Digital and Traditional Advertising: What’s the Difference?

As a business owner, whenever you pay to market your business, you want to make sure that your money is well spent. Especially if your business is on the smaller end of the spectrum, every single dollar spent on advertising counts. So, with so many options to advertise your business these days, which is the one for you?

Some people think that traditional advertising is dead, while others say that it is the best to reach customers. On the other hand, digital advertising provides more control, but it isn’t always a guaranteed sure-fire bet if you are inexperienced. Today we’re going to break down this argument and show the pros and cons of each to help you make the right choice.

The Upsides of Traditional Advertising

When you advertise in newspapers, flyers, TV spots, or on the radio, reaching your local audience can be simple. If your business only operates in one town, then sending out flyers to people in a specific neighborhood. Also, with traditional advertising, your prospects can hold onto your advertisements. Whether they choose to put your flyer on their fridge in case they need your services or put your business card in their wallet, they can keep your materials forever.

Finally, because most people have seen flyers, heard radio ads, or seen commercials for most of their lives, they know how to understand it. Some studies have even shown that paper flyers can result in a higher brand recall rate compared to digital ads.

Problems with Traditional Advertising

For starters, traditional advertising costs much more than digital advertising. When you go the traditional route, you have to pay for the materials like the paper you print your flyers on. After that, you have to pay for their distribution of your materials.

Your prospects also have little to no interaction with your materials. Traditional advertising is more geared towards delivering information to your prospect rather than encouraging engagement. They can’t “like” your advertisement or share it with their friends easily.

Finally, you can’t measure the effects of your traditional advertising campaign. Which customers purchased from you after seeing your advertisement? Were they delivered to the right people? Were they delivered at all? With traditional advertising, you have no perfect way of tracking the success of your campaign. All you can do is look at your sales numbers and hope that it was your campaign that boosted the sales and not other external factors.

The Benefits of Digital Advertising

Digital advertising is quickly becoming the top choice for many small businesses, especially those with limited marketing budgets. With digital advertising on social media and search engines, you can get started for only a few hundred dollars and drive thousands of dollars in sales to your business.

For example, if you wanted to run a commercial on local TV, you’d have to invest thousands to secure the best placement so it’s seen by your target audience. If you were to do it yourself or hire a digital marketing company, you could upload it as a YouTube ad and spend a fraction of the money.

>With social media posts or search engine ads, you only pay when someone clicks your ad and visits your website. Depending on your strategy, reaching more people can cost significantly less than traditional advertising campaigns.

You Can Track Success

Unlike traditional advertising, when you run a campaign on Google or social media, you can easily see how well you’re doing in real-time. Powerful tools like Google Analytics or social media analytic tools will allow you to see what is working and what isn’t working. Controlling your budget and targeting your ads is only a couple of clicks away with digital advertising.

Share-ability

When you send out a flyer if the prospect chooses to hold onto it, how likely are they to instantly share it with all of their family and friends? The answer is not that likely, however with digital advertising, sharing your advertisement with sometimes thousands of people is a click away. If you have a compelling and engaging ad also, the chances of your prospects sharing rise significantly.

Develop Your Brand

If you keep your website and social media profiles up to date with high-quality content, you’ll add more value to your audience and help build your brand. This will lead to better lead generation opportunities, and with this increased awareness for your business, you could potentially reduce your marketing efforts in the future.

A More Level Playing Field

When you’re competing with large, nationwide chains, it can be hard to get a leg up on them with traditional advertising. You don’t have nearly the resources they have to spend on commercials, direct mail campaigns, and radio ads. With a well-structured digital advertising campaign, however, competing with the big players is much easier, especially if you have a solid team of digital marketing experts behind your campaigns.

Choose Blue Atlas Marketing

We are your one-stop shop for everything online. Take a look at our digital marketing advertising campaign for your business to ensuring that your website and social media profiles are up to par, we can do it all. Get in touch with us today and tell us about your goals, and we’ll build the perfect strategy for you!