Every business wants to make itself known among its target audience or potential clients. It’s the only way an organisation can expand its sales or services and make more revenue and profits. When comparing digital marketing vs traditional marketing, there are two main ways to do this. One method is employing digital Marketing techniques and practices, and the other involves undertaking traditional marketing methods. But which of the two approaches is advisable for a business, and also the advantages of digital marketing over traditional marketing are discussed below. .
Traditional marketing primarily involves advertising your brand via offline means like TV ads, newspaper ads, billboard ads, etcetera. Traditional marketing methods are still relevant in today’s digital world because a significant portion of the world’s population still does not have access to the internet or mobile apps. They obtain information from traditional means like newspapers, radio, TV (mostly analog TV), posters, etcetera.
In these traditional mediums, which are part of traditional marketing methods, the ads are displayed in a large and eye-catching manner, like on newspapers, billboards, and signboards. Alternatively, they are displayed in places that a large number of people frequently visit, like on sub-urban and metro trains, airports, public transportation buses, railway stations, taxis, etcetera.
By displaying your ad in places that a large number of people frequently visit, you increase your ad conversion rate. Traditional marketing comprises of the following methods.
A flyer is a piece of paper on which some ad material is printed. Flyers are usually printed on A3 or A4 sheets. Flyers have a short and catchy ad text on them and a colourful background.
Some people may immediately dispose off the flyers handed over to them, some people may store it for later reference and use, and very few people will take immediate action on it. Flyers generally have a low conversion rate.
Your flyer needs to address some pressing requirements of people (by selling your products or services) or have some highly attractive offer for people to take immediate action on it.
Generally, companies that have a large budget for their ad campaigns opt for this form of traditional advertisement. Billboards are capable of displaying one or more ads pertaining to one or more brands.
Billboards are usually found on highways, near railway routes between stations, near busy traffic junctions, and enroute to airports. Since billboards are huge, they’re hard to miss, and usually catch people’s attention.
Billboard ads usually have a big impact on people and have a relatively high conversion rate. They are also the most expensive among all forms of advertisements. So, organizations should be sure of getting high ROI before they opt for billboard ads.
Here the company’s ad is printed on a piece of paper (usually A3 or A4) and sent to the target audience by post mail. Sometimes, a sample of the company’s products are sent via courier service to promising leads to heighten the lead conversion rate.
This is the most popular form of Traditional Marketing because even highly educated and rich people living in metropolitan cities read newspapers and magazines till date.
Giving attractive and catchy ads on the front page of popular newspapers and magazines will usually bring you a high conversion rate and ROI. Therefore you have to put the maximum possible effort in creating appealing and attractive newspaper and magazine ads.
If your company offers some unique or rare products or services, you can host public seminars, conventions, or conferences in public forums like malls and setup poster or signboard ads to advertise your business’s unique and useful products or services.
People almost never miss and are impacted deeply by public events hosted on public forums like malls, auditoriums, stadiums, shopping complexes, etcetera. So, this form of traditional advertising will be very effective and give you very high ROI provided your company offers some unique or uncommon products or services.
If some of your customers are highly satisfied with your products or service, you can track and reach out to them by calling them or sending letters and request them to spread the word of your brand.
Needless to say that you need to provide your existing customers with attractive incentives to make them do the job as nobody works for free these days. Once, you have successfully converted your existing customers into your brand evangelists, they will provide your business with multidimensional benefits in the long run.
Word of mouth recommendation or referral is very effective and relevant even to this day because people trust their friends, neighbors, and colleagues more than they trust celebrity ads or any other form of traditional or digital advertising.
Even to this day, there are still a large number of people who watch tv (even analog TV) and listen to the radio or podcasts. Hence, such means of traditional advertisements are still impactful and relevant.
You must either employ any celebrity advertising your brand or the person advertising your brand must be a very impactful speaker or your ad has to be designed in an innovative and impactful manner to make people listen to it with interest and take the desired action.
Many popular brands like Bisleri, Fevicol, Fevistick, Monster.com, Union Bank, etcetera have employed very innovative ads recently to create a big impact on people and heighten their conversion rates.
This is the most elaborate and the least effective form of traditional advertising. Examples of this form of advertising include banks and insurance companies calling random people and asking them if they are in immediate need of loans or insurance policies respectively. Mostly you’ll end up calling uninterested people and irritating them.
There are also those lucky times when you’ll call an interested prospect. The main advantage of this form of marketing is that you get a chance to build a close rapport with your interested prospects, who could later on become your customers and even your brand’s evangelists.
Digital marketing mainly involves promoting your products or services on various online platforms and your official website. Simply put, it is marketing done for your brand via digital platforms and tools. Digital Marketing is quite a vast field of knowledge and has quite a few sub domains that improve a brand in all aspects. They are as listed below.
Every social media platform has a large user base. They are also unique and have their benefits and pitfalls. Hence every social media platform requires a unique promotional strategy and post timings
Apart from employing the appropriate brand promotional strategies, one also needs to get in touch with relevant influencers on various social media platforms to heighten one’s brand awareness and lead conversion rates.
SEO is the technique of writing high quality content on one’s website and getting valuable backlinks to the website in order to rank the website on the first page of Google’s search results and to add more authenticity (DA and PA) to one’s website.
If a website ranks on the first page of Google’s search results, it will be globally visible and will get tremendous amounts of web traffic/visits. Always, only white-hat (and not gray hat or black hat) SEO techniques have to be applied to get lasting results.
This technique is mainly used to convert hot leads into customers or existing customers into brand evangelists. Personalized and appealing emails are sent to your promising leads or existing customers to achieve the desired goals.
Email marketing is still relevant and effective in today’s world of SMSs. It is one of the most effective methods of targeted marketing.
