Advertising is a business investment. If you can advertise a product, you have the opportunity to bring in new consumers or turn current consumers into loyal customers. The key here is to make sure your advertisement attracts the right audience.
Advertising is a way of communication that brings products, services, and opinions to public notice to persuade them to respond in a specific way. There are two types of advertising, namely
- Traditional advertising
- Digital advertising
For a business owner or a marketer, selecting the best kind of advertising is not as easy as it may seem, and here is all you need to know to make the appropriate decision.
What Is Digital Advertising?
Digital advertising is a way companies promote their brands, products, and services on digital platforms.
Here, you can advertise your products through channels like:
- Social media
- Websites
- Content marketing
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Email marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- Pay per click (PPC)
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Inbound marketing
For instance, if you use social media platforms often, you constantly see adverts popping up in your stream. That is what digital advertising entails. The first online advertisement appeared in 1994, marking the digital ad’s beginning.
What Is Traditional Advertising?
Traditional advertising is a way through which companies push their brands, products, and services using any channel that is not online. Traditional advertisement has been there for a long time, and it keeps evolving.
The media involved in conventional advertising include but are not limited to:
- Direct mails, for instance, catalogs
- Broadcasting like on TV and Radio
- Outdoor, for example, billboards, posters, bus/taxi wraps
- Telemarketing, e.g., phone calls and text messages
- Window display and signs
- Print that includes magazines and newspapers
Why Is Digital Advertising More Effective Than Traditional Advertising?
When it comes to reaching current and prospective clients, there is no doubt that digital advertising is the leader. Whether we are talking about search engine optimization, content marketing, social media, or email marketing, online presence has become necessary for gaining visibility.
Digital marketing is an essential piece of today’s advertisement and PR strategy. A considerable number of the worldwide population spends much time on the internet daily. Businesses have increasingly discovered this, and they are devoted to using popular outlets to promote their products and services.
If you are a business owner, you need not think about it. With an understanding that marketing primarily involves connecting with clients, you have no choice but to be strategic at it.
New technologies are evolving every day. Digital marketing San Francisco is an excellent example of this. Marketing is now easy as you can do it in the comfort of your home, provided you have internet and a smartphone.
The fact that advertising moved away from traditional models implies that there is no inventory, transportation, and other expenses.
The use of the internet is growing at a fast rate, and research shows that 3.8 billion people use social media. In general, 4.54 billion people are internet users. That alone is enough reason to opt to use digital advertising in your business.
It does not matter which business industry you are in; yours could be a global app or a local ice cream retail business. Ultimately, every business stands a chance to flourish in the online space.
Here are ten reasons why digital marketing is better compared to traditional marketing.
1. Digital Advertising Has Greater Returns on Investment
We can agree that the return on investment matters more than anything else in the corporate world. When you engage in digital advertisement, you will realize that it offers ROI in spades. If digital ads are effective, they can impact your business’s mind-blowing impact.
Focus on the smaller and less expensive campaigns geared toward your intended audience. Make use of social media platforms and tell brand stories that will draw new customers to your business, and at the same time, you will be building trust with the existing customers. Remember, no one will charge you for telling those brand stories on social media platforms. Interesting right?
That might also interest you. Let’s take email marketing, for example. You can get super ROI. Imagine you will only pay a monthly subscription, which will enable you to sign up with an email marketing service provider and then start sending direct emails to your clients.
2. Lower Cost
Business owners have to bear the cost of advertising. It has been an enormous financial burden for a long time. The finances may not be too much of a problem for the large business owners since they can comfortably use millions for advertisements. But what if you are a small business owner? You might not have the millions to spend.
Digital advertisements are far more affordable compared to the traditional mediums of advertising. The minimum spending for ad campaign buys for social media and search engines is just as cheap since there’s something for everyone. You can develop a campaign targeted to the clients you are eyeing with a budget that suits your business.
3. Digital Advertising Allows Easy Measurement
With digital advertising, you can easily measure the achievement or non-performance in a digital campaign. When you are using traditional forms of advertising, the only option you have is to wait for several weeks or even months to assess the campaign results.
Digital advertising will allow you to know how well or poorly a social media ad or post performs immediately. With digital advertisement, you can use Google Analytics to evaluate the resultant website traffic, and Google Ad Words can also help you monitor how multiple keywords are performing.
4. Flexibility
You can multiply your investment when you see immediate digital success. If you see an ad doing well, you can raise the campaign budget and grow in the long run.
