The world of business and entrepreneurship is enveloped in a constantly changing cycle. The world’s business sector has so many intricacies, divisions, specializations, etc., that they can be difficult to keep up with. When you start a new business, what are the few things you concern yourself about?
First of all, the central idea of your business, second, capital, third, premises, and fourth, marketing. These things are crucial to starting a successful business; however, their importance and the hard work that goes into them are incomparable. Each other these things has its hand in making a business thrive, but marketing plays an especially important role in keeping the business running.
Pro Tips: How to Start a Web Hosting Business
Intense developments in the marketing sector of business have been recorded in the last few years as the world wide web ventures forth. New ways of spreading the word of businesses have been developed to keep the market running in full synchronization with all the latest trends and styles to keep up with what’s in and what’s not. Digital marketing has become a prominent feature in the business world.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is the new era of marketing that utilizes the internet and online digital technologies to make brands widespread and help make their presence widely known in the competitive and unforgiving business sect.
There are many different ways to digitally market your brand, such as advertisements on social media, sponsorship, content marketing, SEO marketing, etc. These can help your business grow exponentially since most of the modern generation is online and can find your business through the internet. The internet is vast and ever-changing; it keeps people interested and looking for new things.
Utilizing the internet for the benefit of your business is the best thing you can do to market your business and, often, can be more beneficial to your business than traditional marketing.
How are Digital and Traditional Marketing Different?
Traditional marketing is a very practical and interaction-dependent way of marketing. The difference between traditional and digital marketing is the way they operate. Traditional marketing operates by real-life contact with adverts, while digital marketing works through internet interaction with adverts.
A few examples of traditional marketing are:
- Billboards
- Posters
- Hardcopy magazines
- Television/Radio broadcasting
- Surveys
- Free samples (in cases of restaurants or make-up products)
While a few examples of digital marketing are:
- Social media (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Blogs) advertisements
- Sponsorships (i.e., Influencer marketing)
- Digital surveys
- Pay-per-click marketing
- On-page SEO services (e.g., coding, readability services, things that rank you higher on search engines like Google or Bing).
- E-mail marketing
How is Traditional Marketing Disadvantaged Over Digital?
Traditional marketing has its perks, but what does digital marketing have that traditional marketing doesn’t? Certainly, traditional marketing is a good thing. Still, there are a few questions you must ask yourself, following the perspective of a customer, before deciding which method is best, traditional or digital.
- When driving a car along a road, do you usually dwell on billboards a lot as you drive past?
- When you’re riding a train, do you normally take in the adverts that line the walls of the train?
- Do you listen to the radio while you drive?
- While walking down the street, do you enjoy interacting with strangers trying to market their brand?
If the answer to even two out of four of these questions is ‘no,’ you get the answer of why digital marketing is more preferred over traditional. While doing all of these things, your mind is on either one of two things, focusing on the task at hand (e.g., walking, driving, etc.) or focusing on your phone (e.g., listening to music while driving, browsing your phone while riding a train, etc.).
If you find yourself using your phone more than interacting with your day-to-day environment, you likely take in more adverts on social media than in real life. The same applies to your client base. Most people are usually on their phones or laptops, so the best way to reach them is through the internet. All of the above-mentioned is how digital marketing has a world of difference from traditional marketing. Finding out which way to reach your clientele is your best bet in making your business successful.