Digital vs. Traditional Marketing: Why Digital Advertising Almost Always Wins

By Raubi Perilli

      Jun 13, 2018     Solutions    

Marketing used to revolve around newspaper ads, TV segments, radio promotions, and dozens of other traditional methods. But in the past 20 years, marketing has evolved in the Internet era. Digital marketing platforms related to online content, social media, display ads, search marketing, and more have taken over the advertising space.

Despite this progress, some companies want to stay in their comfort zones and stick with traditional advertising and marketing. They see traditional advertising as reliable and familiar, and they don’t see the immediate value of stepping into the digital world.

But, it’s time to enter the modern era. When you consider digital vs. traditional marketing, you can see that digital is the superior choice for your business.

Digital Marketing Connects With Modern Audiences

Whether you realize it or not, your target audience is online. Consider the data. There are 7.48 billion people in the world and:

It’s likely that your target audience is somewhere in there.  

Even when you break down Internet use by demographic, you find that nearly everyone is online today. In America, 89% of adults use the internet. This includes 66% of adults ages 65+ and 87% of adults ages 55-64. Similar statistics can be found when researching internet and smartphone use by gender, race, and economic makeup.  

Your audience is already on the web and actively using it each day. Why aren’t you meeting them where they are and connecting with them in a natural environment?

Digital Allows for Hyper-Targeting

One of the main benefits of digital vs. traditional marketing is that you can target audiences down to particular interests.

While you are limited in print advertising to whoever buys the paper or magazine and in broadcast media, to whoever listens to that radio station or watches that channel, you can select exactly who sees your ads with digital marketing.

For example, a few demographics that you can target with digital ads include:  

  • Gender, age, and marital status
  • Job occupation and employment status
  • Location down to the nearest zip code or even city block
  • Customers who have visited your store or website before
  • Audiences who have visited your competitors before
  • People who have already visited your website or social media profiles (through digital retargeting)

These are just a handful of options that you have with smart digital targeting. The goal is to put your message in front of the people who are most likely to respond to it and take action, rather than broadcasting your message to everyone around with traditional advertising.

Digital Marketing Provides In-Depth Analytics

Data is one of the main reasons businesses stick with digital advertising once they try it. Analytics tools provide insights into user behavior and how they interact with your brand.

For example, you might find that customers are more interested in certain pages than others. They might bounce from your About Us page and focus on your Services instead.

This information gives you insights into how you can improve your marketing efforts to grow your ROI with better results.  

Data and analytics also provide real-time information. You can use tools in Google Analytics to see the number of people who are on your website right now, how they got there, and what they are looking at. Even if you take a step back and look at performance over the past few days, you still get better, more up-to-date results than you would with traditional advertising.

Digital Uses Pay-for-Performance Models

Business owners have multiple options when they form their digital marketing strategies. If you feel comfortable, you can follow a traditional broadcast method, and pay to reach a certain number of people.

However, there are more niche ways to track your digital marketing spend and evaluate its success.

A few of these options include:  

  • Cost-per-impression: paying when people see your ad.
  • Cost-per-click: paying when people click on your ad and see your website.
  • Cost-per-conversion: paying when customers make an actual purchase or complete an action like scheduling an appointment or calling your business.

While you could pay for 1,000 people to see your ad, you could also pay for 50 people to make purchases at your business. The latter option guarantees that your marketing efforts were effective and drove sales to your company.

Every dollar you spend on digital marketing is accounted for and business owners can see exactly how much they get back from what they invest. These insights are invaluable in today’s hyper-competitive business environment.

Digital Marketing Is Usually More Affordable

When clients compare digital vs. traditional marketing, they primarily care about results and then care about budget. When you compare the cost of digital marketing investments over traditional, you can see just how much brands can save when they move online.  

Traditional media buys on TV, radio, and print can cost hundreds of dollars for quick mentions or small boxes in the newspaper. It’s not uncommon for some brands to spend more than a few thousand each month on traditional ads.  

Conversely, digital advertising costs whatever you want it to. Some people run campaigns for as little as $10/day, while others spend $500 daily across a variety of channels. Whenever you need to save money or stop seeing the value in your investment, you can turn off the posts immediately without spending another dime. It’s impossible to do that when you have a traditional media buy agreement.

This is another benefit of using analytics. You can see what works and what doesn’t, and adjust your overall spend to create an effective marketing mix.

See Digital Vs. Traditional Marketing in Action

You don’t have to take our word for it that the Internet wins when it comes to digital vs. traditional marketing. Contact MyArea Network today to review your business and see how it can benefit from a digital marketing makeover.

We will listen to your concerns and address potential roadblocks you are worried about as you move online and take steps to connect with customers digitally.

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