Two More Key Differences Between Traditional and Online Marketing

For many small business owners, figuring out where to allot your marketing efforts can be a major challenge. After all, not only are you on a budget, but the right marketing for your business often depends on your audience and goals. In many cases, a combination of offline and online marketing is the way to go.

However, as tech-savvy individuals are becoming the bulk of the modern consumer base, it makes sense that internet-based methods are increasingly prevalent.

As a companion post to our earlier comparison of investment cost and strategies, here is a rundown of two more important differences between traditional and online marketing.

Relevancy and Reach

Beginning with how quickly they can reach potential customers, traditional and online marketing methods prove to be fairly opposite approaches.

For traditional measures, such as posting flyers, renting a billboard, or getting in a magazine, significantly more time is required between the start of the campaign and customers seeing the advertisement. Just the printing process alone takes several days, if not longer.

Additionally, traditional tactics have a smaller overall reach. While this makes them effective for local businesses, such as a coffee shop, traditional marketing will only reach a certain number of people in a specific geographic location. Of those individuals, there are even less potential customers who care about what’s on the flyer.

In comparison, online marketing is much more far reaching when it comes to targeting and connecting with a large number of consumers. Not only can you share your business blog and sell products to clients on the other side of the world, but online marketing materials can be published, delivered, and updated at the click of a button.

Customer Interaction

With traditional marketing focused more on in-person efforts while online marketing takes place on the web, it is unsurprising that the level of customer interactivity also varies.

From conferences and trade shows to live demos and events, traditional marketing remains the most effective way to create strong customer loyalty and build relationships with other businesses. This is especially important to note for business ventures that are primarily B2B or provide local level services instead of products.

In addition, while traditional tactics tend to be more costly, they enable small businesses to really make a lasting impression. After all, if a potential customer has a great experience during a demonstration where they got to sample a business’s product, that one incident creates both a visual and physical connection.

This is not to say that online marketing is ineffective at interacting with customers however. In fact, online marketing can allow your business to interact with potential customers around the clock and in a greater variety of ways than traditional methods.

With many consumers spending more and more time online, virtual connections are often taken into consideration and can greatly impact how your business’s attitude toward customers is perceived. Thus, whether it is via business YouTube videos, responding to a post on Facebook, or sending a personalized reply to a Tweet, online marketing can also create lasting impressions and help build customer loyalty.

Have comments or questions about online marketing versus traditional marketing? Leave them in the comments below.

To your success!
Ken Partain