23 Nov 2021

Difference Between Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing | Ekeeda

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Difference Between Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing


Traditional marketing is a type of marketing that is offline and has the conventional form of marketing channels such as newspapers, direct mailers, television, bus backs, billboards, radios, and magazines. As against, digital marketing is when you use the digital platform to promote the products and services of your organization or company. Few digital marketing examples include social media, email, digital ads, content, SEO, SEM, etc.
Marketing involves a lot of activities with an aim to assist the company or business to promote their offerings and convert the probable chances into leads. In today’s scenario, marketing has completely changed its form and it's more inclined towards digital form. Usually, individuals come across thousands of lucrative advertisements in a single day, no matter whether it's a traditional or digital mode of advertisements.
Now coming back to our discussion, the traditional marketing concept differs a lot from digital marketing in a number of ways, and one such difference is ‘The Reach’. While traditional marketing has a local reach, digital marketing can give your brand – product, or service a global reach. The ads that are placed on the internet could be seen by people around the globe and every walk of life. Now that’s what you call the ‘Power Of Digitalization’. 
Digital marketing is a trendsetter and it would grow in broad dimensions in near future. Today, there are hundreds of apps, educational platforms offering digital marketing courses for aspirants. You can google and check the reviews, ratings, expert faculty knowledge and accordingly opt for the digital marketing certification for a better career opportunity.

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Our blog will introduce you to both the types of marketing i.e traditional and digital, their importance, various forms, and the key difference between traditional marketing and digital marketing. So, folks stay tuned for the next couple of minutes with us and get introduced to the exciting world of the traditional concept of marketing and digital concept of marketing, traditional marketing vs digital marketing and modes of digital & traditional marketing.

What Is Traditional Marketing Concept?
Traditional Marketing means the marketing of products and services using offline platforms & channels that involve either one-way or two communication flow. It integrates various forms of advertising which are easily recognizable but are high costs. 
In simple terms, traditional marketing is a typical form of marketing that helps businesses reach the customer via offline modes like television, newspaper, magazines, banners, hoardings, radio, etc. Traditional marketing is usually concerned with reach for a wide range of audiences but offers a local reach. It means the greater number of people watching or going through the ad, the better would be the promotion and the higher will be the leads for you.

Importance of Traditional Marketing Concept
Few reasons why brands make efficient use of traditional marketing are as follows:
Easy Connectivity – Advertisements could be placed in newspapers and TV channels of the related geographical area to target the potential audience easily.
Store AD Copies - Clients can save copies of newspapers or magazines so that they could refer to the features, prices, or offers whenever they wish to buy that product or service. They can also share those copies with friends and relatives if someone is in need of that product.
Easy To Recognize – People are quite used to conventional ads since they are used to them for quite a long time and so they understand and recognize it quite easily & happily.
Better Reach – Traditional marketing channels have a large client base and a single ad can reach millions of customers across various regions and areas in just one circulation. Further, people living in those areas where there is no proper internet access or lack of network connectivity can also get aware of your business or products through the medium.

What Is The Meaning Of Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing means each and every form of online marketing channel and tactics. In digital marketing, companies or businesses use digital channels to increase the reach and visibility of their brand, product, or service to potential customers. The channels include Google, or BING Search, Social Media – Facebook, Instagram, Snap Chat, Email, Websites, and much more. The most important thing on which the entire digital marketing campaign or promotion depends would be the ‘Internet’. High-speed internet and better UI (User experience) would be the key factors to make long-lasting impressions of your brand product or services into the minds of the clients.
Thus, every kind of marketing that is carried online, comes under the peripheral of digital marketing. There are a number of digital marketing agencies which help companies to connect with their potential audience, convert leads into businesses, and retain clients by building a healthy relationship with them.

Digital Marketing Strategy
Use of tools like email, website, Smart gadgets including - TV, mobile, watches, etc., and wireless media.
Focus on building and maintaining a relationship with the clients through electronic communication channels.
Gain new customers through effective digital campaigns, and communication.
In digital marketing, the market stands to be an even playing ground irrelevant to the brand size or establishment. It means even a start-up company will get a number of opportunities as an established brand for promotion and create the buzz. This is why the companies that perform well have good marketing strategies, ad campaigns, and SEO win the race. Now that's would you call the 'Power Of Media'.

Importance Of Digital Marketing
Few reasons why digital marketing means are today the most preferred choice across every sector:

  • Cost-Effective – Small fish or start-ups with low capital investment can find a better and budget-friendly medium to promote their products & services.

  • Fair Play – Digital marketing gives fair play to all. All brands get equal and similar opportunities whether be it a multinational corporation or a start-up company, to attract the targeted customers.

  • Power Content – On the internet, content is like a king and plays an influential role in your brand. It can influence your audience right away and strike a chord in their minds at the right time.

  • More Conversions – The range of traffic being converted into prospective clients is higher in digital and often determines the success of any digital marketing campaign.

  • More revenue generation – More customer engagement and conversion, better are the profits businesses can book. Business expands domestically and at times goes international as well.

  • Brand Awareness – It helps companies create brand awareness, reliance, and confidence amongst customers by keeping them posted through new products, activities, offers, and schemes.

