Marketing is not something new. Brands have been using marketing to boost their brand awareness and increase sales since time immemorial. Earlier, companies used to advertise their products and services through newspaper ads, pamphlets, etc. With time, they came with video ads on television.
Now, with the advancement in technology and the movement toward digitalization, we have geared up to digital marketing. Now, things like social media, SEO, affiliate marketing, etc., have become the main modes of marketing.
However, there is a big battle going on between traditional marketing vs digital marketing. Some experts believe that digital marketing is better, whereas some brands still believe that old-school traditional marketing is the OG form of marketing. But we are here to help you out with this.
In this article, we will dwell on this discussion. We will tell you about both traditional and digital marketing along with their working process and pros and cons so that you can decide which is better for you, digital marketing vs real marketing. So, without any further delay, let’s just jump on to the main topic.
Traditional Marketing Vs Digital Marketing: Which is Better?
Marketing is one of the most important aspects of business. With the help of marketing, more and more people get to know about your brand. It is basically a promotion of your products and services among the people who may buy them. There are two main types of marketing: traditional marketing and digital marketing.
Both traditional marketing and digital marketing have their own pros and cons. One is highly trusted and has been used for many years, while the other one has just come but has made a huge impact on several industries. While traditional marketing focuses on everyone, irrespective of age, gender, and location, digital marketing focuses on a specific targeted audience who would like to buy their products and services.
Hence, there are many differences between these two forms of marketing. So, in order to understand which marketing is best for your brand, let’s first get to know what traditional marketing and digital marketing actually are and how they work.
What is Traditional Marketing?
As the name suggests, traditional marketing is the conventional marketing that we have been seeing since our childhoods. Promotion of brands and their products and services in newspapers, pamphlets, billboards, TVs, live events, etc., all is a part of traditional marketing.
In traditional marketing, the main focus is on direct and face to face interactions with the public so that they can remember the brand. In short, all forms of offline marketing come under the arena of traditional marketing.
How Does Traditional Marketing Work?
In traditional marketing, the brand promotes its products and services to the masses through offline modes like television, live interactions, newspapers, magazines, posters, pamphlets, billboards, etc. The main intention behind this is to convey information about your brand and its products and services to more people so that they buy your products and your sales and ultimate profits increase.
Advantages of Traditional Marketing
Traditional marketing has been used for a very long time, so it is quite obvious that it has a handful of benefits. Here are the advantages of traditional marketing.
- Reach Masses With a Single Ad: The best thing about traditional marketing is that you can reach a lot of people just with a single advertisement. For example, if you get your advertisement published in a newspaper, every person who buys that newspaper will get to know about your brand.
- Brand Exposure: With traditional marketing, brand exposure is very high. For instance, if a brand promotes itself with ads on a billboard, every person passing through that area will probably see that advertisement.
- Personal Interaction: One of the most important aspects of traditional marketing that helps the brand in personal interaction. In traditional marketing, a lot of live events are conducted that focus on face-to-face interactions with the customers.
- Leaves Expression on Audience: There are so many advertisements that we remember by heart, be it an advertisement melody or tagline. For example, as soon as we see “Just Do It,” we remind of Nike. This is the power of traditional marketing. It leaves a permanent impression on the customers, so they buy the products from the same brand again and again.
Disadvantages of Traditional Marketing
Just like everything else, traditional marketing also has its own advantages and disadvantages. So, in this e-marketing vs traditional marketing write-up, we will now discuss the disadvantages of traditional marketing.
- Very Expensive: Even though TV or newspaper advertisements are seen by a large number of people, they are extremely expensive. Not every brand can afford to get their advertisements on billboards, magazines, etc.
- Does Not Target a Precise Audience: When an ad goes on TV, everyone watches it, but it does not target any particular audience. The ads are vague and lack precision.
- No Clear Data or Results: In traditional marketing, it is almost impossible to get clear data on how many people have seen your ad. For example, when an ad is on the billboard, we know that many people are watching it, but we cannot get clear data on how many people have seen the ad and taken it seriously.
Modes of Traditional Marketing
- Newspaper
- Television
- Radio
- Pamphlets
- Billboards
- Magazines
- Live Events
What is Digital Marketing?
Now that we know what traditional marketing is, moving ahead in this traditional marketing vs digital marketing write up, let’s understand what digital marketing is. Digital marketing is basically the promotion of a brand and its products and services on the internet. It includes promotion on websites, social media platforms, etc.
Digital marketing is comprised of a number of strategies like social media marketing, affiliate marketing, YouTube marketing, etc. The best part about digital marketing is that it helps the brand in reaching to the targeted audience and not everyone in general. It saves a lot of cost.
Considering the increased use of devices like mobile phones, tablets, and laptops, and people spending their entire days scrolling through their phones, digital marketing has become the first choice of brands. In digital marketing, the content that goes on the internet is optimized with the help of tools like SEO, which helps the brand reach to larger audience.
How Does Digital Marketing Work?
You must have seen some of the other influencers promoting any particular brand or product on Instagram, which is a part of digital marketing. You might have also seen the ads of any brand on some other brand’s website. All that is a part of digital marketing.
In digital marketing, the content goes to the internet to promote a brand. This content is properly optimized using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so that its visibility increases. Moreover, the website and purchase links are provided in the ad itself. So as soon as an ad appears on the feed of a user, if they are interested, they can directly click on the link and buy the product or service.
Advantages of Digital Marketing
Now that we know what digital marketing is, let’s have a look at its advantages.
- Helps You Reach the Target Audience: Where there is no specific reach in traditional marketing, in digital marketing, we only send our ads to our targeted audience. Yes, you heard it right. In digital marketing, you can select your targeted audience on the basis of their age, gender, location, and interests and then send them your ads. This way, you have to put in less effort and get high results.
