It is not at all easy to decide whether to go for traditional methods of marketing or the digital means for your business, especially if you are working with a tight budget. While most of the traditional marketing measures are more commonly acceptable as they have always been there since time memorial, digital marketing is the new-era marketing mantra. It has shown successful results in all kinds of businesses and there are definite reasons why more and more people are choosing digital marketing over the traditional one.

In fact, statistics reveal that organizations are expected to allocate 41% of their marketing budget to online channels in 2018, and this rate would grow by 45% by 2020!

If you are looking for a comparative analysis between both, the following points clearly explain why you should choose digital marketing.

Cost Efficiency

If you compare the costs involved, typical traditional marketing measures like print and television ads cost you a lot. You need to hire experience advertising professionals or agencies and pay them a hefty sum. On the other hand, online advertising can be quite cheap, especially for the young entrepreneurs who are trying to save their money. All you need is a laptop and an internet connection. You can do digital marketing either on your own or hire a freelance or a contract employee to do the same. Of course, bigger and already established brands can take the advantage of both as they have bigger budget slots reserved for marketing. If you are interested in knowing more about cost implications of traditional and digital marketing, you can go for digital marketing certification courses for better understanding.

Result Analysis

When you spend valuable chunks of money, you expect quantitative and visible results. With traditional advertisements, you can’t immediately count your numbers. How many people actually bought your product after watching an ad could be analysed only after conducting a survey which is time taking and not always done. On the other hand, digital marketing gives real time results with the help of analytic tools. So, you can come to know how many visitors actually went through your website, what are the conversion and bounce back rates and even particular times in a day when it is most crowded.  Moreover, digital marketing results give you real-time analysis. It means that the moment you launch your ad or marketing campaign, there are online dashboards which give you instant results. Depending on how campaign is performing, you can immediately modify the digital marketing strategy for better results.

Branding Strategy

Digital marketing scores better here also. Traditional marketing utilises spaces like newspapers, televisions, and flyers that are limited in their sharing capacities. On the contrary, if you share a page about your brand on Facebook, for instance, the more people like it, the more it will be shared and liked. So, you can make your brand name visible using digital marketing on various social media platforms and people are more likely to remember you when they are deciding to finalise their choice while buying a product or service. Branding is an indispensable part of marketing strategy and you can work on brand development by building a quality website with rich reader-friendly content. You are sure to land greater business opportunities when you have high website traffic.

Interaction with Target Customers

In the present scenario, almost everyone wants to know more before buying and for this, searching online is the first step. So, as a business owner, if you want to talk to your target customers on one to one basis, the best way is digital marketing. Not only does it help you narrow your focus on target customers, but it also gives highly interactive platforms on social media and websites where you can get to know more about their requirements, preferences and feedback. Traditional marketing does not give such opportunities where you can communicate to and fro. Traditional marketing is a one-way road – you only send the message, but customers can’t respond or give feedback. So, if there are any irate customers out there, digital marketing can help you address their concern promptly while traditional marketing will make it nearly impossible or at least take time to do so.

Business Size

No matter what size is your business, you can opt for digital marketing due to its cost efficiency. Whereas the major chunk of marketing costs for the bigger businesses are spent in print and television media, the smaller brands can start with simple digital marketing measures to grow faster. Online digital marketing certification courses further help fresh entrepreneurs professionally.

Marketing should ideally be a mixed amalgam of traditional and digital methods. But, with the ever-growing digital frenzy, it would not be an exaggeration to say that digital is going to be the new traditional. If you want to make maximum use of your money and time, use digital marketing wisely for quicker business growth.