This technique mainly involves creating and monetizing your YouTube channel but it can also involve creating video ads and promoting them on various social media platforms. Videos have the highest user engagement and impact on people. Therefore, video marketing is one of the most quick and effective forms of brand advertising.
You can create digital web page ads and display them on various websites. Google’s AdSense program will decide which are the appropriate websites to display your digital ad.
Some people absolutely hate ads on web pages while others are more influenced by them. So, you must design your ads in an attractive and appealing manner to get the maximum possible conversion rate.
This is when you market some other company’s products or services in order to earn commissions on the sales and profits made by the company you’re working as a marketing agent for.
Your marketing website needs to have high quality and engaging content and needs to be SEO optimized in order to be globally visible and influence people in buying your advertised products.
Rather than doing it alone, you can tie up with popular and relevant influencers on various social media platforms (particularly Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) to gain a great degree of traction, influence, and heighten your sales.
The internet does have a global reach and websites are definitely popular but netizens and millennials these days prefer using mobile phones and apps as they are handy and portable.
Hence, it would be preferable if you developed a mobile app for your business as it would greatly enhance your reach, business volume, sales, and profits.
Just like websites, even mobile apps have to be perfectly optimized to rank on app stores and appear in users’ searches for them to download your official app. This process is known as App Store Optimization (ASO).
Comparing digital marketing vs traditional marketing, let’s see the advantages of digital marketing over traditional marketing. Online Marketingwill be the go-to marketing technique for organizations. They are as mentioned below.
When you adopt any means of traditional advertising, you cannot help reaching inappropriate and uninterested people.
For example, let’s say you gave an ad on a popular newspaper brand in your locality or nation and let’s assume it’s about a shaving blade, even kids and women in your locality, state, and nation will see the ad and be unimpacted.
In other words, you’ll be spending money in reaching people who aren’t even your target audience. Even if interested prospects see your ad, there’s no way you can get to know about it and reach out to them. You won’t know how many relevant people have seen your newspaper ad and among them, how many have actually been impressed and bought your shaving blades.
Digital Marketing techniques on the other hand enable you to create targeted paid ad campaigns on Google and various social media platforms. Various ad campaign management tools are available that enable you to measure and fine tune the performance of your paid ad campaigns on Google and various social media platforms.
The advantages of online marketing over traditional marketing are clearly reflected in the fact that the cost to create and launch a paid ad campaign on various online platforms will be far lower than traditional means, and every penny of your online paid ad campaign will be well-spent and give you the desired results.
Any form of traditional advertising will only have a local impact at best but websites and social media platforms can help you make your brand known globally. You will also be able to explicitly reach and influence your target audience.
If you have an official website that’s 100% SEO optimized then it’ll automatically be listed on the first page of Google’s search results and you won’t even have to spend money on running social media ad campaigns as your brand will be visible globally.
Digital Marketing enables you to reach out precisely to your target audience unlike Traditional Marketing and engage with them effectively.
You can write personalized emails, create social media posts that have multimedia content in them to make them more engaging, create opinion polls or doodles related to your products or services, create an appealing online poster ad or infographics, create your brand’s business page on appropriate social media groups and platforms to promote your business, etcetera to make a big impact on your target audience.
Unlike traditional forms of marketing, Digital Marketing techniques can create a large follower base and brand loyalty for a business as in the cases of Coke, Britania, Pepsi, Amaron, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Lakme, etcetera. The advantages of online marketing over traditional marketing include the ability to target specific audiences with precision and the potential for real-time interaction and engagement.
It’s only on social media platforms and groups that your customers or brand evangelists can share your ad posts and help spread the word of your brand. This is not possible via traditional means of advertising.
Apart from being accurate in making you reach the right target audience, Digital Marketing techniques are also very cost effective to implement. You can promote your brand on relevant social media platforms and groups free of charge. You can even allocate a budget that suits your pocket for your social media ad campaigns.
Traditional Marketing techniques on the other hand are highly expensive, inaccurate, not quantifiable and optimizable. Given below are the cost ranges for various forms of traditional advertising. You will be able to see how expensive they are and why they are usually meant only for established businesses.
Billboard ads: These ads cost between USD 1,500 to USD 15,000 to implement. It is the most expensive form of traditional advertisement.
Full page newspaper ad: The cost to give a full-page newspaper ad varies widely depending on which newspaper you want to give an ad on.
A full-page newspaper ad would only cost between USD 2,000 to USD 3,000 on a local (town) newspaper. The same would cost between USD 100,000 to USD 200,000 on the Washington post. This is owing to the vastly varied reach and influence of the different newspaper brands.
30 seconds radio ads: This form of advertising is especially effective in rural areas of developing and developed countries. Radio ads can cost anywhere between USD 1,000 to USD 8,000 to implement.
Advantages of online marketing over traditional marketing are evident, as paid ad campaigns on various social media platforms and paid Google ads cost only between USD 100 to USD 4,000 per month. In stark contrast to the above-mentioned costs, paid ad campaigns on various social media platforms and paid Google ads cost only between USD 100 to USD 4,000 per month and the performance of such digital ad campaigns can be quantified and optimized unlike traditional ads.
We hope that by comparing digital marketing vs traditional marketing helps you to know the advantages of digital marketing over traditional marketing , you might be inclined to apply internationally recognized digital marketing practices to your official website and make it globally or regionally popular.
With a focus on mobile app development, we have honed our skills across a multitude of industries, including restaurant aggregators, pick-up and delivery services, hospitals, and tailor-made applications. Whatever may be your digital marketing requirements, we can certainly help you. We have quite a few years of proven experience in this domain and have helped our clients take their brand and business to the next level. So, you will definitely get what you want and value for your money if your approach us
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