Digital Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing: The Ability To Limit Advertising Spending by Targeting Your Audience And Relationship Building Contributes To Digital Marketing Beating Out Traditional Advertising.
Digital marketing has been around for almost three decades. According to SimpliLearn, the first clickable web-ad banner was in 1993, and from there digital marketing really took off. Search engines came soon after, starting in 1994. And social media platforms started appearing in 2002. As these digital marketing opportunities flourished, businesses were noticing the increase of their revenue. Let’s dig deeper into Digital Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing.
Traditional Marketing Is Good For Branding, But Does It Bring In Sales For Small Businesses?
Still, today, digital marketing is ideal for just about any business. While traditional marketing is still a thing – It’s not always the best option. To put things into perspective ..
When you see a commercial on the television, do you flip the channel? Do you fast forward or just miss commercials completely by watching Netflix?
How about when the radio station has advertisements and no music is playing? Do you listen to local radio anymore or are you listening to a streaming station or music you’ve downloaded to your phone?
And do you really pay attention to the billboards while you’re driving?
Traditional marketing has its place, especially when building brand recognition. But businesses whose goal is gaining leads or sales find their marketing budget is best spent in digital marketing.
Where Is Your Target Audience?
Jaw-dropping fact: Most of your audience is online. Sure, they drive by and may see your advertisements, and yes they may watch the commercials on the television but where is their main focus? On social media in their free time and on Google when they are researching a product/service or ready to buy. American adults spend more than 11 hours per day watching, reading, listening to or simply interacting with media, according to a new study by market-research group Nielsen.
When they see something catch their eye, they will stop and interact with that Facebook or Instagram post. Perhaps even, they heard that company’s radio or TV commercial that inspired them to engage further. And when it’s time to research and make a buying decision, they will be likely to click that Ad or Organic Search result that appears as they are browsing on a search engine.
How is Digital Marketing Different and Better?
The Ability To Target Your Ideal Audience
One of the best features of paid digital marketing is the ability to target your exact target audience. Traditional Marketing tends to be more expensive because it is blanketing a large audience. TV and radio ads cover anyone who tunes into the channel. Billboards cover anyone who drives down a specific road. Print generally gets mailed out to everyone who lives within a specific area.
With audiences, Pay Per Click ad networks like Google ads, Facebook ads or LinkedIn Marketing hold the ability to target exactly who you are looking for. You can target a persona by location down to the mile, Job Title, industry, interest, buying patterns, life events, relationship, parental status and more.
With these fine tuned targets, you are no longer wasting money by purchasing and ad to cover a large area. Your dollar is spent specifically on someone who is more likely to buy.
Relationship Building
Digital marketing allows you to personally engage and interact with your customers and potential customers. With traditional marketing, it’s all about being “too salesy”. Ultimately, you’re in it for the sale with traditional marketing.
Think about it – with traditional marketing, you’re sending flyers to people to get them into your store. You’re paying for television commercials that are basically saying, “buy this” without any real connection.
Game changer – With digital marketing, you can connect with your audience first and get the sale later. Marketing today is all about building relationships first. People buy from people and an experience, they don’t just buy a product or service.
Different Digital Marketing Techniques
There are several different digital marketing techniques to get you to connect and engage with your audience in a personal manner. Here are four:
Social Media Marketing
With social media marketing, you can get a decent exposure because that’s where your audience hangs out. For example, if you are selling to a consumer, Facebook is usually ideal. As of 2019, there are 2.38 billion monthly users who are active on the platform. If you are selling to businesses, LinkedIn may be a better option seeing as the platform has over 575 million members.
The key with social media marketing is to create posts your audience can relate with. For example, if you are selling pet items it would be beneficial to create fun pet facts, pet tips, and funny videos.
Limit your posts about your products or services. At Marketing Magnitude, we use an 80/20 rule. We create 80% of our social media content to spark interest in our fans by serving them content they want to see. Then, 20% of our social content talks about products or services. The idea is to keep your audience engaged so that when you do post one of your products or services, they don’t just keep scrolling as you will have already built that trust. Not to mention, the better the posts you create, they will share them and it creates even more exposure for your business.
Video Marketing
Video marketing is becoming more powerful. In fact, according to HubSpot, 62% of people were more interested in a product once they watched a product video on a Facebook story. Additionally, 4 in 5 consumers stated that they feel demo videos are helpful.
Getting creative with the video is key. You only have a short amount of time to keep your audience engaged and on your video. So make sure your videos are interesting and informative and you’re sure to see a great response.
Email Marketing
Email can be fun and helpful to your audience, and fundamental to your business success. According to the WBR Digital and emarsys report, Email marketing is the digital tactic that drives 81% of customer acquisition and 80% of customer retention.
The idea isn’t to just spam their inbox with your offers. Instead, it’s best to use email marketing to create a relationship. Provide them free tips and bonuses. Every so often you can email with a special offer.
Getting people on your email list is easier than you think, as long as you have something to offer that they want such as a free ebook, a PDF of tips they need, or a percentage off your product or service. With a B2B business, start communicating with people you meet at networking events or that you meet on LinkedIn. Use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to organize your communication and send them personalized messages in addition to email blasts.
Search Engine Marketing
This vital marketing technique allows a business to appear organically and use paid advertisements that appear on search engine results pages. Back to the pet business example again – Imagine your target customer is searching the internet for dog beds – Your website can be an option when they typed “dog bed” into Google. This can be done though Search Engine Optimization or Paid Ads.
Digital marketing provides several ways for businesses to attract new leads in lieu of or in addition to traditional marketing. With multiple options, there is something that will work for every business. When working with Marketing Magnitude, we can match you with the most ideal digital marketing strategy for your goals.
