If you are a startup,an early entrepreneur or an experienced businessman but not sure about which marketing technique to choose between traditional marketing v/s digital marketing,you are at right place.
Here we will see everything you need to know about these two methods of marketing and which one is the best fit for your business. A complete walk-through we will see here.
TABLE OF CONTENT
- WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?
- PROS AND CONS OF DIGITAL MARKETING
- WHAT IS TRADITIONAL MARKETING?
- PROS AND CONS OF TRADITIONAL MARKETING
- DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRADITIONAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING-ULTIMATE COMPARISON
- WHICH ONE IS BETTER TRADITIONAL MARKETING OR DIGITAL MARKETING
- WHICH ONE PRODUCES BETTER ROI-TRADITIONAL MARKETING OR DIGITAL MARKETING
- TRADITIONAL AND DIGITAL MARKETING -WHICH ONE IS BETTER FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Today is the era of digital. After the Covid-19 the digital marketing is into the boom phase. Whether its big company,small company or and startup everyone need the digital marketing methods and technique for the success.
There is no doubt that digital marketing has become a must marketing technique for the companies in terms of business competition,market presence and attracting the customers.
Though digital marketing is in boom but this doesn’t mean that traditional marketing is dead. Lets go through the different queries people have in their mind and cater one by one.
WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?
Digital marketing is marketing technique to reach to your potential customers through the internet and the use of devices like laptop,tablet, and mobiles etc.
This is new method of marketing that has been been flourished with the development of new technology, customers buying behavior and presence of social media platforms.
This digital marketing technique involves:
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
- Mobile marketing
- Pay per click
- Search engine optimization(SEO)
- Affiliate marketing
- Vlogging
- Blogging
- Website designing
- Content creation etc.
It’s a new way of promoting the products and services to your audience through the devices and platform like search engines ( google,yahoo,bing etc),social media platform( Facebook, Instagram,Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc),Website/Blogging,YouTube etc.
PROS AND CONS OF DIGITAL MARKETING

The several Pros of digital marketing:
- Easy reach to the large audience
- Can target to the potential customers
- High conversion rate in no time
- Cost effective compare to traditional marketing technique
- You can promote your products and services beyond the geographical boundaries.
- Efficient invest and high ROI
- No need to invest much
- No physical tension and workout
- Brand development is easy
- Better growth option
- Easy to understand the behavior of your potential customers
The several Cons of digital marketing are:
- You need a skilled person to do digital marketing activites
- High dependency on technology
- Require depth understanding on policies of the platforms
- Security and privacy issues
- High transparency of your products and price
- High Global competition
WHAT IS TRADITIONAL MARKETING?
Traditional marketing is a marketing technique which is done offline and is one of the old marketing technique . This method uses the offline means to promote the products and services to reach to it’s audience.
Traditional marketing involves print media like newspapers, hoardings,leaf-late,brochures, and technology like TV ads,radio ads etc.
This method highly focuses on 4 P’s of marketing i.e. product,price,promotion and place. It is the oldest and most trusted method of marketing till date as its a proven method.
It involves the endless technique ,few of the them are:
- Print advertising
- Catalogs for customers
- Dealers and channels to make sale
- newspapers
- TV commercials
- Radio voice ads
- Magazines
- Trades hows
- Banners
- Billboards
- Fliers and brochures
- Sponsorship
- Coupons and discounts
- Occasional offers etc
PROS AND CONS OF TRADITIONAL MARKETING
Like digital marketing ,traditional marketing also have its pros and cons.
The pros of traditional marketing are as follows:
- Local customers can easily be targeted
- Physical copy of the products converts fast
- Consistency is possible
- Easier to implement the strategy and plan as this method has been used from longtime.
The cons of traditional marketing are:
- Investment is more as most investment is in print media
- It takes time to make reputation and brand
- It takes time to get results
- Consistent effort is required
- Physical involvement is required at most
- Expensive method in compare to digital marketing
- Need big team and plan for success
- Old techniques,may or may not useful for new kind of businesses and startups.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TRADITIONAL MARKETING AND DIGITAL MARKETING-THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON

