The usage of the internet has been increasing for the past few years and it is attracting the attention of businesses to use digital media platforms. Digital media has become so influential that it plays a significant role in the decision-making process of people. Today, we’ll discuss digital marketing, the advantages of digital marketing over traditional marketing, and its disadvantages.
Table of Contents
What is Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is the process of advertising through various digital channels like mobile applications, emails, social media platforms, websites, and search engines. It’s the method of using online media channels to support products, brands, and services of businesses and companies. However, many people use digital media channels to search the information about products/services/brands. According to an estimate by Google Marketing Insight;
- 48% of the consumer put their questions on search engines
- 33% of them search it out on the brand websites
- 26% of them look upon their mobile applications
Digital marketing comprises a lot of channels and platforms where marketers have to create their accounts, and online advertising is more complicated than learning to use those channels. If you want the success of digital marketing, then marketers should learn cross-channel strategies and how to make an impact through customer engagement. When you do that, it allows you to differentiate yourself from the competitors, amplifying brand awareness, and presenting your business to the customers to purchase it.
The former chief marketing officer of Marketo said about digital marketing;
“Digital is at the core of everything in marketing today, it has gone from one of the things marketing doe’s to ‘the thing that marketing does.’”
Advantages of Digital Marketing Over Traditional Marketing
Some of the main advantages of digital marketing over traditional marketing are as follows;
Cost-Effective
One of the main drawbacks of traditional marketing approaches is the heavy financial cost. It may not be a big thing for large corporations to allocate millions of dollars to marketing and advertisements. However, it’s nightmare for small companies.
Digital marketing is a very lost cost alternative to the traditional marketing method. For instance, you can subscribe to any of the email marketing service providers for a few dollars, and it allows you to send an email to thousands of customers.
Global Reach
Internet and digital media channels have the world a global village. This digitalization allows you to run a marketing campaign anywhere across the world. It has provided a great opportunity for small businesses to go global. There are many examples of young startups that exploited the opportunity of digitalization and became successful.
Easily Track & Measure
When you invest a plethora of resources in running a marketing campaign, then you would like to see the performance of your campaign. The digital marketing strategy provides helps you to evaluate the growth of the campaign. On the other hand, the traditional marketing approach is good and effective, but it’s very different to measure the result with it.
There are different digital media channels and every channel offers a unique way of tracking the performance. For instance, if you’re using Google, then it offers you Google analytics to measure the performance in terms of conversion rate, impressions, shares, clicks, and comments. You can check and analyze your campaign performance with a simple graph. It’s simple, easy, and free.
Improves Your Conversion Rate
One of the most important benefits of digital marketing is that it improves your conversion rate. When you spend money on online marketing strategies like conversion rate optimization, then it amplifies your conversion rate.
The reason is that it makes you focus on the lead. When you focus on the people that are showing interest in your business, then it expands your chances of earning. Your business would start growing when its conversion rate increases.
High Return on Investment
One of the main concerns of any business is the return on investment. Digital marketing strategies provide you a significant return on your smallest investment. For instance, the cost of running advertisement and email marketing campaigns is very little especially when you compare it with traditional marketing techniques.
You can Target Your Ideal Customers
If you want your marketing campaign to be impactful, then you should approach the right audience. You should target those people that are interested in your business and want to hear from you. If you’re planning to target your market with the traditional marketing approach, then it’s a bit difficult method. It’s possible that they would get your message, but generating lead out of it is challenging.
On the other hand, digital marketing allows you to target the specific audience that is waiting to hear from you. You can measure your market performance, and the traditional marketing approach doesn’t allow you such options.
For instance, you’re launching a marketing campaign on Facebook, the platform allows you to target your audience based on your hobbies, interest, occupation, gender, and age. Such precision of the target market isn’t possible on any other platform.
Increase Brand Awareness
Digital media platforms are the best places for businesses and companies to establish their brand reputation. You can establish brand awareness by creating professional pages on social media platforms, a quality blog where you post useful content, and a good website.
Sharing Features
The other interesting and important feature of digital marketing is that it allows its users to share on various platforms. When people share your content on multiple platforms, then it increases your market reach and influence.
Segmentation
Segmentation is the process of dividing the large market into smaller customer groups. Digital marketing allows you to target the segmented customer market, and it reduces the cost and increases the sale.
For instance, an e-commerce platform has introduced women dressing line. Digital marketing like email marketing allows the platform to send an email to all the female customers.
Disadvantages of digital marketing
Some of the main disadvantages of digital marketing are as follows;
Dependability of Technology
Digital marketing is good and perfect, but it’s heavily reliant on the internet and technology. When the internet or the server is down, the webpage won’t load up, the link and the buttons won’t work. It would make the potential customer shift towards the other platforms. You should recheck the content of the marketing campaign before running it.
Security and Privacy Issues
Security and privacy is the main concern of websites and blogs for users. Digital marketers should use precautionary measures for their websites like VPN, encryption tools, and Firewall to safeguard the network connection. You can use any of the antiviruses at least to show your commitment in order to protect the data of your customers.
Skills and Training
Digital marketing is easier for the person that has the marketing skill, experience, and business background. Not every business owner is familiar with the marketing terminology and various strategies for different circumstances. Therefore, a new person would have to learn first various techniques and then use them on his/her business.
High Competition
Many small businesses, startups, and big companies are using digital marketing, and it made the digital industry very competitive. Now, you have to be very unique with your marketing campaign to attract the attention of customers.
