Before we embark on the quest to find out the differences between traditional marketing and digital marketing, we must essentially understand what marketing is and what the two types of marketing are.
Marketing, in simple words, is the business of selling goods and services. It includes all the aspects of selling like promotional activities, advertising, and market research.
So, evidently, marketing can be further classified into two broad categories. Traditional marketing and Digital Marketing.
Traditional marketing is the marketing of goods and services through traditional channels like hoardings and print media. Up until the introduction of digital channels of marketing, traditional marketing has been, more or less, the only means of marketing.
On the other hand, digital marketing in Mangalore is marketing through digital channels such as social media, emails, and websites.
In other words, it is also called internet marketing, as this mode of communication requires the use of the world wide web or the internet.
Internet Marketing vs Traditional Marketing which Is Better for Your Business?
To know which type of marketing suits your business type, you should first know the difference between the two.
Differences Between Digital Marketing and Traditional Marketing.
Medium of Communication
Traditional marketing does not mean that it uses old methods of marketing. It only refers to the medium of marketing employed.
Traditional marketing uses radio, print, television, billboards, and point of sale as a means to disseminate information to the public. Some other modes of traditional marketing are conferences, direct post, workshops and sponsorships
Whereas Digital marketing as the name suggests uses the internet or digital means of communication. Emails, social media, blogging, paid advertising, and websites to mention a few are some of the modes of digital marketing.
One Way or Two-Way Traffic
In traditional marketing, promotional activities are usually one-sided. Except for point of sales, there is little or no interaction between the buyer and the seller.
This one-sided communication makes it difficult to convince an audience who require a bit of persuasion to buy a product or service. The conversion ratio in traditional marketing is lower than that of digital marketing.
In digital marketing, there is a possibility of remote interaction between the buyer and seller. For instance, an interactive email.
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Limitations on Updating
When it comes to traditional marketing Vs digital marketing one of the major differences is the limitations in the ability to update an advertisement.
Traditional marketing is rigid in this matter. Once an advertisement has been printed, you cannot change or update any information on it.
Updating the information on printed material is possible only if you replace the whole advertisement
On the other hand, in digital marketing, there is scope for updating and changing the information on an advertisement without replacing it.
An excellent example of this could be a print advertisement to promote your retail store. You may include a list of items available in the store on your printed advertisement.
If a new product is added to this list, you will be unable to add the item to your print advertisement without replacing the whole advertisement.
Whereas in a digital advertisement, you can easily add the item without replacing the whole campaign.
Target Audience
In traditional marketing, your target audience is limited. Your promotional campaign has geographical limitations.
For example, your advertisement placed in a local newspaper will reach only those audiences that subscribe to that particular paper.
Digital marketing has a wider reach. Social media campaigns, websites, and blogs can be accessed by customers from around the world.
The target audience in digital marketing campaigns is wide. As Bill Gates Quote “The internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.”
Cost
Traditional marketing promotions are costlier than digital marketing.
The cost of putting up a hoarding or advertising on television is much more expensive than putting up an advertisement on a social media site.
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Measuring Success
Measuring the result of a campaign is one of the methods of improving sales for any business. Traditional marketing does not have any set methods to gauge or measure the success of a campaign.
Whereas digital marketing has certain tools that measure the success or failure of a digital marketing campaign. Digital marketing employs many tools that can indicate the performance of your advertisement.
Product Information
One major difference between traditional marketing and digital marketing is the ability to disclose all information about the products or services.
In traditional marketing, you can disclose limited information about the product due to the lack of space or higher costs.
Digital marketing allows you to disclose more information about products and services.
Although digital marketing seems to have a slight edge over traditional marketing, we cannot totally ignore traditional marketing.
Traditional marketing also has certain advantages. Some of the advantages are
- Easy to reach the local target audience
- A print advertisement has more retaining power than a digital advertisement
- Traditional marketing has success stories too.
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Traditional Marketing vs Digital Marketing Which Is Better for You?
Now that we have discussed traditional Vs digital marketing, let us look at some of the factors that help you decide which marketing strategy is better for your product or service.
The answer to this is simple. It depends on certain factors such as the product itself, the price of products, target audience, and the place of marketing.
Product – Before marketing a product or service, understanding your product or service is essential. Is your product of local nature? Does your product or service appeal to the masses in general? Is your product especially meant for a particular target audience like women, elderly population?
Your product or service is one of the deciding factors when deciding on choosing traditional or digital marketing modes of promotion.
If your product or service is more localised in nature then it is advisable to choose the traditional marketing strategies.
However, if your product or service appeals more to the masses, employing digital marketing methods is more sustainable.
Therefore, there is no particular right or wrong marketing strategy and it depends entirely on the nature of your product or services.
Target audience – Once you have identified your target audience, deciding on which type of marketing to employ becomes easier.
If your target audience is the older generation, keep in mind that most of this population are not very tech-savvy. Therefore, traditional marketing would be more effective in such a case.
However, if your target audience is the young generation or a large section of society then digital marketing will play an important role.
Place – The place of the product is a deciding factor when choosing Internet marketing Vs traditional marketing.
If your product is local in nature or more effective in a village, be certain that such places may not have great access to internet facilities.
In this case, traditional marketing would work better. However, if your product is more global in nature digital marketing will be more effective.
Although there is no real right or wrong way of marketing, we can conclude that digital marketing has an edge over traditional marketing for more reasons than one.
Today, with an increase in the use of the internet, the world has become a global market. The internet has bridged the communication gaps and shrunk distances across the world.
With the internet in your hands, the world is your market place. To rightly quote Stephen Hawking at this juncture, “We are all now connected by the internet like neurons in a giant brain.”
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