TRADITIONAL MARKETING | DIGITAL MARKETING |
Outbound marketing is the answer | Inbound marketing is the answer |
A closed marketing system | A open marketing system |
Non transparency | High transparency |
Focused is on products | Focused is on customers |
Formal communication | Informal communication |
Paid method | Free in few means |
Message may not reach to potential customers | Message can hit the potential customers |
Tracking and analytics are missing | High tracking and analytics is possible |
Ad placement is static and cannot be changed immediately | Ad placement can be changed immediately or whenever required |
Delayed communication as compare to digital marketing | Immediate communication with the customers |
Word of mouth | Responsive website /blog |
Uses printed media like newspaper,magazines,fliers etc | Uses online social media and website,google ads etc |
B2B dont need social media | Social media is a must |
You need a big team to get success | It can be managed by single person |
It is expensive method | It is cost effective |
Not always present | 24×7- always online |
It’s a Outdoor activities | It’s a Indoor activities |
Involves telemarketing | Involves video marketing |
Branding takes time | Wide reach and easy branding |
WHICH ONE IS BETTER TRADITIONAL MARKETING OR DIGITAL MARKETING
As we can see that both the marketing technique has its pros and cons. But we can easily compare and measured both on the following parameters:
Reach:
Digital marketing has enormous reach to its potential customers. It’s not limited locally but help any business to reach beyond the geographical boundaries.
Which the help of a social media,website,youtube you can reach to all those countries where internet is feasible.
Digital marketing help you and your business to reach to the enormous audience in no time
Whereas traditional marketing limit itself to local customers . There are few big giants who goes beyond to their geographical boundaries.
But this technique reserve itself to its local customers much more than customers outside of it’s territory
Cost:
Digital marketing is very cost effective. Hands down to digital marketing when it comes to cost.
The good digital marketing services cost in between $1500 to $10000 per month for small and medium size business. For the big companies sky is the limit.
The return on these investment is much more higher ,can say 3- times the investment if properly planned and strategically action made.
On the other hand,traditional marketing is much more expensive than the digital marketing.
The mediums like print, Tv, newspaper, magazine, billboards etc are used in traditional marketing and are high expensive
It is seen that for small business or medium business it roughly cost between 5-10 million just to set up the marketing system depending on the size of the business. Addon like team members and their salary is extra investment that a businesses have to cover.
Competition:
When it comes to competition both the technique of marketing have their own level of competition.
Digital marketing put your business to global market and as a result competition rises very high. More companies being online creates the more competition and decrease the possibility of sale and conversion.
Traditional marketing,on the other hand, has high competition with local businesses. Competition with the local businesses is the major hassle for the company.
Traditional marketing has to invest much more to be on top of the competition with relevant businesses.
Traditional marketing highly focuses on paid ads, as similar activities is done by the competitors also, so there will be conflicts and high competition to be on the top.
Growth Potential:
Digital marketing has high potential in growth as it reaches to huge audiences beyond the geographical boundaries. More reach to customers will convert to high sales figure. It’s a hands down to this method.
Traditional Marketing limits its growth to the local areas and local market. Highly focus is to caters its loyal and local customers.

Monitoring and Analytics:
In digital marketing it is very easy to minotor the performance ot the digital activities as all work is online and analytics preparation is much much easier.
“Google analytics” is the best for your website/blog monitoring. It help you to know the activities happening in your website. This help you to find out the following:
- Customer behavior
- Customer interaction with website and your products
- What customers are interested into
- From which country the customers are looking to your websites and your products etc.
Digital marketing can analyze the metrics in real time such as: page views,clicks,unique visitors,likes and followers,conversion,page rank,subscriptions etc.
Whereas in traditional marketing the activities monitoring is a hassle as you need more and more attention to performance of human resources and the conversions made.
Lots of effort and time needs to be given to collect the required analytics or data as there is no online adaption. Involvement of software are required to gather the analytics.
Let’s say to gather all “sales” made in a month/yearly needs to be gathered manually in excel sheet .Sometime the software are used to gather all the sales activities in one place.
Human Resources Requirement:
Digital marketing techniques requires less human resource to get the success. A single qualified and skilled person can perform the digital marketing activities and can generate good result for the business.
Whereas traditional marketing requires more human resources to perform its activities. Normally the company have to set up a large team (depending on the size of the company) to perform its marketing activities and deliver the results.
Relationship with Customers
Digital marketing directly connects with its audience,so the relationship and bonding with the customers is direct and easy.
Changing the potential customer to loyal customer is much easier then in traditional method.
Traditional marketing has less connection with its audience as it uses mediums to contact to them. so close bonding is not possible here .
Return on Investment( ROI):
Digital marketing has high return on its investment. Conversion is very high with low investment here.More reach to the huge audience will convert into high sale.
Traditional marketing has lower conversion rates than the digital marketing technique. The investment and return ratio is not balanced here. Company always have to invest much more to be in competition and get the less conversion.
WHICH ONE PRODUCES BETTER ROI TRADITION MARKETING OR DIGITAL MARKETING
So where to invest that the important question. Setting the goal and budget is one thing but getting a good amount of return is the major objective and concern for any businesses.
That is why business now focuses on the marketing channels and methods to get the success.

TRADITIONAL AND DIGITAL MARKETING -WHICH ONE IS BETTER FOR YOUR BUSINESS
The digital marketing Vs traditional marketing debate is very old and has been into debate several times. But still it is major part of discussion for any management of the company.
After comparing the both technique and considering the pros and cons of both the system,you may be wondering so which system should i use for my business.
Well ,it totally depends on your product and customers or what audience is looking for.
A depth research is required about you audience which involves:
- Customer needs and demands
- Customer preferences
- Customer behavior
- Marketing channels preferred by Customers.
You need to find out what your customers needs/demand and then you can have hands on both the technique and can measure which system is working for your business.
Beside audience behavior you must also look into the product/services you provide.
Let’s say if you are into eCommerce business then digital marketing will be more beneficial than the traditional approach because fast and reach to huge audience can get you more customers. But if you are a “dentist” then both the method can be used to get customers.
It is always advised to keep eye on your goals and resources and can move further with one or both the system and can check which one providing better return to your investment.
Traditional marketing still has a place in this digital world as it is tested and has been in presence for long period of time. It has high impact when it comes to local audiences,old customers,loyal customers etc.
Though this method is old but has been always showed its impact. Traditional marketing really do work and can make wonders if done by experienced person.
But it is obvious that digital marketing is the new technique and uses the best and advanced technology. Therefore it is the best option for small business and startups as it provides high ROI on the low investment.

There may be a chances that your business may require both traditional marketing as well as digital marketing method.
It is seen that most of the successful entrepreneur have full focused on both the technique and have to achieve their goal and success. You also can apply the both marketing method and can be measured the result . And later can take things further by analyzing and comparing the result from both traditional marketing and digital marketing.
BEST OF LUCK!