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The rise of the digital age and the online revolution has brought a dramatic change into how we communicate and relate socially. Digital technologies have advanced our traditional and normal communication to another level! This has opened door for digital marketing as well as traditional marketing for businesses!

Traditional marketing is an age old medium used by businesses and organizations to promote their brand and offerings to their target market. Some of the traditional marketing mediums used are newspaper ads, flyers, brochures, billboards, radio ads, telemarketing and direct mail.

Digital marketing on the other hand is marketing and promotion of a business’s brand and offering using digital or online platforms. Digital platforms used in the promotion and marketing are search engines, social media, email, websites, blogs and mobile apps. The use of digital technology is highly influenced and enhanced by the increased usage of smart phones, ipads, laptops and desktops.

Well, digital marketing versus traditional marketing, which one is better?

The comparative analysis between digital marketing and traditional marketing is always a tough one. Nonetheless, we want to look at the issue of digital marketing vs. traditional marketing on six main important grounds:

  • Market Tailoring
  • Accessibility
  • Lead Generation
  • Audience Engagement
  • Cost Efficiency
  • Measurability

Market Tailoring

One of the principles of successful marketing strategy is market tailoring or segmentation. By differentiating yourself through a competitive advantage and then specializing, you can tailor or segment your offerings to a specific or target group of market.

By using traditional marketing you can tailor your promotion to a specific audience locally. You can deliver print media, broadcast ads or telemarketing ads to a specific market group locally. A print media for instance can deliver your business information to the local people once you just post them in the neighborhood.

Digital marketing on the hand can tailor your promotion to both local and international audience. You use either paid or free promotional methods to promote your brand and offering to local people or international market using digital platforms such as social media, e-mail and search engines.

Accessibility

It’s not enough to just distribute information. You also want to be sure whether your target market will be able to assess your information and respond to it accordingly.

The print media, broadcast media, direct mail and telemarketing have been the known traditional mediums to enhance information accessibility. Nonetheless, the information age and busyness of people have really reduced the level of accessibility of traditionally marketing information as compared to the past.

So what about digital marketing? Digital marketing makes marketing information accessible to your target by putting that information in digital platforms where they linger and stay around. The more the information is being shared, the more that information can go viral and be easily by the entire target market.

Audience Engagement

Communication is a two way affair. One person talks, the other person listens and responds back. Marketing is not different from this. Marketing is simply a business communication between a businesses a target market. That communication is thus expected to be two way for it to be effective!

Digital marketing versus traditional marketing: which is more effective in this category? Well, in traditional marketing the communication is just one way. Print ads are posted in the neighborhood, radio ads are announced and flyers are shared. This way does not really make traditional marketing effective.

Digital marketing on the other hand helps to have a two way communication. You create a blog or video post and share it on social media platforms. With the help of social platform communication buttons such as like, share and comment, you can immediately get feedback from your target customers so that you can re-strategize your marketing strategy.

Lead Generation

The whole essence of marketing is to two main things: promote the brand and generate leads. As simple as that! The effectiveness of the marketing strategy must then be measured by the rate of brand exposure, lead generation and the lead conversion rate.

In traditional marketing, marketers focus on promoting ads and their products. Whereas in digital marketing, marketers focus on promoting valuable contents that will genuinely help their target market! By doing so, they build trust with their target market which culminate in leads. A survey by Your Digital Resource noted that “Good news is digital marketing generated three times as many leads as traditional marketing, but on average costs 62% less.”

Measurability

The management consultant Peter Drucker said that if you cannot measure it, then you can’t manage it. Well, that means marketing communications management must be enhanced by accurate figures and data.

The problem with traditional marketing is that it difficult to measure it and sometime it cannot be measured at all. It is very hard to measure the number of people who heard your ad that was advertised on the radio.

But with your website and Google Analytics, you can know the number of site views per day, per week and per month. This will help you to strategize and manage your marketing communications effectively.

Cost Efficiency

Digital marketing versus traditional marketing: which one is cost efficient? The goal of every business is to minimize costs and to maximize costs. That means to invest in the most cost efficient method and generated the expected results. Generally speaking, traditional marketing is more expensive than digital marketing.

Conclusion

When you do the analysis, you will realize that digital marketing is more beneficial for business marketing than traditional marketing. However, the best marketing strategy is to adopt the two mediums and then use the traditional marketing to support the digital marketing so as to achieve the marketing goals of the business.

Where is your business now? Are you planning on using digital marketing to build your brand and advance your marketing activities? What are your comments concerning this post: “digital marketing versus traditional marketing: which one is better?” Share your comments below!

You can also Contact us ([email protected] or +233548334499) to help develop a digital marketing strategy tailored to your unique business so we help make the most for your business!