvious to the majority of business owners, Place can often be a slightly confusing one. As a result, it can often be the one that many companies get wrong. This refers to where and when the ad is placed, which can make a vital difference in whether or not a customer buys the product.
This should mean that you’ll have to spend a significant amount of time considering where you’ll be placing the ad and when.
Digital marketing can often rely on these four P’s, too. However, there is quite a large difference in the Promotion aspect of it, which is why it’s worth looking at digital marketing a bit more in-depth.
What Is Digital Marketing?
As you might have guessed from the name, digital marketing encompasses any advertising strategy that takes place online. Given that this is quite a broad term, you might wonder what’s actually involved in this. There are quite a few notable strategies that you’ll be able to take advantage of here, including:
Digital has become an increasingly important part of every company’s marketing efforts for a variety of reasons. The most notable of these is that more consumers are eschewing traditional media in favor of online platforms.
This has seen social media become one of the more effective ways of reaching a potential customer base, which can also be said of various other platforms. As a result of this, traditional media has seen fewer subscribers and a smaller audience over the past few years.
The majority of this has been driven by technology. This should mean that, as technology advances, so will the variety of potential digital marketing strategies. Much of this could be to the detriment of traditional marketing outlets. As a result, digital marketing is becoming increasingly vital for the majority of businesses to stand out from their competition.
Digital Vs Traditional: What’s The Difference?
Traditional marketing is an offline approach that’s taken to identify their audience before placing advertisements in a variety of media. This typically includes television and radio ads, as well as billboards, print advertisements, pamphlets, and more.
In contrast, digital marketing focuses on online activities, with this including a broad range of activities. Usually, this will include either paid or organic ads across a wide range of media, including email, social media, search advertising, and much more.
While these differences may seem obvious, given the name of both approaches, there are a variety of pros and cons that you’ll need to be aware of when choosing between them. Since you’ll want to see an appropriate return on investment, it’s recommended that you know where both forms can be beneficial.
While some differences may be somewhat obvious, there could be a few that you might find somewhat surprising. Typically, digital marketing can be much better-recommended for a variety of reasons. Though much of this can be seen in the return on investment that you’ll see, there are several other reasons that you might want to be aware of.
This should mean that it’s worth breaking down where traditional marketing may be lacking and where digital marketing should excel. By looking at these, you should be able to see why online advertising can be the recommended route for you to take.
The Downside Of Traditional Marketing
While traditional marketing can still prove to be effective, there are a few notable downsides to it. If you’re considering the approach, then you’ll need to be aware of these before you take advantage of it. After all, being fully informed about a potential strategy can be vital to ensuring that you make the right choice.
One of the more notable of these is that you’ll have little control over some aspects of traditional marketing. While this will vary somewhat depending on which method you choose, you shouldn’t have much of a say in when it appears in front of consumers. Coupled with this, you’re not going to be able to change the ad on the fly.
Traditional marketing can also be quite expensive, which you may want to avoid. While this might not be a problem if you’re able to get a large return on investment with an ad, this might not be the case. In contrast, your ROI could be much lower than you might anticipate.
This is especially true when combined with the limited amount of time that your ad will be in front of potential customers. Should you want to retarget a specific segment, then you’ll typically need to pay the same amount again. This should mean that your costs will add up quite quickly.
Traditional marketing also offers little interaction between you and the customer, if any. As such, this can be seen as a one-way street, where you place an ad in front of a potential buyer with almost nothing else happening. While the ad itself should be persuasive enough to encourage them to take action, there’s little you can do to enhance this.
Alongside this, there are relatively few ways to measure how effective your marketing campaign has been. This is something that you might want to focus on, as you’ll need to determine how much of a return on investment you see.
While you might be able to measure some tactics using a promotional code or voucher, these are relatively small ways of measuring the campaign. As such, there’s a large chance that you might not be able to tell how many people took action because of your ad versus how many of them actually saw it.
The Benefits Of Digital Marketing
Compared to traditional marketing, digital advertising has quite a large number of benefits. While many of these may seem obvious based on the above, there can be a few more that you might not be aware of. For example, you’ll be able to target a much more specific audience than you would with traditional marketing.
Though traditional advertising can be somewhat targeted, digital can be hyper-focused on the customers that you believe will be much more likely to buy. This should mean that you’ll see a much higher return on investment with each of your advertising campaigns.
Alongside this, you’ll be able to retarget them much faster and easier than you otherwise would have. This should help to reduce your costs further, as you shouldn’t need to spend a significant amount of money retargeting them.
Alongside this is that there’s much more customizability with the majority of your digital marketing efforts. While this should mean that you’ll be able to target more specific audiences, there are a few other benefits to this.
For example, you’ll be able to adjust your marketing strategy on the fly based on what is and isn’t working. This is especially true given that you’ll be able to measure the results of your digital advertising efforts much more effectively than you would with traditional.
While measuring this will give you an accurate representation of your ROI, it should also help you lower it with future strategies. This will primarily be seen in what strategies have worked and where they can be adjusted, which should help to reduce any waste with each of your strategies.
Digital marketing companies can offer your firm all of the benefits mentioned above. By doing so, they should be able to help your business stand out from the majority of your competitors. However, you will need to make sure that you pick the right digital marketing agency for your needs.
The main reason for this is that there can be a range of differences between different organizations and niches. As a result, you should need to look for the top digital marketing agency in your niche, which should mean that you’ll have to spend a significant amount of time comparing them.
By doing so, you should be able to maximize the benefits you see with your digital marketing efforts. Though this could take a certain amount of time, it should prove to offer a large return on investment.
This doesn’t mean that traditional marketing doesn’t have its benefits. In contrast, it can be effective in a wide variety of areas. However, this will predominantly be seen on a local level and may not provide as much of a return as you might want.
In many cases, it could be worth using a combination of both digital and traditional marketing, although it could be difficult to achieve the right blend of these. Typically, it’s recommended that you lean more toward the digital side rather than the traditional one.
By hiring a top digital marketing agency, you should be able to make sure that you see a larger return on investment than doing so yourself. As a result, it’s often better-recommended that you choose a digital marketing agency that suits your firm’s needs.