- Cost Effective: The best part about digital marketing is that it is cost-effective. It is not possible and affordable for every brand to get their advertisements on TV and billboards. On the other hand, digital marketing can be done at a very low cost.
- Redirect to the Website: In traditional marketing, even if the customer is impressed by your ad and wants to buy your product or service, they will at least have to go to the shop or search for your website. But when it comes to digital marketing, the product and website link are attached to the ad. You just need to click on it, and you will be redirected to the brand’s website.
- Increased Brand Awareness and Visibility: With digital marketing and the right tools, you can boost your brand’s awareness as well as its visibility. This way, more and more people will get to know about your brand, and your lead generation and conversion will increase.
Disadvantages of Digital Marketing
Moving ahead in this traditional marketing vs digital marketing article, in this section, we will tell you about the disadvantages of digital marketing.
- High Competition: Since between digital marketing vs real marketing, digital marketing is the affordable one, every brand is using it to scale their products. Due to this, the competition is too high. If a brand wants to make an impact on the audience, they have to select the content marketing strategy very precisely.
- Not Successful Everytime: Growing your business just with the help of digital marketing is a risky trail. It does not work every time.
- Keeps Updating: Digital marketing is technology-based, so as technology advances, the tricks of digital marketing also keep changing all the time. Something that worked for you today might not work for you tomorrow. The tools and Google Analytics keeps changing.
Modes of Digital Marketing
- Content Marketing
- YouTube Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
- Website Content
- Social Media Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Email Campaigns
Differences
Here comes the main topic: traditional marketing vs digital marketing. In this section, we will throw light on the differences between these two forms of marketing.
| Aspect | Traditional Marketing | Digital Marketing |
| Definition | Traditional marketing is the promotion of products and services through mediums like newspapers, TV, billboards, magazines, etc. | Digital marketing is the promotion of a brand and its products and services through social media and the Internet. |
| Cost | Traditional marketing is very expensive. It takes a lot of money to get your ad in newspapers and on TV. | Digital marketing is low-cost. Even small businesses can easily afford digital marketing. |
| Time and Efforts | It takes a lot of time to write and produce traditional ads. | It does not take much time and effort. |
| Engagement | Engagement in traditional marketing is low. | Engagement in digital marketing is very fast. |
| Communication | Communication is mostly one way in traditional marketing, other than a few instances like live and face to face promotional events. | The communication is two way. You can connect with the brand and talk to them. |
| Results | The results in traditional marketing are quite slow. | With digital marketing, you get results live and rapidly. |
| Tweaking and Editing | Once your advertisement goes on air, you cannot change it, no matter how big the mistake is. | You can easily edit and make all the necessary changes even after posting the ad. |
| Tracking | It is also impossible to track the traditional ads as to how many people have seen the ad and made purchases after that. | In digital marketing, ads can easily be tracked. You can see how many people clicked on your ad, went to your website, and purchased items. |
| Targeted Audience | There is no specific way to target any particular audience through the ads. | You can send ads to any particular targeted audience on the basis of their age, gender, interests, location, etc. |
| Effectiveness | Traditional marketing ads are less effective and take a lot of money. | Digital marketing ads require less money and are very effective. |
| Return on Investment (RoI) | The return on investment is not easy to measure and specific. | You can easily measure the return on investment, that too, very precisely. |
| Nature | Traditional marketing is static and the same. | Digital marketing is dynamic and keeps advancing with time. |
| Lead Conversion | The lead conversion with traditional marketing is slow. | The lead conversion with digital marketing is fast. |
| Traditional Marketing Vs Digital Marketing Examples |
|
|
Traditional Marketing Vs Digital Marketing: Final Verdict
With the above discussion of traditional marketing vs digital marketing, it is quite clear that digital marketing has more benefits than traditional marketing. It takes less money and is way more effective. But the main question is, how to decide which marketing strategy would work best for your business, digital marketing or traditional marketing.
Well, it depends on three important factors:
- a) The size of your business.
- b) Your budget and the money that you can spend on marketing.
- c) The types of products and services you offer and your targeted audience.
Although traditional marketing has become less effective with the advancement of technology, it has not lost its relevance completely yet. Even today, a lot of brands promote their products on TV, newspapers, etc.
Which marketing is best for your brand completely depends on you. If you are a small business owner with a small budget, then digital marketing would be best for you because it will save you money and will help you reach the targeted audience faster. It can also be a big perk if your targeted audience is the young generation from the age of 16 to 40.
However, if you provide any service or product for the age of people from 40 to 80, then traditional marketing would be a better option for you because old people generally spend their time reading newspapers and watching TV rather than scrolling their phones. Moreover, a blend of both marketing forms is the best.
FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. What are the modes of digital marketing?
There are various modes of digital marketing, like social media, affiliate marketing, YouTube marketing, content marketing, PPC, etc.
Q2. Is digital marketing good for my brand?
In this digital era, digital marketing is definitely good for each and every brand. It is cost-effective and can help you boost your visibility and awareness. However, you also need to consider your targeted audience. If your targeted audience is from the age of 40 to 80, then you might need to take support of digital marketing as well.
Q3. Which is better, digital or traditional marketing?
If we compare both forms of marketing, digital marketing is obviously better. It helps you reach your target audience rather than marketing your products and services to everyone vaguely. However, a blend of digital and traditional marketing is always the best.
Q4. How does digital marketing work?
In digital marketing, your ad goes on the internet, and its visibility is improved with the help of tools like SEO. Once your ad reaches the targeted audience, if they are interested, they can directly go to your website and buy the product or service.
