Traditional Marketing vs Digital Marketing: Which is Best?

You want to promote your business, but you're stuck choosing between traditional marketing techniques and digital marketing methods. Should you focus only on digital marketing? Or does traditional marketing still deliver the best results?

In this article, we’ll answer these questions and break down the pros and cons of traditional and digital marketing strategies, so you can choose the best strategy for your next marketing campaign.

Traditional Marketing Methods

Traditional marketing methods are essentially any marketing methods that take place offline. Traditional advertising is seen in printed mediums like newspapers, as well as telephone, television and radio. Some of the most effective traditional marketing methods include: 

Print Ads: Printed ads are one of the most common and effective types of advertising used in traditional marketing strategies. Printed ads come in various physical formats, including newspapers, magazines, brochures, and direct mail. Print ads can be so effective because they can reach a broad audience.

Direct Mail: Direct mail marketing (a form of printed ads) is when businesses send print ads directly to a customer’s home. This is also known as leaflet advertising. If done right, leaflet marketing can be an effective way to deliver a specific message to a target audience. 

Billboards: Billboards are large outdoor structures that advertise a business or its products or services to pedestrians and drivers. Due to their size, billboards are great at attracting attention, but they are not as targeted as other marketing methods like direct mail.

Cold calling: Also known as telemarketing, cold calling is when a salesperson calls potential customers to make sales. Typically the potential customer hasn’t shown prior interest, which limits the effectiveness of this technique. 

Digital Marketing Fundamentals

Digital marketing is any form of marketing that takes place online. The possibilities for digital marketing are vast, but some of the most common digital marketing methods include:

Social Media Marketing: This is any type of marketing that takes place through a social media platform, for example, social media ads or digital marketing tactics to grow a social media following.

Email marketing: Email is one of the most popular forms of communication for internet users, due to its convenience and widespread adoption. Email marketing is when businesses sell to customers through email newsletters. Email marketing can be effective, but without proper targeting and customer consent (ie., subscriptions), it’s often seen as spam.

Content Marketing: A digital marketing strategy where businesses promote their brand, products or services by sharing online material, such as blogs, videos or images. 

Pay-per-click Advertising: A form of online advertising where businesses post an online advertisement on search engines, and pay a fee each time someone clicks their ad.

Benefits and Downsides of a Traditional Marketing Campaign

Benefits

One of the biggest benefits of traditional marketing is that it can be targeted to a specific local audience. For example, with direct mail, businesses can easily identify which customers may be interested in their products according to their location. Businesses can distribute leaflets to connect with nearby residents and promote local events.

Traditional marketing is also simpler than digital marketing in many ways. For example, with digital marketing, businesses must consistently create content to stay relevant and maintain an online presence. With traditional marketing techniques such as direct mail, businesses can design an effective leaflet and use the same leaflet for years.

Traditional forms of marketing can capture attention and engage potential customers directly. In general, physical advertisements get more recognition and brand recall than digital advertisements.

Downsides

One downside of traditional marketing is that text is static. For example, if you design a printed billboard ad, you cannot change the text at a later date without printing a new ad. With digital marketing, it’s easy to edit text at any time. 

Another drawback is that it’s harder to measure the success of your marketing campaign. With digital advertisements, businesses can use software to measure metrics such as ad impressions and clicks. This level of insight isn’t possible with traditional marketing strategies.

Pros and Cons of Digital Marketing Strategies

Pros 

With a digital marketing strategy, businesses have access to real-time tracking and analytics, which helps them measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. This kind of analysis can help businesses identify which strategies work best with their audience and make data-driven decisions 

Digital marketing also lets businesses reach a global audience and sell their products and services to customers outside their region.

Finally, digital marketing is more flexible than traditional marketing. Businesses can change their campaign based on real-time analytics. They can also change the text and design of their digital advertisements at any time. 

Cons

Digital marketing tactics can reach a broad audience, but that also means there are more businesses competing for attention in the digital landscape, making it hard to stand out. 

Success in digital marketing requires businesses to commit to consistent content creation, which can be time-consuming. Digital marketing also requires a certain level of expertise with various online tools and platforms. 

Choosing Between Digital and Traditional Marketing

To choose between digital and traditional marketing, start out by defining your target audience and outlining your marketing goals. Weigh the pros and cons of each approach and see which fits best with your audience, objectives, and resources.

Assess the amount of time and money you can commit to a marketing campaign. Digital marketing methods are often more expensive than traditional marketing and require a longer-term commitment. For example, with social media marketing, you must consistently add new content. With traditional direct mail, you can design your ad once and use it for years.

Leveraging Leaflet Marketing in the Digital Age

With so many digital marketing techniques and tools available today, traditional marketing often gets overlooked. But it can still be very effective, especially with innovative direct mail services like JogPost.

JogPost uses joggers to deliver leaflets, covering three times the ground and giving you three times the ROI, compared to traditional leaflet distribution. JogPost can even assist you with leaflet design, printing and copywriting, to make sure you get the most out of your leaflet campaign.

Contact JogPost today and get started with your traditional marketing campaign!