Having a marketing budget is necessary for any business. Your marketing department, whether it is made up of a team or is a one-man show, is the driving force that allows you to sell your product or service to the consumer. What you don’t want, however, is to waste your time (and money) on marketing efforts that do not work. There are countless articles and services that promise to provide you with foolproof marketing strategies, but which one do you go for? With the dawn of the digital era, marketing strategies have grown to include digital as well as traditional ways of marketing. The type of marketing that you employ will determine the level of success of your business.
Pros of traditional
Much marketing is done the traditional way, with print, broadcast, telephone, and billboards being some of the traditional marketing practices that businesses employ.
Print marketing includes things like leafleting, flyers, and direct mail. These methods can help you market your product direct to your customers. This method is great because it feels more personal, and if done correctly can make the customer feel more valued. Print marketing stands out more than ever due to the preference for digital marketing. Using leaflets, flyers, and direct mail will help you stand out from your competitors simply due to the lack of other businesses using print marketing. When your target group is local consumers, then a radio ad is an intelligent way to market your brand. It is quick, direct, and relatively inexpensive.
With traditional marketing, you can convey the message of your brand in a clear way, direct to the consumer. It is easy to reach a local audience, and studies also suggest that hard copy marketing is easier to read and digest than digital, perhaps because we are so used to seeing adverts online that we tend to look past them. Another plus is that traditional marketing works well with older generations, who are familiar with traditional marketing such as leaflets and banners, and who may not have access to the internet.
Pros of digital
As a business, you need to make sure that you aren’t trailing behind your competitors, and having a robust digital marketing strategy can help you lead the pack. Digital marketing includes social media marketing, content marketing, website, email, affiliate marketing, PPC (pay per click) and SEM ( search engine marketing). As technology has grown, it has enabled businesses to get in touch with their target market like never before. The way that business markets itself through the internet, or an electronic device, can allow it to grow exponentially. One of the many reasons digital marketing is so popular is that is is a form of inbound marketing, which means that the consumer can find a business rather than the other way around. Whether running an advert on Google, using PPC management for Google Ads, for example, or through blog posts and articles, your digital marketing strategy will constantly be exposing itself to potential customers with relatively little effort.
A good marketing strategy enables businesses to connect with prospects and customers in order to then capitalize on this connection. As many individuals spend a great deal of time on the internet, especially millennials, it makes sense to use digital marketing as a way to connect with as many people as possible. Having a combination of paid and free advertising will allow you to have as broad a reach as possible. Free advertising includes collaborating with influencers and brands as a way to get more exposure and free advertising for your brand. This may include having influencers or ambassadors who take a small percentage of the business that they produce for you, or even in exchange for a feature on your platform.
Social media has become one of the primary tools in a marketing plan. There are many ways to capitalize on your social media, whether you choose to focus on one platform or several. Knowing which social media platforms work best for you and your brand will help you determine the kind of content you need to push out.
When it comes to the kind of budget you have, digital marketing is almost always more affordable than print. Unlike traditional marketing, you don’t have to pay for the costs of print or physical, which can be very expensive indeed. The costs you will have to account for include online advertising, using tools and apps to help you or your team, as well as the costs associated with hosting websites and additional platforms.
Perhaps the most significant benefit of digital marketing is that it allows you to target a vast audience, and you can create a very customized campaign tailored to your specific audience. Unlike traditional marketing that has a blanket-like approach, digital allows you to customize your adverts or content to the audience of your choice. You can use the advertising controls on various apps to target a specific audience – Instagram and Facebook have useful marketing tools that you can utilize- and you can also outsource your marketing to social media management and marketing agencies.
For small to mid-sized businesses, getting noticed and standing out from your competitors is the hardest thing to do. Digital marketing will certainly help get you the exposure you want if you can utilize it properly. Knowing how to build your profile online, and how to get (and stay) connected with your target audience is something indispensable for your marketing strategy. If you are a small business and don’t have the budget for a marketing team, then social media is the perfect place to start.
Building a following and a buzz around your brand isn’t rocket science. Many successful brands have started on social media platforms and built a strong following, which they have then used to build a business. Knowing who your competitors are is crucial to producing a good marketing strategy, firstly because it allows you to see the kind of content currently being produced, but also because it allows you to stand out from the crowd and find a niche that will draw the customer to you.
Good content is very important, and knowing how to make your brand visually appealing is crucial to the success of your business on social media. For example, Instagram is purely visual and requires a knowledge of how to transform a concept or product and turn it into good content. The kind of content you choose to put out depends very much on your target audience. Undertaking an exhaustive social media audit that reviews what is currently working and what can be improved upon across your various channels will give you an insight into how well you are doing and what you need to change. Once you know the areas you can improve upon, you will be able to tailor your digital marketing strategies to suit your needs.
There are benefits to both digital and traditional forms of marketing, and a combination of the two is the optimal marketing strategy for your business. While new marketing is the best way to get broad range exposure and interaction between the consumer and your brand, traditional marketing methods are still valuable to your business for their proven success rate, and the way you can target an older demographic who are more familiar with traditional marketing. Ultimately, it depends on the kind of business you have; however, digital marketing carries relatively little risk and is perfect for new businesses that do not have the budget for print marketing.
