The landscape of marketing has changed dramatically in the last few years, particularly with the rise of digital marketing and social media. A recent study shows that the most commonly used form of marketing by small businesses was Search Engine Optimization (SEO), followed by Facebook, email marketing, and Twitter, respectively. But how do you know which form of marketing will work best for your business? This article explores the differences between digital marketing and traditional marketing in order to help you decide which one is best for your business.
What is Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing comes in many forms, including TV and radio ads, print ads in magazines and newspapers, direct mail flyers and coupons, classified listings, and yellow pages advertising. The trick with traditional marketing is that you’re charged by how many people your ad reaches rather than how engaging it is.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing refers to advertising and marketing conducted through digital technologies, such as websites, social media, mobile devices, blogs, email, and text messages. It includes email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), display advertising (including online banner advertising), social media marketing, online reviews (including featured reviews), and many more tactics that are offered by a digital marketing agency in Bay Area. The great thing about digital marketing is that it gives you access to a virtually unlimited number of customers.
Why Choose Digital Marketing Over Traditional Marketing?
Although digital marketing and traditional marketing are similar in terms of goals, they differ in approach. In digital marketing, you rely heavily on SEO techniques to get your company’s name out there on the web. With traditional marketing, you rely on strategies like newspaper and magazine ads, local events, and radio ads. Both are effective ways to reach potential customers, but if your focus is on today’s tech-savvy consumers, digital marketing just might be your best bet.
Low Cost
When it comes to your business, spending less is better, right? It may seem counterintuitive, but digital marketing is actually cheaper than traditional marketing. Let’s say you want to pay someone to hand out flyers promoting your business in your neighborhood. That’s going to cost you more compared to digital marketing services like SEO and paid search offered by a digital marketing agency in Bay Area. Likewise, paying an ad agency or PR firm will set you back hundreds and thousands of dollars, depending on their rates.
Greater ROI
Many traditional marketing techniques, such as newspaper ads and billboards, create awareness of your product or service, but digital marketing is ideal for increasing sales. Online marketing strategies like SEO, social media marketing, and pay-per-click advertising offered by an SEO expert in San Francisco provide better ROI than traditional advertising options.
Easy Performance Measurement
Traditional marketing has many moving parts and things to measure, while digital marketing has easy-to-measure metrics. For example, clickthrough rate is an extremely important metric in digital marketing; it tells you what percentage of users who see your ad choose to click it. For traditional marketing, you might have to measure how many people looked at an ad, how many remembered seeing it later, etc.
Improved Engagement
Thanks to its advanced targeting capabilities, digital marketing doesn’t only provides companies with more opportunities to reach their target audience but also increases engagement. With digital channels like social media, email marketing, and SEO in Bay Area, businesses can connect with customers in a more personal way. And these connections are more effective than traditional marketing tactics.
