Traditional marketing is said to come into existence back in the 19th century. Earlier, marketing was limited just to print like newspapers, magazines, flyers, brochures, and other forms of written ads. Then, radio and television came into existence in the 1950s. 

Marketing has evolved completely in the last few years. From printed ads to digital ads on the internet, marketing has taken a new form. The old ways of marketing are called traditional marketing whereas the latest forms of marketing are called digital marketing. 

Here, we will discuss in detail about traditional marketing vs digital marketing. By the end of this blog, you’ll be able to decide between traditional and digital marketing or if you should opt for both. 

Webmaxy can help you switch from traditional marketing to digital marketing. Learn which are the best marketing channels for your business through their conversion and revenue contribution.

What is traditional marketing? 

Traditional marketing definition: Traditional marketing includes all the marketing channels that are offline. It is the use of offline media to reach the target audience. Traditional marketing includes newspapers, billboards, pamphlets, flyers, print ads, radio ads, TV ads, etc. These methods were prominent in the 19th century when the internet was not easily accessible. 

Traditional marketing was an outcome of the advertising boom of the 1950s. This happened as marketing channels like radio and television were becoming popular. Television offered advertisers a wide scope to reach their target audience. This was also a revolution in the traditional advertising industry.  

What is traditional advertising?

The use of traditional marketing mediums like newspapers, print ads, radio ads, and TV for promotional marketing is called traditional advertising. Traditional advertising can help you reach a large audience but not a defined audience. For example, you advertise on television for promoting a kid’s toy but you can’t be sure who’ll be watching television when your advertisement runs. 

Traditional marketing examples 

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In this section, we will give you different examples of traditional marketing. These modes of marketing were used intensively in the early times to reach an audience.

  • Print media: It includes newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, brochures, journals, insertions, etc. They were used to increase awareness and provide contact details about a business to people.
  • Outdoor marketing: This includes billboards and hoardings that we see outside, on the streets and market. They are quite influential as when people see them again and again it creates a brand image.
  • One-On-One: It includes Tele-calling and SMS marketing. In this traditional marketing, potential customers are given a call to promote products or services.
  • Direct mail: These are the brochures, newsletters, or sales letters that we receive at our house door.
  • Word of mouth: This traditional marketing happens when a customer refers your products or services to their friends, colleagues, or family.

Traditional marketing advantages 

Traditional marketing has existed for centuries due to the benefits it provides. Now, we will discuss some of the major benefits of traditional marketing.

  • Easy connectivity: Advertisements can be put on newspaper and television channels that are related to the geographical area you want to target.
  • Stored: The physical ad copies can be stored easily. People can keep them and refer to the product features, price, and contact details, whenever they want. They can also share these copies with their friends and family.
  • Expanded reach: Traditional marketing channels like television and radio have a wide reach. They can reach millions of people at the same time in just one go. Print ads can even reach those areas where there’s a lack of internet accessibility.
  • Familiarity: People are quite familiar with traditional marketing methods. Since print and television ads have been in existence for a long time. They easily understand and recognize it.

Disadvantages of traditional marketing 

Traditional marketing has been quite successful in the early times. However, with technological advancement, traditional marketing has lost its prominence. Digital marketing has become its major competitor. 

There are several other reasons that have led to the downfall of traditional marketing. One major reason is the expensive advertising space. The advertising cost for television and radio is quite high. Most businesses can’t afford these expenses just for advertising. 

In traditional marketing, it’s difficult to measure the results. When you run a television ad, there’s no guarantee that your target audience sees it. A television might be turned on but no one might be watching it. There’s no definite way to measure the results achieved through television. 

Traditional marketing campaigns take longer to execute than digital marketing campaigns. For advertisements to appear on television, they need to be approved by the censor board and government authorities. This legal procedure takes a longer time and causes delays in traditional marketing campaigns. 

What is digital marketing? 

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Digital marketing is any type of marketing that is done through online platforms such as social media ads, PPC advertising, email marketing, etc. Digital marketing has become essential for businesses more than ever now. It is empowered by the tech revolution and the easy accessibility of the Internet. 

Importance of digital marketing 

Digital marketing is the preferred choice of marketers these days. There are many reasons why digital marketing is being used by brands in every sector.

