The Great Debate: Digital vs Traditional Marketing
It’s an age-old debate – which is better, digital or traditional marketing? Even in 2020, this debate is still being discussed and is ongoing. Traditional advertising was pretty much the only option until the development of the internet in the 90’s. Traditional advertising is proven to be successful but advances in technology have opened many new alternatives when it comes to both targeting and placements. Read more to see what method we think should win the great debate.
What is Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing is offline. These channels include magazine, newspaper, television, radio, direct mail and billboards to name a few. Traditional marketing is all about reaching a large general audience. The more people that see your ad, the more leads you have the potential to attract.
Pros of Traditional Marketing:
If your target audience is an older demographic, traditional advertising can be very effective. Audiences ages 50+ spend almost twice as much time reading the newspaper and watching TV as compared to those ages 21-34.
Traditional marketing is good for businesses looking to build a large local audience. A small business can easily compete for the attention of a local audience through flyers, billboards, and radio commercials rather than trying to compete for digital space against larger businesses.
TV or radio commercials will play multiple times and remind the audiences of the business, whereas digital marketing items may be skipped.
Cons of Traditional Marketing:
Traditional marketing is a one-way street where a business can provide information to their target audience about its product or service, there is no interaction between customers and the business.
It can be hard to track the return coming from traditional advertising and usually the starting cost is higher when compared to digital advertising.
Often, traditional marketing is expensive. You must consider production costs for TV commercials as well as the cost of the ad itself. A small brand typically won’t have the budget for a national campaign.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing began as simple ads on the internet. Now, digital marketing encompasses many different channels online and through digital devices. It is always evolving and changing with new technology. Digital marketing includes paid social media ads, email marketing, and PPC advertising – among many others. Because of technological advances, this advertising strategy is much more focused on efficiency and less on volume.
Pros of Digital Marketing:
Digital marketing campaigns are easy to measure. The tracking is in depth and allows you to tweak your campaigns in real time to get the best results.
Typically, digital marketing strategies are much lower cost than traditional advertising and often times have a better ROI.
Targeting of digital advertising is much more precise. Instead of casting a large net and hoping some people will find your messages compelling, you can target the exact type of person you would expect to interact with your brand. Down to shopping habits, social media interaction and what websites they’ve interacted with.
Cons of Digital Marketing:
Let’s face it - digital ads can be annoying! Because if this, some users have ad blockers so they do not see banner ads, and other ads can be skipped or removed if a user pays for premium service.
Ads like Google ads, banner ads and promotional emails are short-lived. They’re intangible and can be easily ignored.
Even though it has been over 20 years since digital ads became an option, the great debate between digital and traditional marketing continues. Although an increasing number of businesses are turning to digital marketing, traditional still has its time and place. When trying to choose between the two, why not look at both?
With both sides of this debate have winning attributes, Dion Marketing believes that digital and traditional marketing are strongest when working together. Every company has different needs, budgets, and goals. Many of the most successful marketers use a combination of digital and traditional marketing in conjunction in order to most effectively and efficiently reach target audiences and achieve the goals.
Dion Marketing Company was Named One of the Best Digital Marketing Agencies in Jacksonville. Dion Marketing has many years of successful marketing plan development and creative strategies to help businesses grow through digital and traditional marketing methods, and we can help you come up with a winning strategy for your business!