Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing, Marketing is the most crucial and confusing aspect of your business. You get bombarded with a variety of options and have a limited budget to spend on these strategies. If you are unable to reach a decision about choosing the tried and tested traditional marketing method or the recent digital marketing solution, the article will help your decision. 

Traditional marketing is transmitted through channels that aren't online, while digital marketing uses digital platforms like social media, blogging, and email marketing.

Target audience:

Age

According to a recent report, people aged between 54-60 years watch TV for around 5 hours and 43 minutes per day during the first quarter of 2020. People aged 65 and above watched 6 hours and 13 minutes per day. This clearly shows that traditional marketing methods like TV advertisements are perfect for products that cater to this age group. 

However, adults between 18-34 years of age spend 3 times as much time using apps on their smartphones. They rarely watch television. So, digital marketing is more suited for your business if it targets consumers within this age group. 

Audience type:

Local or global

Radio ads, billboards, and newspapers are the best avenues for marketing local products or products that target local consumers. Since these are traditional techniques, your best approach would be traditional marketing. 

Digital marketing uses the internet and the world wide web to market your products to a global audience. Social media is more suitable for products that can be used globally. 

Rural or urban

Doordarshan and radio shows are more prevalent among people in rural areas rather than urban spaces. Doordarshan continually ranks in the top 5 when it comes to rural viewership. Hence, for products targeting a rural audience like fertilizers or tractors, traditional marketing is more appropriate. When it comes to traditional marketing vs. digital marketing, rural audiences can be targeted better with the traditional method. 

76% of urban adults in the U.S use social media. Instagram and Facebook dominate this arena. Digital marketing will yield better results for products that cater to an urban and international audience like laptops and sportswear. 

Audience interaction and feedback

When it comes to audience interaction, digital marketing indeed owns the space. You cannot interact with audiences via TV or print ads. While in both influencer and email marketing, you can have audience interaction. Consumers watching an advertisement on social media can leave their questions in the comments section or interact through chat boxes on websites. 

Distribution of flyers can offer a slim opportunity for interaction in traditional marketing, but it is entirely absent in most other traditional marketing mediums. Hence, in the debate on traditional marketing vs. digital marketing, digital marketing has the upper hand.

Customization options

You can tweak your marketing videos, but revision is difficult if you have printed a wrong number or percentage on the flyer or newspaper ad. It is almost impossible and quite expensive to update TV and radio ads once they have aired. 

Thus, in traditional marketing vs. digital marketing, digital marketing is more flexible with its customization options. 

Marketing Results

One key difference between the two marketing strategies is the ability to track an ad campaign's success or failure. With the help of appropriate tools, a digital marketing campaign can show you the online traffic on your website and the ads which brought in the maximum visits. 

In the debate of traditional marketing vs. digital marketing, most experts consider this the most important aspect that gives digital marketing an edge over its older counterpart. It allows you to get quick and real-time marketing results that allow you to tweak your campaign. 

You may find the results through occasional surveys and research in traditional marketing, but this can be conducted only months after your campaign has been launched. This makes it challenging to make timely changes, and since it costs so much, you will lose a lot of money on ineffective campaigns. 

Documentation

In traditional marketing, you get a hard copy of your products' description. Digital mediums provide paper-free documentation that can be accessed anywhere in the form of soft copies through files and videos. The consumer can access the ad when s/he requires the information. 

Impression

The ads running on TV or radio have a longer impact due to repeated airing. The consumer is continuously reminded of your products and services. Thus, it lasts longer in the person's memory.

A digital ad has less impact on the person's memory because an ad may randomly pop into her/his feed, and s/he can skip it or forget about it soon. Companies constantly need to find creative ways of leaving a deeper impact on their consumer base. 

Therefore, when it comes to leaving a lasting impression on consumers, traditional marketing is a better option. 

Cost

Cost decides everything when you run a business. Traditional marketing through TV and radio reaches a smaller audience than social media, and this disadvantage comes at a higher cost. According to DAVP, Star Plus charges Rs. 1,950 for 10 seconds between 7 am, and 9 am. It charges a whopping Rs. 21,019 for ads between 7 to 8 pm. 

According to WebFx, Facebook charges $7.19 per 1000 impressions, while YouTube charges $9.68 per 1000 impressions. This is more suited for small businesses since their marketing budgets might be limited. If you spend so much on TV ads, you will need instant results because if your campaign fails, you will have to spend more money and create a new set of ads. 

Hence, in traditional marketing vs. digital marketing, digital marketing proves to be cheaper.

Analysis of effects on customers

Digital marketing allows you to track customer searches and show ads of products related to these searches. It enables you to analyze your audience better and provides them a medium to give your feedback. This leads to better data collection and analysis to curate better marketing campaigns and strategies in the future. 

In traditional marketing, analysis is done through surveys and research, which takes a lot of time and effort. Thus, in this debate on traditional marketing vs. digital marketing, digital marketing scores over its older counterpart due to its quicker analysis. 

Now that you have read all about these two types of marketing, you can easily decide which suits your business better. If your products are meant for an older local audience, investing in traditional marketing is a good option. But for a small business with an urban audience, digital marketing is best suited as it costs less and will reach your audience online where they will be spending most of their time. 

For curating a result-oriented digital marketing campaign, TTDigitals is your best option as it is the fastest-growing digital marketing company in Pune. Offering a wide array of services like SEO services, digital marketing, content marketing, web hosting, branding, creativity, and responsive website designs, TTDigitals can help your business establish a good online presence. To share the knowledge gained while working in this field, TTDigitals has also started digital marketing, website, and graphic designing online courses.