ARTICLE

Julie Cave CATEGORIES

14 July 2016

Share:

Digital Marketing Vs.

Traditional Marketing:
Which One Is Better?
What's the difference between digital marketing
and traditional marketing, and why does it matter?
The answers may surprise you.

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the

best experience on our website. Learn more

Got it!

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
Fyers 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.

Bene@ts 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 Fyers 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.

Neuroscience seems to support the beneKts of

hard copy marketing. A study sponsored
by Canada Post and performed by Canadian neuro-
marketing Krm TrueImpact compared the effects of
paper marketing (direct mail pieces, in this case)
with digital media (email and display ads).

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).

Direct mail was easier to process mentally and

tested better for brand recall. According to the
report,

Direct mail requires 21% less cognitive effort to

process than digital media (5.15 vs. 6.37),
suggesting that it is both easier to understand and
more memorable. Post-exposure memory tests
validated what the cognitive load test revealed
about direct mail’s memory encoding capabilities.
When asked to cite the brand (company name) of an
advertisement they had just seen, recall was 70%
higher among participants who were exposed to a
direct mail piece (75%) than a digital ad (44%).

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?

Bene@ts of Digital Marketing

You can target a local audience, but also an

international one. Further, you can tailor a
campaign to speciKc 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. Most people hate receiving
sales Fyers in their mailbox or phone calls at
inconvenient times on stuff that they have little
interest in. Online people get the choice to opt in or
out of communications and often it is relevant
because they were the ones searching for it in the
Krst place. Don’t underestimate the power of
market segmentation and tailored marketing.

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. You can encourage
your prospects, clients and followers to take action,
visit your website, read about your products and
services, rate them, buy them and provide feedback
which is visible to your market.

Digital marketing is cost-eLcient. 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. Unlike traditional marketing
methods, you can see in real time what is or is not
working for your business online and you can
adapt very quickly to improve your results.

Level playing @eld: Any business can compete

with any competitor regardless of size with a solid
digital marketing strategy. Traditionally a smaller
retailer would struggle to match the Knesse of the
Kxtures and Kttings of its larger competitors.
Online, a crisp well thought out site with a smooth
customer journey and fantastic service is king –
not size.

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
signiKcant value and lead generation
opportunities. The same can be said for utilising
social media channels and personalised email
marketing.

Viral: how often do your sales Fyers get passed

around instantly by your customers and
prospects? Online, using social media share
buttons on your website, email and social media
channels enables your message to be shared
incredibly quickly. If you consider the average
Facebook user has 190 friends of which an
average of 12% see their liked posts – your one
message has actually been seen by 15 new
prospects. Now imagine a number of them also
like and share your message and their friends do
the same? That's why high-quality content is so
important.

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.

A 2009 study conducted by Bangor University and

branding agency Millward Brown also used fMRI to
study the different effects of paper and digital
media.

Some of their key conclusions were:

Physical material is more “real” to the brain. It

has a meaning, and a place. It is better
connected to memory because it engages with
its spatial memory networks.
Physical material involves more emotional
processing, which is important for memory and
brand associations.
Physical materials produced more brain
responses connected with internal feelings,
suggesting greater “internalization” of the ads.

How We Use Both Digital & Traditional

Marketing
Our traditional marketing methods support our
digital marketing efforts. The two do not operate in
exclusion from each other. But we only use hard
copy marketing materials to further strengthen a
relationship with a contact, referral partner or
client. We don't invest in television or radio ads, for
example, but we will give brochures to someone
who is interested in our services.

Rather than taking an all or nothing approach, it

appears that a multi-channel approach that
leverages the unique beneKts of paper with the
convenience and accessibility of digital will
perform best.

RECOMMENDED REPORTS

Modeling ROI for Personalization

Commerce - Its Always Personal

The ultimate omnichannel

implementation guide

From Disrupting Experiences To

Disrupting Markets: A Practical Model

Your eCommerce Re-platforming

Journey 2018

Share:
21 Comments

ram bachenei

9 days ago

I simply wanted to write down a quick word to

say thanks to you. For those wonderful tips and
hints you are showing on this site by this i have
got to know difference between digital
marketing and traditional marketing and i have
started digital marketing services and i have
read similar blogs regarding this once go
through it http://www.e-
techconnectivity.com/traditional-marketing-vs-
digital-marketing/ .

robert hudson

19 days ago

Thanks for giving the detailed analysis and

conclusion on digital marketing vs conventional
marketing. Today an entrepreneur must know
the importance of digital marketing as its more
effective and cheap. i was reading through
different articles and found yours. Must say a
great piece of work. I read an other article
similars to yours. Link is below and do give it a
try as its very descriptive and written by a great
blogger.
<a
href="http://bizblog.cosmobc.com/2019/02/13/digita
marketing-supersedes-conventional-marketing-
practices-present-world/"> Digital Marketing vs
Conventional Marketing </a>

