What’s the difference between digital and traditional marketing? Is one better than the other? Can digital marketing replace traditional marketing? Who would win if they drank too many Jagermeister in a bar and started to insult each other’s mothers?
Today, we discover.
We have finally found the best marketing strategy.
Two methods enter. One method leaves.
Welcome to the Titandome.
Digital Marketing wins, Clearly
But not so quickly.
It was only recently that people spent more time using their smartphones than they did watching television. Even though smartphones and social media seem to be dominating the market, traditional marketing methods like TV commercials still have the potential of reaching more people. With 54.2% of all US advertising spend, digital ad expenditure just barely surpassed traditional in 2019. This means that 45.8% go to traditional methods, which is still 45.8%.
This is nothing to be ashamed of.
While digital marketing budgets are increasing (by almost 15% annually), traditional marketing budgets don’t seem to be dropping as much (by as little as 1-2% per year).
Digital marketing is able to generate 50% more interactions with customers than traditional marketing, and it costs far less to implement. This is a schism that is only getting wider in favor of digital in a post COVID world. These stats are clear that digital marketing is the best option. However, 36% of marketers want to combine traditional and digital marketing efforts.
Let’s not yet crown a winner. Digital marketing may have some advantages over traditional marketing, but they might not be as clear-cut.
What is the difference between traditional and online marketing?
Traditional marketing was the only option at the beginning.
Traditional marketing refers to any type of promotion that we hear or see in the real world. The real world is the place where grass grows and fresh air exists. Pants are often mandatory. There are basically four types of traditional advertising:
Print – Advertising in paper form. Advertising in paper form is the oldest form of marketing, dating back to around 3,000 BC. It includes billboards and brochures as well as ads published in magazines, newspapers, and newsletters.
Broadcast is advertising that is broadcast over the airwaves and via cable. The broadcast includes television, radio, and pre-movie advertisements in theaters.
Direct Mail is advertising sent directly to individuals. You will receive flyers and postcards as well as letters, catalogs, and other items that you have not requested but are still getting delivered.
Telemarketing is the act of calling people by phone. Also called telephone marketing. This is a controversial form of marketing, but it’s not as controversial as you might imagine.
Traditional marketing was once the best form of marketing. It was the only form of marketing.
The 1990s brought with them the rise of the Internet.
Digital marketing was born with the Internet.
Fun Fact: Today’s kids talk about the 90s in the same way they used to talk about the 60s. This is enough to keep you awake at night if you are over a certain age.
Digital marketing refers to the promotion of products and services over the Internet. There are seven types of digital marketing:
SEO is the process of optimizing content and online branding for targeted search engine results pages (SERPs).
PPC – Paid advertising that shows promotions on search engines, websites, and social media platforms such as Amazon. It uses a pay-per-click model.
Social Media – Advertising to users via posts, ads, videos, and other native content on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram
Email advertising is sent digitally to individuals. This includes newsletters, drip campaigns, and promotional messages.
Content Marketing is the creation of websites, blogs, and videos as well as infographics, infographics, and other assets. These are often shared through other types to increase consumer awareness, sales, and loyalty.
Affiliate Marketing – Enlisting others in your business promotion in return for a Commission
Influencer Marketing: Paying others to promote your business
The primary difference between traditional and online advertising is the fact that the latter can be done online while the former cannot. Who knew?
Everybody, that’s who. This is not a revelation.
It’s important to establish the ground rules. Let’s now get to the point. We want to see marketing in two different forms battling it out, just like grannies on a bench.
Is digital marketing going to replace traditional marketing?
We will be looking at five areas to determine who is the best fighter in this fight.
Infrastructure
Cost-Effectiveness
Reporting
Immediacy
You can customize
One marketing strategy will prevail in the end while the other will be left behind with a heap of trash bags from back alleys that ruin the day they tried a Jagerbomb.
1. Traditional Marketing vs. Online Marketing: Infrastructure
Both traditional and digital marketing requires different infrastructures. Infrastructure refers to the infrastructure required to implement marketing strategies, engage customers and maintain them.
Traditional marketing, however, requires more infrastructure in order to be successful. This can prove to be a problem.
You need the equipment to print mailers and efficient delivery methods to get them to your customers. Telemarketing requires a network of phone lines and trained staff to operate each one. A billboard is a large sign that you can display on a wall. You will need to outsource if you don’t have the resources to do this yourself.
Online marketing, on the other side, is entirely digital. This means that you don’t need a computer, computer whiz or a family-sized box of Bagel Bites to create an omnichannel marketing strategy.
Although it is possible to put more effort into digital marketing, we recommend that you do so. Many companies are able to run extremely profitable marketing campaigns with very little effort. Digital marketing is, simply put, a way for businesses to make it easier to connect with marketing channels and, ultimately, customers.
This round will be dedicated to digital marketing.
2. Comparison of Online and Traditional Marketing: How Cost-Effective?
This is a clear win for digital marketing.
Traditional marketing is expensive because of all the extra infrastructure that’s needed. This is not cool. This is especially true when you consider that a magazine ad can run upwards of $20,000 and a billboard costs $2,500/month. A 30-second TV spot on a local station will cost $1,500 (not including production costs). Worst, you don’t know what hard metrics you are getting for that investment if any.
