TRADITIONAL VS. DIGITAL MARKETING: WHICH IS BEST FOR YOUR COMPANY?

Utilizing digital and traditional marketing channels is essential today to reach consumers. For many businesses, traditional marketing is still useful for reaching your audience and is going to be beneficial to the bottom line. That being the case, most, if not all of businesses can benefit from digital marketing in one form or another. Finding the right combination of marketing tactics from both traditional and digital marketing for your business is key.

 

traditional vs digital marketingTraditional marketing is made up of four broad categories:

  • Print Marketing
  • Broadcast
  • Direct Mail
  • Telemarketing

 

Print Marketing: When consumers think of print marketing, they typically think of magazines and newspapers. Broadly, print falls under anything advertised using paper form and used for distribution.

Broadcast Marketing: This includes television and radio commercials. If you have been to the movies in the last several years, then you know movie theaters have joined this avenue of marketing to their captive audience.

Direct Mail: From fliers to postcards, and brochures to letters, direct mail has been around longer than any other type of marketing. With a wide variety to choose from, direct mail is a cost effective way to reach many consumers.

Telemarketing: Telemarketing could possibly be the least favorite type of traditional marketing. This includes requested calling and cold calling of consumers over the phone in order to make a sale.

WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?

Digital marketing is marketing that uses an electronic device to advertise to the consumer. These electronic devices include computers, smart phones, tablets and more. Websites, emails, apps, and social networks make up the majority of platforms used to advertise.

Digital Marketing is made up of many categories:

  • Email Marketing
  • Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
  • Social Media
  • Mobile Marketing

 

Email Marketing: Every email sent to a potential or current customer can be considered email marketing. From information to discounts, email marketing allows business owners to personalize their information making it relevant and timely.

SEM: Search Engine Marketing includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC), paid inclusion and other search-engine related services that increase traffic to your website. SEO ensures your website is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine. PPC helps direct traffic to websites; usually based on keywords. Paid inclusion is when a company pays a fee to a search engine guaranteeing the website will be displayed in the search results for specifically named search terms/phrases.

Social Media: Allows businesses to manage their brands’ image, market their product and funnel traffic to their website through social channels from Facebook to Pinterest. The goal of social media marketing is to produce relevant content that users will share with their social network helping your company increase brand exposure while broadening customer reach.

Mobile Marketing: Allows companies to send relevant and timely advertising to consumers via text messaging. Text ads are usually opt-in and users can opt out at any time. This increases this type of advertisings value; business owners know their ad is getting acknowledged at the very least.