Max Payne

19 days ago

Interesting article!
That's a no brainer that digital marketing
overwhelms conventional marketing on majority
of the aspects. But we need to understand that
people are still living on a stone age without any
exposure to digital media. They seem to stay off-
key. Plus they live in certain social settings that
makes them hard to rely on the word from
INTERNET. Moreover people are also scared of
the internet fraud and wouldn't wanna make
anysort of transaction online. I've read another
article which covers the same aspects:<a
href="http://bizblog.cosmobc.com/2019/02/13/digita
marketing-supersedes-conventional-marketing-
practices-present-world/"> Digital Marketing vs
Conventional Marketing </a>

sai latha

5 months ago

The comparison is really great a good blog with

a lot of information on Digital Marketing
services, advantages, and future scope. I was
impressed by your way of approach showing
India's potential to become more digital in the
future. This will deKnitely help the coming
generations to start their digital journey and
provide Digital Marketing Services in Hyderabad.
visit us : https://boxKnity.com/services.php

Geetika Bansal

5 months ago

Nice Comparison,
All things are best. Nicely describe.

tuhin banerjee

6 months ago

https://www.linkedin.com/in/fashionapplets/detail/rec
activity/shares/
Remarketing

We are in a market even when we stay at the

home. We do remarket when we use a product
or service&even think after a satisfying feel.
The act of recommendations happens when the
quality meets the niche, special choices every
time. The quality of a content feature has
different dynamics of satisfaction. The term
remarketing does not necessarily mean the
reuse of the product, it does mean the inFuence
of the total process, channel, medium,
advertisement&the point of purchase. The
researchers study the moments in the product
usage segment&try to position the content of
product &services. Remarketing also happens
when the product development,
marketing&support team plans the value-added
service's campaign&respond to the immediate
queries of the new &existing customer. The
consumer durable support team is aware of the
scenarios that may cause the customer call to
the company and hence they are with the
digital&real-time answers to the customer query.
The live workshops with the users&new potential
customers have gained momentum with the
usage of internet promotional videos that
demonstrates the use and replacement of a
product& its availability channels. The exciting
offers to upgrade gadget have gained with the
option for lifestyle advancements.

Jonny Seo

6 months ago

Thanks for giving us this kind of information.

When you work digitally you can use different
social media platforms to promote your
business takes and interact directly with your
customers and built a more trustworthy
relationship that was not possible in a traditional
one.

liam jason

9 months ago

Modernized Marketing gives a particularly

centered around approach when diverged from
conventional advancing. Automated advancing
endeavors are practical when diverged from
conventional displaying. Standard advancing
gives a prevalent reach in rural locales and can
be used to target more settled ages. Customary
publicizing frameworks are more trusted as said
in the blog above. In Short, you can not leave any
of the techniques. The best approach is to use
them two out of a Kgured mix. Notwithstanding, I
would include based my experience that now we
ought to consider an Omni-channel approach as
opposed to a multi-channel one. A debt of
gratitude is in order for the includes they are on
the whole exceptionally fascinating.
Check this article out
https://www.sociosquares.com/blog/10-digital-
marketing-trends-to-adapt-in-2016/

Mahedi Hasan

10 months ago

Hi,
Very effective article for understanding different
between Traditional and Digital Marketing.
Many thanks for this valuable post.

Mahedi Hasan
www.picbuz.com

indrajeet Wisdom

10 months ago

As you know, businesses of all sizes right from

McDonald’s and Coca-Cola down to your local
hardware store are trying to get a presence on
social media sites such as Facebook and
Twitter. Think of how many ‘Fan pages’ and
advertisements you have seen on Facebook
recently for businesses in your local area.

It’s a big thing right now and it’s making people

just like you a lot of money.

https://clicktrix.com?david7214

Jennifer John

10 months ago

Thanks a lot very much for the high quality and

results-oriented help. I won’t think twice to
endorse your blog post to anybody who wants
and needs support about this area.
Digital Marketing Training in Chennai:
https://www.besanttechnologies.com/training-
courses/other-training-courses/digital-
marketing-training-institute-in-chennai

Clara Robins

10 months ago

Computerized Marketing gives an exceptionally

focused on approach when contrasted with
traditional promoting. Computerized promoting
efforts are economical when contrasted with
traditional showcasing. Customary promoting
gives a superior reach in rustic regions and can
be utilized to target more established ages.
Traditional advertising systems are more trusted
as said in the blog above. In Short, you can not
leave any of the strategies. The best
methodology is to utilize them two out of a
Kgured blend. Refer
http://themarketerscreed.com/digital-v-s-
traditional/ for a detailed explanation.

Nyoka Reid

11 months ago

Thanks for the info, it was very informative. I

appreciate good content, and I do believe in the
power of online marketing, which is deKnitely
cost effective. Using the both methods is double
the power.

kishan soni

about a year ago

this article is something that I was looking for,

thanks for sharing such a helpful article.
you can also visit my site
http://yourdigitalbuddy.in

GAURAV SARASWAT

about a year ago

I am pursuing Digital Marketing course.

I agree with these meaningful lines... Physical
materials are more “real” to the brain.

Deepak Bhardwaj

2 years ago

very nice article, i really enjoyed this, And I agree

off course <a
href="http://adFairmedia.com/how-internet-
marketing-is-more-powerful-and-effective-than-
the-traditional-marketing/">internet marketing
has some signiKcant advantages over traditional
media</a>. However both type of marketing has
their own target audience and importance.
Internet marketing is cost effective because of
its targeting features and Business Analytic
about Internet Marketing Campaign.