You can boost its reach when you have made a post on social media and realize it is getting a remarkable engagement. You will do these using ad dollars.
On the other hand, if you put up an ad and notice it is not doing as well as you wanted, you can either adjust it or stop it immediately.
If you use traditional advertisement options, you will be at a disadvantage regarding flexibility. You cannot adjust print ads or request ad reviews amidst radio or TV ads. Again, you will have signed an ad contract that will have you tethered if the ad is not performing.
5. Easily Sharable
Most of the channels that facilitate digital marketing in San Francisco allow sharing capabilities. The media will enable you to share campaigns and articles with multiple followers, and the sharing creates an amplifying effect that increases sales.
Make sure that the content you create for advertisement is sharable. For instance, you could have a humorous quote and post it on your Instagram feed. You could also make a Facebook post, link it to your latest blog post, and add a catchy title. You will be amazed at the number of followers who will share it.
6. Deeper Brand Connection
Consumers spend many hours every week on online platforms, and you can use this knowledge to your advantage as a business owner. Digital media allow you to connect with everyone you please. You can communicate with your existing clients and prospects by telling your brand story in detail across all channels.
Also, develop a visually appealing website and create a blog featuring helpful articles and social media profiles that customers can’t resist following. After that, come up with content that will connect to people by featuring your employees, reposting content that your customers have generated regarding your brand, and sharing your company values, among other ideas.
7. Global Reach
Digital advertising is fantastic as it allows ad campaigns to reach viewers worldwide. As a small startup business owner, these platforms provide your business with many exposures to let your business go global.
If your business has a solid website and a robust online sales channel, it can quickly transform into an international company without coming up with physical locations. You can only get such privileges with digital advertisements.
8. Precise Targeting
If you are using traditional advertising channels, you will have to run your ads and reach a vast audience, hoping that the right audience will get to see them. It can be hard to succeed in that kind of setting. With digital platforms, you can have targeted campaigns.
You achieve this by presenting ads to clients according to; their location, their preferences, and also based on their alleged actions toward the ad. When you target the right audience, you can ensure that your sales will increase. With email providers, marketing professionals use custom lists according to customer demographics.
9. Digital Advertisements Create an Opportunity for Greater Engagement
There is too much competition due to the internet getting noisier as days go by. For your business to thrive online, the products or services have to stand out to get attention.
Now, there is a strategy to stay relevant amid all the chaos on the internet. Keep your audience engaged continuously. To effectively advertise your products and services, you should use the opportunity you have in the digital space to stay relevant.
Engage your customers across all platforms. That is how your customers give you genuine feedback on your products or advertising strategies.
The feedback will help you make necessary changes or tell you if you are on the right track. It does not happen with traditional advertising. You just put out an advertisement, and you are not sure if the audience understands the concept in the ad. The audience also does not get a chance to give you feedback on your products after using them.
10. Segmentation
Digital marketing does more than allow targeting of campaigns to specific clients. It also enables customer segmentation, where you can break large groups of customers into smaller ones after classifying them.
The segmentation process will help increase sales, which you can achieve by delivering the most individualized experience to every customer. That is how segmentation works in simpler terms.
If you have e-commerce stores and have launched new offers for women’s clothing, the recommendations may be available only in specific regions. This means that only female residents of that area will get the emails.
Coming Up With a Digital Advertising Strategy
The first step is to consider the goals and objectives of the company. Then your team needs to find out if the resources required to achieve the plans are available. They also need to define the buyer persona for the business.
From various options, the team should do a cost-benefit analysis to determine the best option that aligns with the company’s goals.
In most cases, the strategizing team tables more than one channel, such as influencers, social media ads, and paid searches. They then evaluate them in terms of advantages, disadvantages, target audience, and the company goals and finally pick the best.
Conclusion
Unless you intend to reach the older population of people over 50 years, you still have no reason to use traditional advertising avenues. More senior people most commonly use things like newspapers and TV.
Traditional advertising is more expensive and has less to show when it comes to effectiveness. Choose to go for a more effective and less costly approach. Who doesn’t want to spend less and gain more in return?
The purpose of approaching your digital advertising the right way is so that it bears fruits. It would be best if you came up with a systematic marketing process for your organization, and the process will help convert customers to loyal fans. Also, make sure you work with your marketing team to create a comprehensive digital brand for your business. Remember, the brand should be exciting to your target audience.