Why is digital marketing more effective than traditional marketing?

What is traditional marketing?

Traditional marketing was the only kind of marketing that existed until the invention of the internet in the ‘90s. Newspapers, billboards, magazines, and posters, the traditional methods that may seem old today as everyone is occupied with mobiles and the net, are still in use, just not as much as the digital ways. 

Back then, small businesses would have grown popular with advertisements displayed in flyers and newspapers, but they couldn't have reached customers beyond their locality. Word of mouth was very much appreciated because there were not many means to promote their business. Only large companies could afford to advertise on TV commercials, billboards, and zines, but after the internet, everything changed. 

The birth of the internet opened many doors and welcomed opportunities for all kinds of businesses to expand their reach and visibility.

Digital marketing became a major game-changer and exploded into popularity.

Before we dive into the reasons why digital marketing is more effective than traditional marketing, let’s take a look at some of the traditional marketing strategies or traditional advertisement types that are still used today, the advantages and the disadvantages. 

Billboard

You must have come across those huge advertisements displayed on long, high boards supported by a tall structure or on a building in high traffic areas and on the side of highways. They are called billboards or hoardings, which are large print advertisements that are designed and displayed for maximum visibility. They come in various types and can be quite entertaining and inviting as well (think of a McDonalds' burger ad).  

Painted billboards which are rare, are done by artists who used large brushes to paint and install it using hydraulic cranes. Large brands like Nike, Adidas, and Muse drones have advertised using painted billboards.

Digital billboards display graphic designed content with texts or just text in a copy. Some companies think outside the box and advertise creatively like the Bloom grocery chain, who made the first “scented billboard” which emitted the smell of charcoal and black pepper to entice the customers into trying grilled steak.

Mobile billboards are those that are on the move, carried around on wheels which can be quite hard to go unnoticed. 

Billboards can be costly, become victims of vandalism and weather conditions, do not always target the right audience, and are time-sensitive.

Posters

Posters are a temporary advertisement method that uses both image and text on paper to convey a message or promote a brand’s product or services. They are displayed on the side of the road to grab pedestrians’ attention quite like billboards, only much smaller in size. 

Advertisement posters are put up for events, concerts, special sales, and discounts, etc. They work only for a short period, can be an environmental hazard, and damage public property. 

Print

Newspapers, magazines, journals, and flyers are print media means that bring information about a brands’ product or services to the hands of a customer, literally. 

Newspapers are widely distributed all over a region and can help you reach a wider audience. 

Magazines are mostly read by women, and advertising cosmetics and fashion related products can attract them. Again, print media is time-sensitive and not so budget-friendly. More and more people are resorting to online news and zines available on mobiles, so relying on print media is not always suggested.

Broadcast

Commercials that air on radio and TV are considered as broadcast advertisements. Broadcasting your brand can establish an identity and develop a voice, which is hard to do on print and digital media. 

When the Trivago guy, Abhinav Kumar (not just a random employee, he is the development head for Trivago India) first came on a TV commercial to promote the organization, it went viral. He represented the company’s voice and showed a persona that set up an instant connection with the customers. As a result, Trivago’s sales shot-up!

You can see now that most of the traditional marketing strategies, though sometimes effective, are time-sensitive and can not sustain the brand’s awareness for long. They can be expensive, and there is no way to know how much of the customers are engaging with your content.

Digital marketing has a lot more to offer than traditional marketing. Brand awareness can not be achieved much through traditional means effectively. Whereas digital marketing has a lot of platforms not only to develop brand awareness, but drive sales, and reach new people all over the world. Let’s take a look at the history of digital marketing.

History of digital marketing

What is digital marketing?

Google defines Digital marketing as “the component of marketing that utilizes the internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop, computers, mobile phones, and other digital media platforms to promote products and services.”

The development of technology and digital marketing goes hand in hand. The term digital marketing was first coined in 1990. However, before that in 1971, when the email came into existence, Roy Tomlinson sent the first email, paving the way for the commencement of digital marketing. His technology allowed people to share and receive files offline.

In 1990, Archie Search Engine was created as an index for FTP (file transfer protocol) and companies started using online techniques like database marketing to track customers’ information effectively improving the relationship between buyers and sellers. With the help of eCRM(customer relationship management after the internet), companies could obtain the information on customer needs and experiences, which led to the first clickable ad banner “you will” campaign by AT&T. 44% of the people who saw the ad clicked it.

In the 2000s, more and more people started using the internet and then came the iPhone, people started looking for products online. Digital marketing became more advanced in the 2000s and 2010s with so many social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram coming into existence.

Since social media became an integral part of people’s daily lives, so did the marketing on these platforms for businesses, and the results were mind-blowing! New trends in digital marketing keep popping up now and then, and it’s important to stay ahead of them.