  • Better ROI (Return Of Investment) – Compared to other media forms, businesses can book high profits at lower spending and it will ultimately help book better return on investment (ROI).

Difference Between Traditional Marketing And Digital Marketing

  • Traditional Marketing uses all sorts of promotions, advertising, or campaign, used by companies over the years to promote various brands, products, and services. They use conventional channels such as radio, televisions, newspapers, billboards, bus backs, etc. While digital marketing promotes and sells the company's products and services using online marketing channels and tactics.

  • Digital Marketing is dynamic in nature and traditional marketing is static

  • The rate of conversion is faster in digital marketing compared to traditional marketing. Digital marketing is data-driven marketing and ads are displayed to people based on their likes and preference. While traditional marketing shows uniform ads across all groups and demographics.

  • Customer engagement is better in digital marketing as compared to traditional marketing concepts. It's because, customers can directly view the products and offers, by clicking on them and they don't have to visit showrooms, malls, or shops to get the product details. This fuels better customer engagement.

  • Return on Investment can't be calculated exactly in traditional marketing, while every penny can be monitored in digital marketing.

  • Digital marketing means less expensive more effective and traditional marketing means less effective and proves costly.

  • In Digital marketing, you can locate the customer where is the buyer from, and how many customers are actually buying the product, who are interested in the product, etc. On the other hand, in traditional marketing, you cannot track customers at all.

  • Traditional Marketing uses standardized methods to target customers, and it involves mass marketing with a very uniform touch. While digital marketing can use personalized touch based on the customer's likes and interests or they've searched recently over the internet.

  • You cannot tweak or change ads in traditional marketing once the ad goes live and you can tweak anytime in digital even after the ad is placed based on your marketing goals

  • Traditional marketing caters to the audience of specific geographical locations which means the reach is local or limited. While digital marketing uses the power of the internet, the products and services are promoted area-wise, region-wise, district-wise, state-wise, nation wise and even internationally.

  • Traditional marketing will take time to show end results and need rigorous marketing practices; however, digital marketing shows quick and real-time results with fewer marketing practices.

  • If you want you can skip or avoid the ads if found a nuisance; however, in traditional clients have to watch them or listen.

  • The traditional marketing concept has a one-way form of communication where companies spread information about their product or services. In digital marketing, is a two-way form of communication, where ads placed in the firm give information and customer feedback that will help them improve product or service or give better UI (user experience)

Modes Of Traditional Marketing

  • Print Marketing – It includes newspapers, magazines, journals, pamphlets, insertions, etc. that offer daily news, classified, etc. that earns revenue through promotions and local advertisements.

  • Outdoor Marketing - Billboards and Hoardings are the two ways of home marketing that play an important role in influencing consumers across the globe.

  • One-On-One – It’s telecalling or SMS marketing, which involves promoting products or services to the clients via telephone or SMS.

  • Direct Mail – Companies send advertisement material to the consumer through the post. It includes brochures, postcards, catalogs, flyers, newsletters, and sales letters.

  • Referral – Also, termed as ‘word of mouth' marketing it depends on the consumers to convey information related to the products or services.

Modes Of Digital Marketing
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – The process is to optimize your website in such a way that it ranks at top spots in the search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google, Bing, etc. Definitely securing the top spot will guarantee more organic traffic on the website.
Content Marketing – It is to develop, publish and promote content for the targeted group, so as to create brand awareness, increase traffic, generate leads, etc.
Inbound Marketing - The process of helping clients to find your company through social media posts, branding, content marketing, etc. The aim is to attract, convert, delight customers, and close.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) - You will promote your brand over social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, etc. It helps in creating brand awareness, drawing traffic, and generating leads.
Pay Per Click (PPC) - It is an advertising model used to drive traffic to the website. Under PPC the advertiser pays the publisher the same money, every single time when the advertiser company's ad is clicked. Search and Display AD forms are often seen in the search results pages of Google & Bing.
Affiliate Marketing - You promote other company's offerings on your website and in return you earn a part of the profit, for each sales conversion.
Native Advertising – A form of advertisement that resembles the type and function of the media upon which the ad appears. Most customers are unable to identify that it is an ad since it appears like a post. Sponsored Ads' on Facebook or Instagram are a common example of such ads.
Marketing Automation - It’s software designed to perform marketing functions in an efficient way on various platforms & automate repetitive tasks such as mail, SMS, etc.
Email Marketing – You send emails to a targeted audience about discounts, events, new products, offers, etc., and direct the audience to the company's website.
Online PR – This involves the public relations activities of the marketers using online platforms like social media, blogs, websites, etc.
Hope you are now clear with modes of digital marketing and plan a good strategy for brand products or services.

[Benefits of Content Marketing - It answers your audience's questions and helps you build trust, develop relationships, improve conversions, and generate leads. Check our Online Content Marketing Course under Digital Marketing Courses]
On A Concluding Note –
On an ending note, we can say that digital marketing has evolved a lot in recent times and it has gained it’s popularity over traditional marketing due to varied advantages such as cost-effectiveness, reach, customer engagement, etc. However, an organization can make optimum use of both of them to develop strong bonding with a potential audience, convert them into leads and retain them as valued customers forever!
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