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‘Marketing’ this is the most important term involved in business management practices, and an important factor for all businesses. To put it simply, Marketing is a process which includes activities which any company undertakes so as to create, communicate, promote, deliver, and exchange products or services which have some value for the customers, clients, other businesses, etc. 

Marketing has been the constant in the business world since ages and will remain so. The only variable here is the medium which businesses utilize to promote and communicate their products/services. 

Previously marketing was done using various print medium such as newspapers, magazines, posters, billboards; broadcasting medium such as Radio, TV; Telemarketing medium such as text messages, phone; Direct Mail medium such as catalogues; etc. These mediums are all included in the Traditional Marketing Services.

Traditional Marketing channels evolved with the introduction of computers in 1980’s and internet in the 1990’s. With the entry of internet, a clear shift could be seen in the pattern of the marketing channels used.

Thereby, various digital technology such as Personal Computers, laptops, mobile phones, tablets; and other digital medium and platform such as Website, Email, Pay Per Click, Social media, Content marketing affiliate marketing, Search Engine Marketing, etc. These mediums are all included in the Digital Marketing Services. 

With the influence of Digital Media spreading like wildfire, you might think that traditional marketing has lost its hold, so then why the need of this debate about Digital Marketing vs Traditional Marketing? 

While it is true that most businesses are opting for Digital Marketing and more than half of the global population is using the Digital Platform; we cannot ignore the fact that there are consumers out there who are not using the Digital Platforms. As a business, if your target audience are people who don’t use Digital media, you have to use Traditional Marketing. 

To make it easy to determine between Digital and Traditional marketing, below is a listing of the differences between these two different mediums of marketing. You can carefully weigh the pros and cons of both, and form your marketing strategy accordingly.

Digital Marketing vs Traditional Marketing

Traditional Marketing:

⇒A TV or radio commercial, a bus wrap, a poster, etc. are a part of people’s daily routine. There is continuous impact of these marketing medium on the daily lives of customers. Also, they are rather easy to understand. 

⇒If people are travelling to office and A printed poster near a bus stop, or a bus wrap are on their way. people are going to see them while going and coming back. These advertisements are there to stay for a longer period of time.

⇒If you see a TV commercial or hear a radio one, which is unique and able to catch your attention, it’s going to stick in your mind much more as when compared to a small advertisement you saw while you were scrolling through your instagram feed.

⇒As traditional marketing is on much larger scale, undoubtedly it is expensive too. I mean, getting a advertisement slot in a magazine or newspaper, printing posters, creating commercials for TV and Radio, all this takes much efforts and money.

⇒While the cost for traditional marketing is much more, it is rather difficult to gauge how much profit a TV or Radio commercial, or a poster, or a Newspaper ad is getting you. Measuring the performance of all these medium is difficult and time consuming.

⇒And if you can’t determine if your specific commercial or advertisement is performing well, further improvement can’t be immediately made.

⇒One of the perhaps most big drawback of traditional marketing is that it is unable to directly connect with the consumer. A business cannot directly interact with the user using the traditional marketing channel.

⇒Traditional marketing is a rather one-way communication of your products and services.

Digital Marketing:

⇒Digital Marketing is a larger platform having a larger reach and is able to get to people all over the globe. While traditional marketing is limited to a region, digital marketing enables to reach out to audiences in all regions.

⇒Also, when it comes to digital marketing, it is rather cheap. You can create a business profile on social media platforms for free and then posting your ads there costs you not much. 

⇒Also, Google analytics tool enables businesses to analyse their digital marketing strategies. Thus, businesses can immediately gauge if their specific campaign is getting Return on Investment or not. They can analyse how many people are viewing the ads, how many are engaging with them, how many of those engaged are buying, etc.

⇒While, digital marketing enables businesses for a longer reach out, people many a times find them rather annoying. 

⇒Also, the digital media is constantly changing, thus you need to keep up with them, and keep on changing your marketing approach. This doesn’t seem the case with traditional marketing.

What you need to understand when considering Digital Marketing vs Traditional Marketing is that both have their inherent differences. But, there is no war going on here that you need to make a choice between either one. Rather, they are complementing each other, and you need to make use of both the mediums at the right times in right amounts and reach the right audience.