  • Cost-effective: Digital marketing is cost-effective and can be used by startups to well-established brands. You can get better results by investing in digital marketing channels.
  • Reach: With the advent of the internet it has become easier for brands to reach a large audience. Nowadays, almost every person uses the Internet for gaining knowledge, entertainment, or other purposes. Brands can use digital marketing to reach the smartphones and devices of customers.
  • Equal opportunity: Digital marketing offers a fair opportunity to all brands for attracting their target audience. For example, in search engine marketing, only the ads with high relevance and bid get the top place on the search engine results page.
  • Higher conversions: Digital marketing channels enable you to directly convert prospects into customers. People can directly make a purchase by completing the payment through the website or app.
  • Increase revenue: Digital marketing can help you engage with customers effectively. You can increase brand awareness, drive new customers, and generate higher revenue.
  • Better ROI: With digital marketing, you can get high profits with low investment. For example, in search ads, you just need to pay for the clicks that you get on your ad.

Types of digital marketing 

In this section, we will tell you about the different types of digital marketing. Have a look at them to understand which one can work best for you.

  • Content marketing: It is the practice of creating creative, informative, and educational content to distribute and reach your target audience. The purpose is to bring new customers and engage with them.
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing content to drive traffic to the website. It is done by adding relevant keywords and backlinking the website to reliable sources.
  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Search engine marketing means using paid ads to appear in the top results of the search page. You need to bid on the right keywords so as to appear in the search query of your target audience.
  • Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC): These are the types of ads in which you pay for the clicks on the ad.
  • Social media marketing: Social media marketing is the process of using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to reach your target audience and build relationships with them.
  • Affiliate marketing: In this type of digital marketing, brands collaborate with individuals or businesses to help them drive traffic and boost sales. Every time a customer purchases through affiliates, they receive a commission for it.
  • Email marketing: Email marketing focuses on sending emails to prospective or existing customers to increase engagement and drive sales.
  • SMS marketing: It involves sending text messages to existing customers to increase repeat purchases.

Digital marketing advantages

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Both traditional vs digital marketing have their pros and cons. Earlier, in this blog, we discussed traditional marketing advantages and disadvantages. Here, we will talk about digital marketing advantages.  

  • Understand customers better: Digital marketing helps you get more insights about your customers. You can know and understand how they perceive and think about your brand. With their positive feedback, you can know that you’re making the right efforts.
  • Easy targeting: You can use digital ads to focus on your target customers. You can be specific with your targeting by using filters like age, gender, profession, income, geographic location, etc.
  • Measurable results: Digital marketing analytics tools can help you know the success of your different campaigns. You can use Webmaxy eGrowth to find out the conversions and revenue you’re generating from different marketing campaigns.

Digital marketing disadvantages 

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Every marketing approach has its benefits and drawbacks. Now, we will tell you about the disadvantages of digital marketing.

  • Annoying: Digital marketing can be annoying for customers. For example, a website visitor is reading a blog and an ad pop-up appears. You are watching a tutorial on Youtube and suddenly a 5-sec ad comes.
  • Less permanent: Digital marketing ads like Google ads, banners, and social media ads are less temporary. You can’t store them as they’re intangible in nature. Once you switch your screen, you won’t be able to find them again.
  • Evolving: Digital marketing world is constantly evolving with new technology and trends coming. Each digital marketing channel is different and requires you to have distinct people.

Traditional marketing vs digital marketing 

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Traditional marketing was quite popular for decades before the advent of the Internet. As soon as the Internet came, it presented new opportunities for advertisers to reach their target audience. 

During the early days of digital marketing, banner ads were used. These ads appeared within the layout of a website. As time passed, these ads were placed in the center of the news content. Later, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram gained popularity among people.

Youtube started getting around a million of views. This widespread popularity of social media channels led to the rise of social media ads. Digital marketing became the umbrella term for different types of online marketing like search engine optimization, email marketing, social media marketing, etc.  

Below we have given a comparison table for digital marketing vs traditional marketing for your reference.

