Traditional vs Digital Marketing

For many small businesses choosing the right strategy for marketing can often be a big headache, not knowing which form will be best for their business. There several key considerations before choosing the right option and this often involves identifying your target audience, location the outcome from the marketing campaign.

There are two common differences in types of marketing and these are traditional and digital marketing, each has their advantages and disadvantages.

Traditional marketing:

• Allows you to reach your target audience directly in your local area – This might involve the use of flyers, local radio or new paper ads.
• Understanding – People are often aware of these methods and generally have a better understanding
• Hardcopy – Generally these material are printed meaning the target audience can keep them ie flyers
• Interaction – limited to the amount of conversation from your target audience
• Cost – Producing printed material or radio ads can be costly and only provide a limited number of resources,

Digital Marketing:

• Large Audience – digital marketing such as social media give you the potential to reach your audience both locally, nationally and international
• Range of content – content can differ from images, text, videos, links and interactive content
• Cost – Digital market is generally low cost and wide reaching
• Responsive – Marketing can respond to trends as they happen and result can be seen in real time
• Understanding – The business owner would need an understanding of social media platforms to be able to achieve the best results

Before deciding on the right avenue of marketing for your business, conduct your market research and understand your target marketing. Do they use social media? Do they prefer hard copies like flyers? Having this understanding will allow you to create a marketing plan that will be most effective using the avenues which your audience use.