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In the past decade, the world has seen an immense surge in digital marketing over traditional marketing channels. A smartphone has become the go-to super-channel for all the brands in each category to reach existing consumers or to generate leads for quicker ROI. Social media has overhauled to suggest search-based ads to elicit a consumer to buy a particular product. The whole online marketing mechanism has become a preferred one for businesses to thrive.
The sale conversation rate in online marketing is up by a whopping 77.5 times compared to that in offline channels. On the other side, though the traditional media like TV, radio, billboards, flyers, events, etc., are a cash-intensive affair, they have their own set of benefits like brand awareness, mass reach, brand recall, etc. Here is how both online and offline marketing is unique in their ways.
Online Marketing
The use of the internet for strategizing the brand’s reach to the target audience is subjected to be online or digital marketing at large. From shooting mass emails under email marketing to placing pay-per-click advertisements (PPC) on various websites, performance marketing, marketing through social media ads, vlogging and blogging through influencers, virtual events, etc., can be considered streams of online marketing.
Currently, businesses rely on the online marketing model, given it is reportedly beneficial by providing extensive reach at considerably nominal costs compared to that incurred in traditional marketing set-up. A diligent plan to exercise digital/ online marketing can help a brand spread its reach across countries and increase its customer base faster. That’s why most new brands launch themselves on e-commerce and advertise on the digital platform.
While the rising of online marketing does not weaken the old traditional ways of marketing, let’s dive deeper into knowing how digital marketing is crucial in modern times.
Presence over Boundaries – What conventionally consumed a fair amount of time, usually months and years, and a whopping sum of capital expenditure for brands to create awareness by physical advertisements earlier, now an organization can market its brand’s presence to a mass audience in a couple of minutes. Content takes center stage in fortifying the brand’s reach. Creating content that travels across countries and continents to engage people of different religions, beliefs, races, gender, etc., can take the brand to places while diluting the reach embargo.
For example, you have a men’s casual apparel line website. Focus on citing the story behind the products while using commonly searched keywords, followed by how you look at shipping across several countries at nominal costs. Your brand will see increased visitors and prospective buyers from across the globe. The cost proposition wouldn’t have been the same in the case of reaching the audience through traditional marketing channels.
Measurable Results – One of the key reasons businesses are vouching for online marketing is the metrics of the performance of the marketing drives they conduct. The data provides details about the marketing campaign’s engagement with the targeted audience, prospective leads, and conversion rates. This invaluable data is scarcely available or not available in the case of traditional marketing channels through print, TV, or radio media.
To talk about the performance measuring tools, Google webmaster tools, AdWords dashboard, AHREFs, and Moz SEO tools, among several others, provide accurate data on how organic and paid marketing campaigns have been performing in spreading, we can determine precisely how effective the organic and paid activities have been performing. Right from deciding how many people it reached to how many got converted as customers.
Precise Audience Reach – Digital marketing lets one filter to target the audience a business wants to reach specifically out of the vast data they may have handy. For example, if a company providing chef-at-home services intends to cater to house-hosted kitty parties, cocktail dinners, or just family get-togethers for an audience willing to spend to the tune of Rs 2 Lakh rupees for the chef-curated. In such a case, if you want to send out a promotional email of 50 percent off to avail of Michelin-star chef at-home service, then you can filter your recipient database by ticking on the above-marked criteria in the respective dropdowns.
Localized ad placement is possible with browsers, including Google, Bing, and social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, etc., to the targeted audience and help the businesses to engage a considerable lot of prospective convertible customers.
Also, marketing with a vision to reach targeted demography plays a vital role for a business to thrive on the back of low costs and high return dynamics. Ads can be customized to be available to an audience in a particular geographical region for a specified time limit. Such precision-based marketing is challenging to be achieved in the case of offline marketing set-up.
Cost Effectiveness – Given the world’s socio-economic crisis for numerous reasons, businesses are measuring their costs and keeping operational budgets tightly constrained – providing customized cost plans and nominal charges compared to traditional media, online marketing hosts many benefits. Many marketers vouch for this channel, given that digital marketing also brings a better Return on Investment (ROI) at a minimal investment cost.
Tracking on the Go – Businesses can analyze their marketing campaign’s SEO performance or the engagement between the website and the visitors, quantifying traffic on the website. Google Analytics aids one with crucial metrics to decide the future course of action. The tools make it simpler to predict the performance of an online marketing campaign.
Offline Marketing
The content that we consume through traditional media, i.e., TV, newspapers, flyers, billboards, events, etc., can influence our buying decision as a consumer falls under the category of offline marketing. While many of the marketers of the modern-day shy away from opting for traditional/ offline marketing given its immeasurable performance and heft costs, it cannot be undermined for its prominent evergreen effects on the consumers.
‘What’s on the TV, radio or newspapers becomes trustworthy’ has been a notion that people have been following for ages. Being able to influence the masses irrespective of their age, gender, preference, etc., marketing on the traditional channels leaves a long-lasting impact on the content consumers, paving an excellent way for budding brands to spread awareness and increase recognition.
The traditional type of media is also meant to engage with a certain kind of people and not everyone always. For example, a luxury carmaker always prefers to roll down their newly launched car’s Ad to be placed on the vast and bright billboards on the highways, trying to garner the eyeballs of the affluent audience who seldom have time to scroll through emails or read small online Ads.
Also, a big yes to traditional marketing channels is the in-person interaction that the upcoming digital media cannot override. Though the pandemic forced people to have events virtually, enjoying dinners and awards nights and exchanging business prospects at physical exhibitions are evergreen as they all help build relationships through personal touch that remains for long compared to that in the digital space.
Also, one cannot ignore the fact that offline marketing is tangible, which is not the case in the digital sphere. Flyers, brochures, magazines, etc., have remained on the coffee tables at workplaces or in houses for the longest. Hence, the time frame for the Ad of a brand remains timeless in the case of traditional marketing, being able to influence people after a long time too.
View the discussion thread.
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