Comparing traditional marketing costs to advertising on Facebook has the following: an average cost per click (CPC), of $0.25, and an average cost per thousand impressions (CPM), of $7.19. This is a strong ROI for a small amount.
Traditional can’t be beaten.
Digital marketing can use a CPM (pay-per-click) model. This makes a huge difference. Traditional marketing requires you to pay upfront in order to reach your target audience. It is a high-risk investment. Digital marketing (using CPM/PPC) is a way to make sure your audience engages with your promotion. It is a potential cost.
- Traditional Marketing vs. Online Marketing: Data Reporting
Data is vital to your business’s success. You’ll reap the benefits of having more data, such as being able to optimize future campaigns and pinpointing your ideal customer.
You’ll be in the dark without accurate reporting Digital marketing is miles ahead of traditional marketing.
It is difficult to accurately measure traditional marketing campaigns. The few data metrics that offline tracking reports offer are not as detailed or as intelligent as those available through digital media analytics tools. Digital marketing tools and platforms offer businesses an incredible range of data and metrics to help them improve every aspect of their marketing. Google Analytics, Google Ads Manager, and Microsoft Advertising offer a wide range of data. All of these tools offer businesses information about their performance, marketing success, and visitor behavior.
Good digital marketing can help businesses understand their revenue/sales, landing-page performance, search engine click-through rate (CTR), keyword ranks, return user metrics, and time-on-site. They can also pinpoint areas where they can improve their marketing campaigns.
This is not possible with traditional strategies. This is unless there’s a guy standing underneath your billboard and counting everyone who looks his way.
4. Traditional Marketing vs. Online Marketing: Immediacy
Marketing is all about how fast brands can engage customers directly (aka immediacy). It is important to reach customers where they are and when they are there. Digital offers a clear advantage in this regard. Thanks to pixels and retargeting.
They also provide a quick touchpoint.
While the technical difference between traditional and digital marketing is offline vs. online, the real difference (read as an advantage) is that digital allows you to have direct contact with your audience immediately. Traditional marketing does not. Paid online advertising, such as search engine PPC or social media PPC ads, can start driving results almost immediately. An ad campaign that is small can be created in just a day and start driving traffic to your site or conversions within days. You can convert sales or convert in a matter of hours. As ad campaigns last longer, you can make your campaign more effective by reviewing its performance history.
Traditional marketing can’t engage certain touchpoints as quickly as it used to, yet again. Unless the guy standing beneath your billboard uses a long stick to poke every car passing by.
5. Traditional Marketing vs. Online Marketing: Customizability
It is easy to create digital marketing campaigns. You can easily stop and start them. It’s possible to change copy, graphics, and targeting at will. It’s easy to distribute budgets. You can tweak, adjust, micro-target, or make any other adjustments to digital marketing as you wish. You can cancel, modify, or cancel search engine ads in minutes. Once approved, the changes will be displayed to your audience immediately.
It’s also very customizable.
Digital excels in expanding market share, even during economic downturns.
It is difficult to pivot in traditional marketing.
Traditional marketing is more rigid. It is less flexible. Direct mail campaigns can take weeks or even months to put together. Once it starts, there is no stopping it. If you don’t mind stealing mail from people, it’s not something you should do. It is essential to create commercials in advance. Air-time schedules must be in place weeks or months in advance. It is essential to create, print, and distribute print ads well in advance.
Digital wins another round. Traditional is knocked out with a roundhouse kick.
We said that digital marketing has some advantages over traditional marketing, but it wasn’t so obvious. They are, it turns out. They are very simple.
Digital is the future
This begs the question:
Digital Marketing Can Replace Traditional Marketing?
Yes. Yes.
Traditional marketing took a beating. It is clearly not able to compete with digital marketing in the age of the internet. However, the most successful marketers know how to distinguish between online and offline campaigns.
Two methods enter. One method leaves.
Do you remember that? We meant it. We didn’t mean to destroy one marketing technique. They would find that they had more in common than they thought when they entered the Titandome.
Digital and traditional can co-exist harmoniously, as one. (As long as they don’t drink Jagermeister. It shouldn’t be about digital marketing vs. traditional marketing. It should be digital AND traditional.
We will even say that there is no such thing as “traditional” marketing or “digital marketing.”
Marketing is not enough.
Multichannel marketing.
Does this mean you have to do it all?
No.
It is important to choose the best strategy for your company.
It is essential to:
Define your goals/KPIs for your business
Select the most cost-effective channel
Choose the medium that has the greatest reach
The most effective methods to convert are the ones you should use
Digital techniques can help you achieve all of this. Digital strategies are the best option. Depending on your business and customer, you might want to do things offline. If you are targeting an older audience or local areas, for example.
Don’t completely discard the “traditional”.
Traditional marketing is as outdated as the Discman, Tamagotchi card, Tamagotchi, and Blockbuster cards. It’s the coolest thing from the 1990s to a child today. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not valuable. Except for the Blockbuster card. It’s totally useless. You won’t find it unless you are in Bend, Oregon.
We want to punch people when they say that digital is the new traditional.
Can digital marketing replace traditional marketing?
It is without a doubt.
However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be able to use it. You should really be asking the question: How can digital and traditional marketing work together for me? Contact our team if you need assistance finding the right strategy. Like a hot top chain that connects a wallet to a pair JNCOjeans.
