What about Traditional Marketing?

Digital marketing allows us to have an extensive set of tools we can use to communicate with customers.  We use channels such as social media, search engines, email, and websites to connect with and attract customers.  They allow us to build brand awareness and attract new customers.  When it comes to traditional versus digital, it is not ‘one or the other’ it will normally be a combination of both.

Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing could be magazines, newspapers, leaflets, radio advertising, tv advertising or billboards.  While digital marketing is everything online. A good campaign will take both into consideration, mixing traditional with digital as appropriate.  Understanding your audience and knowing how to reach them will allow you to make the right decisions. Traditional marketing does not mean it is old fashioned, in fact there is a need to step out of the digital world sometimes.

Digital Marketing

The digital marketing Landscape continues to grow and evolve.  However, the one thing that has remained constant is that the way to ‘grow your business and get results’ has actually stayed the same. We will always start with a plan that shows us where we are, identify where we want to be and decide how we will get there.

Digital marketing uses every touch point of your daily use of the internet to reach you – for example:  You google a hotel, visit their website, then see their add on social media later that day, and then perhaps sign up for their emailed newsletter for special offers later.

Impactful Marketing

Traditional marketing is impactful. A huge audience will be almost guaranteed to see that ad or read that review in the newspaper.  It can be long lasting; a poster in a bus shelter there for several weeks, an advert in a local newspaper left on the coffee table all week.  However, it is not as targeted as digital.

Traditional marketing is normally quite expensive to use because of the large audiences – and it’s driven by demand.  It is hard to measure, how can we know that we made that sale in our store because they heard our advert on radio, the person themselves may not even recall it.

Digital marketing is very targeted, directed straight to the smartphone of your perfect customer.  It is highly measurable using all the analytics and insights available on digital channels.  Digital encourages engagement, we ask for and received the likes, shares, comments and clicks.  It is constantly evolving, it is exciting, it is new and it is challenging.

A great marketing campaign will take both traditional and digital into consideration and will use the right balance.  So, there is a place for both, it is just up to the marketing person to create the right mix.