Digital Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing: Which One is More Effective?

Marketing means the action or business of promoting and selling services or products. Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing are 2 ways of promoting and selling, actually of marketing. Traditional marketing was the only way for a long time, but now Digital marketing is much easier. Then which one is better? Which one is more profitable? Why not both at the same time? Which one will give you the best output? We are going to discuss all these.

What is Traditional Marketing?

Traditional Marketing is what we saw in our childhood, it is what our grandparents saw. It’s a way of promoting business by using traditional channels such as billboards, printed media, TV, radio, telephone, etc. It is common to see them in everyday life. Think, Cristiano Ronaldo is the brand ambassador of Clear Men Shampoo. The company made a video advertisement with him and telecast that on TV day after day. The company also took some still pictures of him in some pose and placed them on newspapers, billboards, magazines page, etc. All of them are a part of traditional marketing. In one word, we can say that traditional marketing is the type of business promoting that uses offline mode for showing advertisement. There are too many more ways to show ads via traditional marketing.

Some of the channels for traditional marketing are:

• Newspaper
• Magazines
• Postcards
• Telephone
• SMS
• Billboards
• TV
• Radio 
• Posters etc

Traditional Marketing is continuing over the last century. It has not changed a lot. Fundamentals of traditional marketing remain the same for decades after decades. Product, price, place, and promotion are the four P’s of selling technique in traditional marketing like digital. This channel of business prom helps the product to reach to the targeted audience. Did you know that traditional marketing is more researched than digital? Traditional ways help a lot in reaching a local audience. Advertisement can be kept for a long time. You just go to the road and see many of the ads. Open the newspaper and try to read, you will see ads there. Watching UEFA Champions League match or ICC Cricket World Cup live, ads are there as well. All they are traditional channels for promoting one’s business.

Four P’s of Traditional Marketing

1. Product: This section is about functionality, services, brands, etc.
2. Prize: Prize is mainly the listed prize, offers (Buy 1 Get 1 Free), discounts (30% Of Summer Sales), credit terms, and so on.
3. Place: Place is about where the company stays and by which channels, they are showing ads. For instance, inventory, logistics, and distribution. 
4. Promotion: Promotion is the way you get the world to know about your product. Advertising, salesforce, publicity, sales promotion all are part of it. 

What is Digital Marketing?

In a word, it can be said that Digital Marketing is the type of marketing that uses online channels to complete the job. Any kind of business promoting having an online connection is called digital marketing. It has another name, online marketing. Sometimes, promoting through any kind of electronic device is said digital type of this as well.

You are used to seeing advertisements through digital channels almost everywhere in the online world. You just wake up and go to any online news portal, you will see ads there. While watching YouTube videos, Facebook videos you will watch ads as well. You will see ads in many applications. Facebook sponsors and even search engines like Google, Yahoo show you ads in different ways. Pay per click is one of them, post-boost is another. So to speak, you can’t pass a day without watching online ads if you browse.

Some channels for Digital Marketing are:

• Blog site, website, portfolio 
• Facebook and other Social Media Marketing
• YouTube marketing
• Pay-per-Click 
• Search Engine Marketing
• Email
• Automation
• Affiliate marketing. 

In the past few years, it has taken the place of traditional. Now every businessman needs to know about it. It is now more important than the traditional one, but not the alternative. One should do both for promoting his firm, but in the start-up, when an entrepreneur doesn’t have much money to invest then online one will be more effective for him. For that, he needs to know about digital marketing strategies.

Some Top Digital Marketing Strategies: 

• Using Google AdWords or Pay-per-Click marketing
• Facebook Marketing
• SEM
• SMM
• Email Marketing
• Learning Artificial Intelligence and Machine Language
• Search Engine Optimization
• Contextual Promoting
• Targeting Next Generation
• Communication Skill
• Content Management
• Project Management
• Creating content on all level of Funnels 
• Doing Experiments continuously.

Read details about top strategies, gather more knowledge about it.

What is the difference between digital marketing and traditional marketing?

If you read the above part attentively, then I am sure that you already know the differences. But here we are going to discuss that in a little more area.

The first and main, you can say the mother of other differences in the channels, the media through which an entrepreneur targets the audience. Traditional marketing uses offline media whereas digital marketers use everything online. It doesn’t mean traditional marketing is back-dated. Traditional marketing played important role in the world of promoting business, is playing an important role, and will play almost the same. The importance of traditional marketing will never be lost. But digital media is less costly and easier than traditional.

A digital way uses every opportunity to reach customers. As using the internet is an everyday task for a huge number of people, this channel is more profitable or effective in order to reach to the audience. The strategies of these two ways of marketing are also different. A startup company may use only digital one as it is less costly, but if a company stands as a brand, then that must use both traditional and digital in order to promote his company, to increase his sales.

Drawbacks of Using Only Traditional Marketing

Small business has a small budget; therefore, it is important to use the budget properly. So what type of marketing should they do, what strategies should they follow to enlarge his business? Knowing the proper answer to those questions is very much important to begin a business. In this condition, digital marketing will help his business. Then, why not traditional marketing?

