A cohesive marketing strategy requires an understanding of the different types of promotion available to your organization. Understanding the difference between traditional marketing and digital marketing is vital to getting the most out of your marketing budget. Once you know this, you can evaluate the pros and cons of each, and create the right blend for your company.
What is the difference between Traditional and Digital marketing?
To start with the extraordinarily obvious, traditional and digital marketing use different mediums to achieve their objectives. Traditional marketing relies on pre-digital forms of media to interact with prospective customers. This includes TV ads, radio, magazines, posters, etc. Broadcasting ads over real-time content interrupts the content the user is consuming. Print ads, in the same way, take the space of other material.
Digital marketing, as the name suggests, takes a more tech-focused approach. This marketing strategy uses SEO, pay-per-click, web design and content, and social media to achieve its goals.
It is vital to understand right away that traditional marketing is not exclusively “old”. Traditional marketing is not being replaced by digital marketing, nor is it better or worse. They achieve different things, target different audiences, and require different skills.
Traditional marketing is also not against using technology to improve its effectiveness. When people hear “traditional versus digital marketing”, there is a tendency to think “old versus new”. A good billboard can be intriguing and cut through the advertisement-soaked noise of media environments. Most of us can remember a time on a drive a billboard made us laugh. If not, you have likely commented on one, pointed it out to a friend, or thought about it.
With this said, there are many important differences between digital and traditional marketing. Digital tends to encourage two-way interaction with the consumer. Traditional marketing tends to be more product-focused and detail-oriented. Digital marketing has more of an eye on the consumer’s interest first, product second.
Digital marketing analytics are much more rapidly and easily generated. Consumers can easily skip or scroll past digital ads or other content. Traditional marketing tends to simply exist in their target universe, making them harder for consumers to skip over, but harder to measure.
In summary, the difference between digital and traditional marketing is the mediums and methods used. It is vital to understand that one is not inherently better than the other. They are each strategy that may or may not be suitable for your use case. Exploring the benefits and drawbacks of each will help you determine what combination of the two is right for your marketing strategy.
Tools for Traditional and Digital Marketing Success
No matter the marketing strategy you use, there is software to help you be more achieve your marketing goals more effectively. Taking advantage of these tools will help you maximize the ROI of your marketing spend and generate more revenue.
One of the best software categories for digital marketing is marketing automation software. These platforms help you automate some of the more repetitive components of digital marketing. This can include email marketing and landing page creation. Along with these staples of digital marketing, this type of software helps with lead management. These features focus on identifying leads and helping you turn them into converting customers. Hubspot Marketing, Marketo, and ActiveCampaign are great examples of this type of software. Consider checking out this piece on free marketing automation software as well.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software also focuses on some of the fundamentals of digital marketing. With a strong emphasis on building positive, ongoing interactions, CRM software helps unify and improve the customer experience. Pipedrive, Hubspot CRM, and Salesforce are Top Rated products in this category.
Direct Mail Automation software performs a similar task for traditional marketing that email marketing software does for digital. As the name suggests, these tools are designed to automate the process of sending physical mail. This can include newsletters, brochures, and postcards. Sendoso is an example of one direct mail automation tool.
Ad serving & retargeting platforms help users manage ad programs and optimize their ad spend across channels. These allow for the placement of ads across digital channels like search results, marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, social media platforms, etc. . Many of these use prior behavior to give clues about customer behavior. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions is an example of this.
