Digital Vs Traditional Marketing: Who Will Win?

Digital Media: 

Since the rise of social media in the early 2000s, marketers, and companies saw a new avenue to market their products and services to a much larger audience. An audience much larger and easier to reach than traditional marketing channels. Social media gave marketers a fabulous way to measure the success of paid media campaigns: analytics. Analytics has given marketers a unique tool to see tangible evidence that their efforts are having an impact.

According to the 2019 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Marketers have identified two key benefits to social media over the last 5 years. 

86%  of marketers found their social media efforts have generated far more visibility

78% of marketers found their social media efforts have led to more traffic to their brand’s social media.

Digital marketing has been on the rise as technology becomes more apparent in our daily lives. Digital marketing will only become the dominant form of marketing in the years to come as technology advances. As it is only 24% of Gen-Z watches cable tv and Millennials only 41%. 

Gen – Z is becoming known as the “cord-nevers” since they are the first generation to grow up in a purely digital age. They don’t watch cable because they grave content and are more likely to grave videos over other forms of content. Which puts traditional media outlets in a precarious position. 

Traditional media:

While traditional marketing is still effective (for now) it is however nothing new. We have seen it in one form or another whether it’s from a tv commercial, print material in big box stores, a billboard while driving, or a magazine in the doctor’s office when our cell service won’t connect. 

All though traditional media has evolved over the last 20 years the fundamental aspects remain the same and it still remains limited in the digital age and with an evolving consumer base. Some forms of traditional marketing will outperform others, radio segments and podcast advertisements will outlive tv commercials as more people move to podcasts to get updates on current events in the world instead of the mainstream media. As it is, over 63 million Americans listen to podcasts each week. This presented a greater opportunity for podcast advertising. Currently, Podcasts are projected to generate 1 billion in revenue by 2021; according to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). 

Who Will Win?

Both traditional marketing and digital marketing use the 4 P’s of marketing: Product, Price, Promotion, Place. 

Traditional media uses this as an integral part of creating a sales funnel and planning marketing campaigns. While traditional media can do well with price, product, and place it lacks in the fourth P: promotion. It’s too easy to ignore it and it doesn’t connect with people, it’s just there. Digital marketing, on the other hand, is very different and it uses the 4 P’s of the marketing mix effectively and in a unique way and at most times better than traditional marketing. 

The drawbacks of traditional marketing are that it does not reach about 50% of its audience, it’s more costly, you can’t measure your ROI, and can’t measure consumer feedback. As it is more marketing across all industries are shifting their efforts online, most consumers now do their product research online before making a purchase.

No matter what industry your business is in you will need to establish a digital presence and actively work to build your digital marketing strategy. We have already seen big box stores such as Sports Authority, Toys R Us, and Sears file for bankruptcy because they could not understand the importance of Digital Vs Traditional Marketing.