Types of digital marketing

Digital marketing has been evolving since its beginning and will continue to do so alongside the evolution of technology. Every year it hits new niches and trends. Let’s look at how it has evolved into various types.

Search Engine Marketing

SEO: Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing a website's organic traffic to help it rank on the top of the search engine results page. Keywords, phrases, and content marketing are some of the important factors that impact SEO. 

The most effective SEO approach is the white hat SEO which focuses on the human audience that will be clicking on and reading the website’s content. The goal here is to make the content user-friendly and easy to read

SEM: Search Engine Marketing is another useful tool in digital marketing, that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs), through paid advertising. 

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing (SMM), over the last decade has grown rapidly, proving essential for all kinds of businesses as a part of digital marketing.

Billions of people all the world use mobile phones and the one thing that connects them all is social media.

Engagement of the customers in a business can be determined with the help of demographics that are available on many social media platforms. With the help of the data, user-experience can be improved and help businesses thrive. Some of the most popular platforms are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Yelp, Twitter, and Pinterest. Each of these platforms have their own set of rules and strategies that are unique to them, so choosing wisely can help launch your business in moolah-land.

Content Marketing

As they say, Content is king! To make your marketing strategies successful, the content has to be crafted well. It needs to be relevant, interactive, informative, and most importantly, provide value. A call to action is a must. All your marketing strategies can be useless if the content has no quality and isn’t fresh. 

Content marketing comes in the form of Infographics, webpages, blog posts, podcasts, ebooks, and white papers and can be made interactive by using quizzes and polls (those silly Buzzfeed contests are a great example), explainer videos, augmented reality ads, and more.

Video Marketing

Providing visual content is one of the most effective strategies in digital media. It’s easier to remember something seen rather than something read. Photos and infographics are great, but videos are even better. Video marketing helps give an insight into the brand’s persona and what exactly they offer. 

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

In contrast to getting traffic organically, marketers buy visits to their websites to improve traffic. They pay a small fee every time an ad is clicked by people. It is similar to the SEM strategy.

Email Marketing

It’s one of the oldest and an unbeatable form of digital marketing that helps keep the customers in touch and stay subscribed to your brand. Emails can be used to welcome or introduce your brand to new potential customers, to remind and update them of the latest products or services, to send out newsletters, etc. A simple call to action will drive sales and revenues.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a type of digital marketing when a business earns commission by marketing another business’s products. 

Like we talked above, digital marketing opens endless doors for opportunities and can be adopted by any company regardless of its size. It uses fewer resources, is cost-effective, and the results stick around longer than the ones produced by traditional marketing. For a deeper understanding, let’s dive into traditional marketing vs. digital marketing.

• Target audience: Digital marketing leaves room for customizing the audience to sell specific products or services, unlike traditional marketing that doesn’t target anyone. Specific ads, social media posts, and emails can be planned and organized to target an audience. Also, digital marketing covers a wide area in terms of locality, and since mobile phones and the internet is available to almost everyone, brand awareness can reach anyone in the world.
• Expenses: Small businesses can not rely on traditional marketing because of the expenses and even if it was budget-friendly, it would be ineffective. Digital marketing helps small businesses rise steadily in this highly competitive era of start-ups and other growing businesses. 
  

• Communication: Digital marketing enables companies to communicate with customers directly. This is possible via emails, messaging apps, chatbots, social media posts, and more. The only way communication is possible in traditional marketing is through phone calls.
  

• Statistics: Data regarding the customers’ activity online, their interests, and the products they buy can be obtained which can not be done with traditional marketing strategies. Without the statistics, you can not know how your business is doing, what to improve, what to change, and how to grow.

• Visibility: Brand awareness can spread far and wide to the max, through digital marketing means because of a global network called the internet. Customer or client count can become bigger, generate greater revenue, keep the bosses and the employees happy. Can traditional marketing compete with that? 
  

• Payment and delivery: Payment methods have become increasingly digital too, making transactions easier and hassle-free. You can simply make a purchase online without worrying about going to the company center to pay in cash, thanks to digital marketing. When the company is notified of the purchase and payment, they can start the delivery process immediately. The Digital world is evolving at an unbelievably fast rate and it is quite important to keep up with it because you don’t want to be in the year 2050, still expecting the traditional marketing strategies to work. You’ll never know what more inventions can occur in the future, that will change everything you know today. Technology is never constant, it continues to make our lives more convenient and better with each passing year.

Digital marketing and technology ride in the same car and it’s hard to imagine where they will take us to.

Are you looking for Digital Marketing Agency Bangalore, contact us. We will help you to take your business to another level.

Source: https://webi7newblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/why-is-digital-marketing-more-effective.html