Digital Marketing Vs. Traditional Marketing: Which One Is Better?

                      Digital Marketing Vs. Traditional Marketing

What's the difference between digital marketing and traditional marketing, and why does it matter? The answers may surprise you.

Many small businesses struggle with deciding which kind of marketing to do, because their budget will only stretch to one or the other, not both. The decisions that must be made are not easy: which method of marketing will give me the most bang for my buck? How do I know if my marketing is working? Who should I trust with my marketing? Should I do it myself? The answers may surprise you.
To clarify the terms, the use of print ads on newspapers and magazines is a simple example of traditional marketing. Other examples include flyers that are put in mailboxes, commercials both on TV and radio and billboards. On the other hand, when a business invests on building a website, advertising the brand name through different social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, this kind strategy is called digital marketing. 

Benefits of Traditional Marketing

You can easily reach your target local audience. For example, a radio ad might play in one location: your city or region. Or mailbox flyers will go to households in a select number of suburbs.
The materials can be kept. The audience can have a hard copy of materials of which they can read or browse through over and over again.
It's easy to understand. It can be easily understood by most people because they are already exposed to this kind of strategy.
The technologies used in this study were eye-tracking and high resolution EEG brain wave measurement. The three key metrics evaluated in the study were cognitive load (ease of understanding), motivation (persuasiveness), and attention (how long subjects looked at the content). 

The Downside to Traditional Marketing 

There is very little interaction between the medium used and the customers. It is more of providing information to the public that the brand exists with the hope of these people patronizing the brand.
Print or radio advertisements can be very costly. Printing materials can be expensive and you need to hire people to distribute these.
Results on this marketing strategy cannot easily be measured. Was the campaign successful? 

Benefits of Digital Marketing 

You can target a local audience, but also an international one. Further, you can tailor a campaign to specific audience demographics, such as gender, location, age and interests. This means your campaign will be more effective.
Your audience can choose how they want to receive your content. While one person likes to read a blog post, another person likes to watch a YouTube video. Traditional marketing doesn't give the audience a choice.
Interaction with your audience is possible with the use of social media networks. In fact, interaction is encouraged. Traditional marketing methods don't allow for audience interaction.
Digital marketing is cost-efficient. Though some invest on paid ads online; however, the cost is still cheaper compared to traditional marketing.
Data and results are easily recorded. With Google Analytics and the insights tools offered by most social media channels, you can check on your campaigns at any time. 
Level playing field:  Any business can compete with any competitor regardless of size with a solid digital marketing strategy.
Real time results: you don’t have to wait weeks for a boost to your business like you would have to waiting for a fax or form to be returned.  You can see the numbers of visitors to your site and its subscribers increase, peak trading times, conversion rates and much more at the touch of a button.
Brand Development: A well maintained website with quality content targeting the needs and adding value to your target audience can provide significant value and lead generation opportunities. 
So which kind of marketing is better?
Well, we would recommend both. Obviously, we are passionate about digital marketing, because we know that it works. But we do use traditional marketing materials, too.