Categories Traditional marketing Digital marketing
Definition It refers to the promotion of products or services through TV, radio, magazines, pamphlets, flyers, hoardings, banner ads, etc. The use of online channels like search engines, social media platforms, and email marketing for reaching the target audience.
Cost Traditional marketing is expensive. Digital marketing is cost-effective.
Targeting It can’t be used to target specific customers. It can be used to target specific customers by setting audience filters in ads.
Brand building It’s not effective in brand building. It’s fast and efficient in building a brand.
Measure It’s difficult to measure the results attained from traditional marketing. Analytics tools can help to measure the results achieved through digital marketing.
Modes Traditional marketing channels TV, radio, print ads, hoardings, and banner ads. Digital marketing channels include Search Engine Optimization (SEO), PPC advertising, content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing.
Reach Traditional marketing has a local reach. Digital marketing has a global reach.
Communication One-way communication happens in traditional marketing. Two-way communication happens with digital marketing as the customers can also give feedback to brands.
ROI The return on investment can’t be measured accurately. Digital marketing enables you to calculate the ROI easily.
Alterations You cannot alter or edit the content once it’s released. You can make changes to your digital marketing campaigns even when they are running.

Why digital marketing over traditional marketing? 

For business owners and marketers, it’s important to choose the right marketing channels for their brands. To get the best out of your investment, you must evaluate and use the best marketing channels with higher reach. You should analyze on which marketing channels your target audience are available.

 For example, if you’ve a product for old-aged people then traditional marketing channels can be the best to reach out to them. The reason is the fact, they might be less tech-savvy. Customers who are not active on digital marketing platforms can be reached through traditional marketing. 

As per the statistics, traditional marketing accounts for the majority share of advertising revenue i.e. 56% while digital marketing makes up 46%. Also, for different marketing approaches, you need to see if you have a team available. 

Traditional marketing doesn’t require you to set up a team but for digital marketing efforts, you need a dedicated team. You can use both digital and traditional marketing together to achieve your business objectives. This practice is called integrated marketing. 

However, when you are using both traditional and digital marketing channels, make sure to keep your messaging consistent. So even when people come from traditional to digital marketing channels, they’re able to recognize your brand. Try to provide a connected customer experience. 

Digital vs traditional marketing: The conclusion 

Marketing has evolved in the last few years quite a lot. The new ways of marketing are very different than the earlier ways. The reason is the advent of new technologies and easy accessibility of the internet. Both digital marketing vs marketing has their pros and cons. The key is in understanding your marketing objectives and which marketing channels can help you achieve those. 

Find out which marketing channels are used by your target audience. Consider your budget and choose the marketing channels accordingly. Traditional marketing channels can be a good choice to target baby boomers and Gen X as these people mostly own televisions and buy newspapers.

But digital marketing channels can help you to target people of all ages. Nowadays, smartphones and internet devices are used by almost every individual. Therefore, you can use digital marketing to reach people of any age. To create a comprehensive marketing strategy, you can use both digital and traditional marketing. 

Webmaxy eGrowth is a powerful marketing enabler platform that can help you to track and measure the success of your marketing channels. You can analyze which marketing channels are delivering you results and make investments accordingly. eGrowth comes with a wide range of features such as a KPI dashboard, marketing insights, customer segmentation, marketing workflow, social campaigns, Whatsapp commerce, email marketing, customer loyalty, omnichannel support, and retargeting. 

Schedule a call with our experts to learn more about Webmaxy eGrowth, or email us at info@webmaxy.co. 

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Traditional marketing: FAQs

How digital marketing is different from traditional marketing?

Digital marketing is different than traditional marketing in many ways. Digital marketing gives quick results compared to traditional marketing. It is cost-effective compared to traditional marketing. You can measure the results of digital marketing efforts whereas you can’t do the same for traditional marketing.

What is traditional advertising?

Traditional advertising is the practice of using traditional marketing channels like Television, radio, print ads, magazines, brochures, and billboards to promote your products or services. Traditional advertising uses offline media to reach the target audience.

What are some traditional marketing methods?

Traditional marketing uses offline mediums to reach a large audience. Some of the popular traditional marketing methods are as follows: 

– Television 

– Newspaper 

– Radio 

– Billboards 

– Flyers

How effective is traditional marketing?

Traditional marketing is not specific in targeting but it allows you to tap into unexpected and new markets. You can target a large audience with traditional marketing. It helps to create brand awareness and establish credibility for a brand.

Which type of marketing should you use? Traditional or digital?

You can use both traditional and digital marketing together. However, digital marketing is more cost effective than traditional marketing. While creating a marketing strategy for your business, you should keep your budget and target audience in mind. Choose marketing platforms that are used by the maximum of your target audience.