Traditional marketing is considered to be the process of promoting products or brands through various media such as radio, television, magazines, and newspapers.

On the other hand, online marketing is described as utilizing the internet and digital media to promote products or brands.

Though the methods and procedures are similar, traditional marketing and online marketing are very different. In this article, we will discuss the differences between the two so you can have a better understanding of how each one works.

Attracting New Customers

One of the primary differences between traditional marketing and online marketing is their respective approaches to attracting new customers.

With traditional marketing, we are usually focused on attracting customers who already know about our product or service. This means we have to go after current customers and try to persuade them to buy our product or use our service.

Marketing through traditional media usually involves some level of brand recall or reputation – customers already know who we are and what we offer, so the goal of the ad or marketing campaign is to remind them of our existence and to encourage them to come back for more.

In contrast, with online marketing, we are trying to attract new customers who have never heard of us. This means we have to go ‘beyond’ current customers and try to convince them to try our product or service. It is often said that you cannot buy reputation, but you can buy awareness.

The internet and social media allow us to target new audiences and discover who they are and what they want. Through a combination of SEO and content strategy, we can position our brand and product in such a way that it becomes impossible for potential customers to ignore us.

Conversely, with traditional marketing, we are usually focused on acquiring customers who already know about our product or service. This makes our job a little easier. We just have to convince them to try our product or service, but it is not always as straightforward as it sounds.

Building Loyalty

Another significant difference between the two is their approach to building loyalty.

With traditional marketing, we try to gain long-term customer loyalty by providing excellent customer service. In fact, building customer loyalty is often considered to be one of the primary responsibilities of a brand.

We ask ourselves, “How can we earn and keep their trust?” We try to understand their needs and wants, and in exchange, they will often be friendly and open to receiving our offers.

On the other hand, with online marketing, we are trying to attract and retain as many customers as possible, so we focus on providing amazing value instead of relying on goodwill to attract potential customers. We want to position our brand and product in a way that is appealing to as many people as possible. The more people who know about us, the greater our chance of securing new customers.

Providing amazing value is also considered to be one of the primary responsibilities of a brand. However, we are more likely to offer valuable content or provide an exceptional customer experience rather than spend money to purchase adverts.

Marketing to Different Audiences

An important aspect of traditional marketing is reaching the ‘right’ audience.

For example, our product may be used by men who buy expensive cars, but we may also want to target parents who are shopping for school uniforms.

With traditional marketing, we have to be mindful of the audience we are targeting and be sure to adapt our approach to suit their needs. For instance, we may want to advertise in a specific magazine for men who buy expensive cars, but we may feel that we should not advertise in a parenting magazine as that is usually published for the female audience.

In contrast, with online marketing, we do not have to be as specific about our audience. We can publish our content and attract anyone who is interested in our subject matter. Though we may continue to focus on specific demographics, we will find that our content is more broadly appealing.

Determining ROI and Measuring Success

Measuring and evaluating our marketing efforts is another important responsibility of a brand.

With traditional marketing, we usually look at the results of an ad or marketing campaign based on the number of people who responded positively to our offers. For example, let’s say we ran a radio ad for a cleaning product and the listener participation rate was 12%. This would mean our radio ad was ‘worth’ 12% of the product.

Similar to our approach to attracting customers, knowing how to measure and evaluate our success is also considered to be one of the responsibilities of a brand. We want to be sure that we are making the right decisions, so we can continue to grow and develop as a company. Evaluating the results of our radio ad would help determine whether or not we should continue with this particular marketing strategy.

With online marketing, we do not always look at how many people responded to our adverts. Rather, we look at the results of our content strategy.

We want to achieve steady growth through the organic search results on our website. Therefore, we may want to create content that is appealing to the most people, even if this is a broad spectrum of our target audience. In some cases, our target audience may not even be internet-savvy enough to know what SEO is. In these instances, we have to educate them about the advantages of having an organic website and how it ranks higher in the search engines. This is where content strategy comes into play.

In order to determine the ROI of our content strategy, we will have to look at multiple metrics.

These include things such as:

• Demographics — We will want to focus on attracting the right audience to our content
• Performance — How are our sites performing now? Are people really finding what they are looking for?
• Reach — How are people finding us? Which platforms are they using to learn more about us?
• CTR (clicks to reach) — How are people interacting with our content?

A well-executed content strategy can help drive leads and sales, and put a solid foundation for future growth.