Everything You Need to Know About Digital Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing to Boost Your Business!
It’s 2017. Everywhere you go, ‘digital,’ is the buzzword. Everyone around you is raving about the sales they gained through Facebook, the fame they garnered through Instagram and the pride of being in the first ten listings of a Google search.
But you’ve always been in favor of traditional marketing for it’s easy reach with newspapers, radio spots, pole flyers and bulletin boards because it’s so simple. Put the word out there and people will come to buy your products/services. Digital marketing, on the other hand, looks complex and magnanimous in practice. It’s not as simple as putting the word out there. You’ve got to be where the people are. You’ve got to beat competitors and you’ve got to make a consistent effort.
Why then should you go for digital marketing? Aha! That, dear reader, is a million-dollar question. So we’re here to help you make the plunge from traditional to digital.
Why is Traditional Still Important?
As ironic as this may sound, we are not here to ask you to ditch traditional. Most businesses make the mistake of neglecting the power of a billboard advertising, a radio spot or even a flyer. They assume that because digital is the next big thing, all efforts should focus around that, but that’s not how it works.
Traditional marketing is still very important because people can’t miss your content. When they wait for their bus, they can’t miss the bus ad. When they drive along the M5,they can’t miss the billboard. And eventually, after a month or two of consistent effort, people get to know you. But now comes the difficult part: what do they do if they want to ask you a question? Or get to know you better? What if they wanted to talk about you after getting to know you? That’s where digital comes in.
Why Digital is Super Important These Days
While you can get the word out with traditional, you can’t always maintain the cost of traditional advertising and you can’t always expect it to give returns. Furthermore, what’s out of sight is out of mind. So that billboard you spent a small fortune on was able to get the attention of the customer for just a week or a month. The moment it came down, your business was no longer on the customer’s mind. With digital though, it’s different.
You can retain that memory through social media, blog posts, Google ads, PPC ads, Facebook ads, Twitter ads, and a whole host of other strategies. The best part? It would cost as half as much as you put into the billboard sign. Digital is now more important than ever because people are highly dependent upon the internet and mobile devices to know, buy or interact with a business. A flyer may not help them reach you, but a mobile map might. A yellow page may not help them reach you, but a travel mobile app might list your business as a must-visit destination. You just can’t afford to miss out on digital. The opportunities are too many and too vast. That’s why you need digital marketing more than ever.
Four Benefits of Digital Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing
While we all know the benefits traditional marketing, such as instant attention, massive outreach, brand-building, real world impact etc, few of us know the potential of digital. And because we don’t know the benefits, we let the fear control our confusion and direct us away from what could be life-changing for us as entrepreneurs and businesses.
Here are a few benefits of digital marketing vs traditional marketing that you should know about. Rest assured, it’s much more than Facebooking or Instagramming. It’s the virtual world that you need to be in if you want some real world benefits.
1. Digital Marketing is Low-cost with Long-term Benefits
Let’s look at the maths. You’re a new retail store owner and you want the word out. You could print X amount of flyers and they could be distributed X amount of times, but flyers are costly. You might print 5000 flyers for £122.00, but you can bet 3000 of the people will discard them, ignore them or simply not relate to them. Now, Facebook ads start at a minimum of £5 a day and you can use,for example, £100 for a month promoting your deals with the condition that you have good content, great images, and an appealing deal. If you meet these conditions, the £122 in Facebook ads can help you reach thousands of people who you will be able to specifically target based on location, age, gender, and other demographic pointers. It’s not a bad deal at all, right?
Of course, you’re probably thinking, ‘well yeah, what about labour cost? And how the heck am I going to get good content?’ Digital is pretty flexible this way. With plenty of apps and technology available at your disposal, you can create your own content, schedule it and post it. However, if you’re way too busy and need help, you can always hire a digital agency to take care of your brand.
2. You Have Borderless Outreach
Ever wanted to expand your business? Digital lets you do that without having to open another location office. You can sell your products or services all across the WORLD with absolutely no additional setup cost. All you need is a website and a legit delivery system (for products). With social media, you can target your content right in the country you want. Want to attract college-going students in the UK for cool t-shirts? Facebook and Google will help you do that. Want to reach out to your customers from across the world? Email marketing can do that. The world is limitless with digital marketing and that’s the kind of leverage that traditional marketing can never give you.
3. Digital Marketing Goals are SMART
Unlike traditional marketing which cannot be specific or measurable, digital marketing goals can be SMART – aka, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. Add in your own jargon to customize this terminology, and see for yourself the results of your efforts. A post on social media can be tracked for its impressions, clicks, shares, and comments. A blog post can be analyzed for the number of people coming to your website. All these analytical details come together to help you get a picture of your business and the effort you need to put into it to make it grow. These small insights play a huge role in determining the success of your business. Traditional marketing cannot be SMART measured. It can only be manually tracked. Not a good way to get things rolling these days.
4. It Is Actually Quite Addictive (in a good way)
Oh yeah. Once you begin to see results, it gets addictive. Those shares and comments, those leads and converts are like drugs that actually push you to achieve more. It motivates you to do everything you can to put your brand out there and get a piece of the pie. Traditional marketing does not involve your input as much as digital would. Digital makes you stay connected to your brand and it doesn’t even cost you a dime to be the voice of your brand. Before you know it, you’re out there to make videos for YouTube, content for social media deals for the audience and engaging your business in an endless buzz. It’s fun, it’s exciting and it’s you become addicted to the success.
81% of shoppers conduct online research before making big purchases. Where is your business? That’s why digital marketing beats traditional marketing. It helps you get noticed.
If you have any questions or would like to talk to one of our professionals, call us on 0161 850 8999 or Contact us here.