Though both ways are important, both of them play an important role in the field of promoting, traditional marketing has some downside. Nowadays, technology has grown and people all over the world use it. So it is easier and less costly to reach the audience through digital media than using billboards, newspapers or magazines.

The biggest downside of traditional marketing is “it is costly.” Some don’t agree with this, they believe the biggest drawback is there is little to no interaction with the audience, no way of any call to action and really it is a great problem comparing with digital marketing. Measuring ROI is also tough in this process. It has the highest 5% conversion rate and 5% received feedbacks which is too poor as well. These all are the downside of going for only traditional marketing. If I try to make a list of downsides of traditional marketing then it will be like the below:

• Higher Cost
• Little to No Interaction
• Measuring ROI is Difficult
• Little to No Chances of Getting Feedback from Audience
• The Conversion Rate is Very Poor
• Uncontrolled Timing
• Fewer Options of Customizing
• Updating is a Very Tough Process 
• Not Able to Disclose the Pricing Details

So now the question is, “What type of marketing should a business owner use?” I am going to discuss the answer to this question now.

Which Type of Marketing should a Business Owner Use?

As I said before, both traditional and digital are equally important to promote one’s business. Balancing those two types is the key to great marketing. But when it comes to low budget and investing that properly then I will go for Digital Marketing. Why I will go for that? You already got the answer if you read this article’s above part totally and attentively. Thus, I am not going to answer them again here. If you haven’t got the answer as you want yet, then complete this article. Hopefully, you will get them below.

Looking at the Statistics

• It is estimated that about 60% of marketers around the world have already shifted their efforts from traditional marketing to digital marketing. 
• Almost 60% of adults from the United States of America use Facebook and therefore watch Facebook ads.
• More than 85% of buyers research their targeted product online before buying. 
• YouTube Marketing and Google AdSense are now so effective that they are beyond statistics.
• 94% of B2B marketers and 90% of B2C marketers actively using LinkedIn and other social platforms.
• In 2018, marketers spent a total amount of $114.84 USD in traditional marketing and $108.64 USD in digital marketing for showing advertisements.
• As a report published on eMarketer in February 2019, estimated that in 2020, marketers will be spent $107 USD in traditional whereas $151.29 in Digital ways. But because of the Coronavirus Pandemic, it is going to be far larger than estimated. 
• Another projection of ClickZ is that by 2021, 73% of e-commerce will come from mobile. But it is going to be more because of the present situation in this world.
• e-Cap published a report on E-commerce in Bangladesh, a country in South Asia. That says, “In only the last five months more than one lakh new jobs have been created in the e-commerce sector of Bangladesh. It also projected that online payment will be 4000 Croce BDT at the end of 2020 whereas it was only 1,978 Crore BDT in the last year. 
• Statistics don’t say that traditional is less effective. If in 2011 money paid for offline advertising was $60 USD, then in 2019 it was $50 USD. But Online spent has increased a lot. If it was only $15 USD in 2011 and $100 USD in 2019. 
• For printing ads, CPM is $1,092 whereas online it is only $10.78. In print media, it is $1.09 per impression and $0.01078 per impression in digital. 

Why Digital Marketing is More Effective?

Well-established brands can never avoid traditional marketing. But for small businesses, online marketing is the best choice for so many reasons. Digital/Online marketing is less costly, and this is why start-up companies choose it for promoting their business. What is the customer network in digital marketing? If it is the question, then we will mention

1. Search Engine (e.g. Google, Yahoo)
2. YouTube
3. Blogger, WordPress
4. Online Research
5. User Experience
6. Facebook, LinkedIn
7. Reviews
8. URLs and many more

These are just the customer network of digital channels of marketing. Now, look at some benefits of digital marketing.

1. Return on Investment can easily be measured: 

Think that you invested money to show your product’s ad two times. The first time is for a printed advertisement in a newspaper in your country that is being read by the highest number of people and another is to show advertisement online, like using Google AdSense. In the first medium, you will not get any feedback, you won’t how successfully the ad has shown to your targeted customers. For instance, your product is a new Computer Processor for gaming. But you gave ads in the newspaper, the newspaper isn’t read by only adults, usually who need the gaming PC. So a lot of money has just wasted by you.

On the other hand, in online marketing, you can select audience age. Thus, it is more effective.

2. Receiving Feedbacks from Customers: 

In traditional marketing you don’t have the opportunity to connect with your audience directly, they cannot give their feedback, suggestions, complaints easily. But in digital marketing, you have this chance to interact with your customers. Therefore, your business can easily be big to bigger.

3. Audience Range is Huge: 

It is beyond mention. Anyone can imagine how bigger the marketing area and how bigger the audience range in online marketing.

So finally, which one is more effective? Obviously, the answer cannot give in a straightway. It should be answered under two conditions.

Condition 01: If your company is already a well-established brand, then you have to go for both traditional marketing and digital marketing. You cannot skip any of these if you really want to do an effective marketing campaign.

Condition 02: If you are a start-up business owner with a little budget, then you can go for digital marketing without any doubt. But for this, you have to know well the digital marketing strategies.

So bye for now. Have a good day, have happy marketing. Stay with Different Marketing. Subscribe to us by email to get our articles in your mailbox. If you have any queries, comment below. Thank you.