Becoming a business owner in 2017 can be an extremely difficult feat, as the economy has begun to stabilise and the market is becoming much more saturated with business. It’s been revealed that only 20% of entrepreneurs are victorious in their business ventures after those initial two years.
One of the most difficult things to consider when starting a business is how you are going to build your brand and how you are going to market your services. The majority of modern marketing tools fall into two categories, which are “traditional” and “digital” marketing, the question is, which one is best for your business?
Traditional Marketing:
Traditional marketing is a craft that has been perfected over the span of centuries. Every advertisement you ever see, hear, or pass by are the result of carefully calculated and thought out by a marketing team. Traditional marketing has the power to stay with somebody long after they have come into contact with the advertisement or strategy.
Think about this, have you ever walked through a busy high-street and been handed a bottle of your favorite drink, or given a sample of food in a supermarket. All of these clever little ways to get you thinking and talking about a product or brand, fall under the umbrella of traditional marketing.
One of the best things about a traditional marketing campaign, is that you are most likely going to reach a lot of people over a short period of time, for example if you have a television advert set to air over the course of a day, then people are bound to see it. On the other hand, although you will be reaching a large audience, or putting your product in front of a lot of people, there is no guarantee that any of these people will want to buy your product or service, or even take notice of the advertisement.
There is a common saying in the marketing industry, called “throwing mud at the wall”, unless carefully catered to a specific/ niche television channel, or centred around the demographics and psychographics of your target audience, then you are essentially throwing mud at the wall and hoping that it sticks.
In other words, traditional marketing is all about thinking outside of the box and about timing. If you consider the people you are trying to sell to, where they will be, what they watch, what they listen to, and what they respond to, and then target your campaign to fit this, then you can have a really successful outcome. Some of the most simple yet effective ways to deliver brand marketing is to also hand out promotional items, such as wristbands, t-shirts and mugs.
Digital Marketing:
Digital marketing allows you to be more specific and precise with your targeting. Rather than using the “throwing mud at a wall” approach, you instead have the option of practices such as Search Engine Optimization, and Pay Per Click, which will put your company’s website in front of people who are seeking your service. This is great news for you, as it means that you are guaranteed to reach your target audience – this isn’t always a possibility with TV adverts.
As well as using SEO and PPC, many companies also choose to take advantage of social media as a key aspect of their digital marketing strategy. The reason that this strategy is becoming increasingly more popular is because it is a cheap and easy to use platform, and has also been proven to bring in one of the most successful ROI of all the marketing tools. Similar to traditional marketing techniques, digital marketing techniques and strategies are most successful when they are used together. For example, social media campaigns are useful when they are combined with SEO campaigns or PPC campaigns. All are effective on their own, but all are more successful when combined together.
Is Either one Better?
As with anything, these traditional and digital strategies are not without fault of their own. Following on from the “throwing mud at the wall” idea for traditional marketing, there is also no real way of tracking how effective your campaigns have been. For example, if a chocolate manufacturer decides to hand out free samples of their product, and also to produce a television advert, there is no real way of knowing how many direct sales have come from this.
Although you can take into consideration the rise/ drop in sales of a product, or a rise/ drop in enquiries based around the time or location, you can never be sure. As for digital marketing strategies and the use of social media platforms, there is often a two-way communication between both the company and the customers or clients, so any negative reviews that are left for the site, are made open to the public and can even damage the company’s reputation in the long run.
With all factors considered, it’s important to make sure that you put a lot of thought and consideration into your marketing campaigns. One of the best ways to ensure that you are making the most out of your marketing campaigns is by using both methods in tandem with one another.
Running various marketing campaigns, both traditional and digital and using the trial and error method will allow you to gain a better understanding on what works for your business and what brings in ROI. An unconventional, yet successful method could be to create a hashtag on social media and also printing out the hashtag on wristbands. There are so many different ways that collaborating and exerting these techniques could really assist your business in making a higher ROI.
