Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: Why Not Both?

Which is better, traditional or digital marketing? Instead of focusing on just one, let’s consider the merits of both and how you could harness the power of two.

What is Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing refers to any type of marketing that isn’t online. This includes TV commercial, radio, print, direct mailer, phone, and outdoor advertising such as billboards.

A tried and tested method, traditional marketing is one of the oldest and most researched forms of marketing. Most people encounter traditional marketing in their everyday lives; whether it’s receiving a direct mailer or passing by a billboard on the streets.

What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is any form of online marketing and encompasses many different channels online and through digital devices. It includes email marketing, pay-per-click advertising, paid social media ads and many others. Promoted tweets and influencer trips are examples of digital marketing.

Now that you know what they do, which route should your company and brand go with?
Let’s go through the disadvantages and advantages of traditional marketing. Businesses have little to no interaction with the consumers they are selling their products to in real time. Some marketers may view traditional marketing as unreliable and costly. It can be hard to track the return coming from traditional marketing. If you make a typo on a print ad, you can’t edit it once it’s printed unless you send for a reprint.

However, if your target audience is an older demographic, traditional marketing can be very effective. It plays an important role in reaching local audiences as it’s easier for a small business to compete for the attention of a local audience on traditional marketing platforms than trying to compete against larger businesses in the digital realm.

Physical ads can be displayed for a long period of time to maximise exposure.

Digital marketing allows companies and brands to have direct interaction, which leads to a long-term building of brand love and loyalty. Businesses can have full control of their audience growth and see real-time results of each facet of that campaign.

Disadvantages to digital marketing do exist. It’s heavily reliant on technology and, sometimes, technology breaks. When social media sites go down and a social media marketer has scheduled posts to go live, the only solution is to wait it out.

Consumers are also getting increasingly concerned about security and privacy, leading to distrust of brands online. And because technology is constantly changing, marketers and companies have to keep up with new learning curves regularly.

Can they work together?
Yes, think of them as complementing each other. Each has its own unique advantages and disadvantages. For example, you can’t DM a print ad but you can follow the brand on socials and sign up for their updates. By combing both strategies, brands can reach different demographics from the same family—parents who prefer flyers and print ads and their kid who prefers social media marketing, receive the same information from the brand.