Digital Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing
Seth Godin is the new Don Draper. Don Draper helped businesses create television commercials to promote their brands and products. Seth Godin showed business leaders how to leverage the power of free content to create customers. Don Draper had to pay the networks for air time to broadcast his message. Seth Godin used free platforms like social media and built his own platform to broadcast his message. Things have changed.
Here’s FOUR reasons why digital marketing is more effective than traditional marketing:
1. Targeting
In traditional marketing, you pay for a television or radio commercial during a time slot when you believe your target audience is listening. It is an inexact science. You will likely reach some of your target audience while also broadcasting your message to others who will have no interest.
In digital marketing, you can precisely segment your audience. With social and digital media, your business can spend substantially less money to promote your content to a defined demographic of your choosing.
2. Agile
In traditional marketing, you create assets and hope they are effective. When they aren’t effective, they are difficult and slow to change. Traditional marketing assets aren’t very agile.
In digital marketing, you create and change assets with the click of a mouse. If the click-through rate on your social media wasn’t optimal, you can change your posts instantly. Digital marketing is agile. When something doesn’t work, you keep modifying it till it gets the results you want.
3. Measurable
In traditional marketing, it is difficult to measure the return on investment for a billboard or radio spot. You have to use very general estimates to justify the expense. It’s hard to track the buyer’s journey.
In digital marketing, you can track every aspect from impressions to clicks, lead generation, and sales. It enables you to calculate more precisely and measure the return on investment.
4. Evergreen
In traditional marketing, you pay for assets to be created then discarded. Your billboard and commercial run their cycle never to be utilized again.
In digital marketing, the assets are evergreen. The content you create on your website or social media stay with you. The followers and audience you built remain. The assets continue to aid your SEO and marketing efforts.
Digital marketing enables businesses to do more for less than traditional marketing. In traditional marketing, the cost was high and the return wasn’t easily measured. In digital marketing, you leverage your existing assets (website) and shared platforms (social media) to reach your target audience, measuring every step along the way.
Things have changed. You don’t have to pay Madison Avenue prices anymore for creative and effective marketing. Digital marketing enables your business to reach your target audience more effectively and efficiently.
Andy Jones is the Founding Director of the Roundtree Agency, a marketing agency that helps businesses grow their market share through customized content.