Digital Marketing | Traditional Marketing | Digital Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing
Digital Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing
The debate on digital marketing and traditional marketing, that which is better is still going on and will continue to happen. But, in these debates and arguments, some questions related to digital marketing and traditional marketing arises. Is digital marketing being a modern version of digital marketing? Which is better, digital marketing or traditional marketing? Which marketing strategies are mostly preferred by the companies?
To know the answer of these questions, we must
understand how traditional marketing and digital marketing are different from
each other. And before understanding traditional marketing & digital
marketing, let us once see what is marketing?
According to Philip Kotler, an American Marketing Expert,
says “Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups
obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and
value with each other’s”. Philip Kotler is considered as the “father of
marketing”, born in Chicago. He is the author of many different books apart
from marketing management. Philip holds 12 honorary Ph.D. degrees from
different universities and a Master degree in Economics from Massachusetts
Institutes.
Marketing can also be defined as “the process of
advertising, promoting, selling a product, service, business or brand to increase
the demand and value of a particular product, services, business, or brand”.
Marketing includes segmentation of customer into different groups according to
their needs, market research, target customers and market, different
promotional tactics, monitoring and evaluation to analyze how promotional
tactics is working, a proper market plan.
Traditional Marketing
Traditional marketing is basically the marketing of
products and services by using platforms and channels that involve one-way
communication tool, instead of two-way flow. Traditional marketing includes prints,
broadcast, billboards, telephones, direct mails, face-to-face marketing. Traditional
marketing was the only form of marketing until the invention of internet in
1990.
In the era of digitalization, traditional marketing is
still very much effective, depending upon the type of business and target
audience. The marketing strategy might have changed over the years, but the
basic foundation remains the same. The marketing techniques we use today, all
came from traditional methods and still depends upon four basic P’s i.e.,
product, price, place and promotion. As a marketer if you want to reach local
audiences, traditional marketing method is way better option than digital marketing.
Today also our grandparents, parents read newspaper every morning for daily
news and advertisements, posters on road, we can see billboards near over
bridge and highways, when we watch cricket match advertisement is show after
every over, all these comes under traditional marketing and that exists.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the process of marketing through
internet and digital based technologies, such as computer, laptop, mobile
phones by using different digital media and platforms to advertise product,
services, business or brand.
Philip Kotler says – “Digital Marketing is a set of
activities that a company or person runs on internet in order to attract new business
and develop a brand entity”.
According to Digital Marketing Institute, “digital
marketing is the use of digital channels to promote or market products and
services to target consumers and businesses”.
How Digital Marketing is different to that of
Traditional Marketing
We can differentiate digital marketing and traditional
on the basis of various aspects. Let’s discuss some of the major differences in
digital marketing and traditional marketing. Some of the main differences are
as follows:
Marketing Approach
Traditional marketing is more inclined towards
personal approach which includes person-to-person or face-to-face relationship
with the consumer and can reach out customers locally and easily. While in
digital marketing, physical presence of marketer is not necessary as all the
marketing process is done through internet and this allows the marketer to
reach as many customers as possible.
Ease of Access
The access and understanding of ads are very easy in
traditional marketing method as compared to digital marketing method. Ads in
newspaper, magazines, posters, television, radio, billboards are easily
accessible and understandable by any person young-old, educated-uneducated,
male-female, etc. But in digital marketing, a person should have some knowledge
about digital channels and must have a little awareness about digital ads.
Targeting Audience
Through digital marketing it is very easy to target an
audience of any category and ads can be shown only to that particular category
of people. Suppose there is an ad of “sports shoes for men”, then a marketer
can restrict this ad only to men any particular age, region, community or
suppose there is an ad of “sandals for women”, this ad can be only restricted
to women of any particular age group, region, etc. While in traditional
marketing, the advertisement can be seen by all the people, it cannot be
specifically targeted to a particular section of the people.
Monitor Campaign Performance
In traditional marketing, to know how a marketing
campaign is going on you need to interaction with consumers, retailers,
dealers, need to closely analyze the sales, a more complicated process as
compared to digital marketing. In digital marketing, you can very easily know
how many people have seen the advertisement, how many people have shown
interest in that ad, a marketer can easily analyze what is working and what is not
working in an advertisement.
Interaction with consumers
In digital marketing, there is a limited interaction
between the customer and the platform used for marketing. Whereas the
traditional marketing is a one-way flow where companies provide or broadcast
their product or services to the targeted audience directly. This allows the
companies to get a chance to obtain face-to-face feedback directly from the
customers.
High Cost
Traditional marketing i.e., advertising on newspaper, posters
on road and streets, billboard, air-time on one of the TV stations or local
radio stations, etc. is way more expensive
than posting an advertisement on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. Sometimes the
high investing cost might not give the returns a marketer desires. Digital
marketing allows a marketer to perform various campaigns at the same time and
on a budget way less than that in traditional marketing. Digital marketing doesn’t
require any kind of man management cost. A digital marketer can evaluate and edit
their advertisement budget at any time.
Return On Investment
Digital marketing is any day a best option for
marketing, if we talk about Return on Investment (ROI). Digital marketing has
way more ROI than traditional marketing. As online marketing provides many
options, such as for various social media platforms to advertise, various
analytical and measuring tools at a very minimum and desired cost.
Post a Comment