When starting a small business, it’s likely that you will have to spend a fair amount of time developing a marketing strategy to grow the business and get it off its feet. Marketing is always an area of concern for small businesses and will often take quite a bit of planning and organizing in order to get it right.
Marketing Strategies Have Rapidly Changed Within the Past Decade
With recent advances in digital marketing, many small businesses find it difficult to decide whether they should go with a traditional marketing campaign, versus a digital one. In order to decide which is better for your small business, let’s break each one down in a simple way. For more information see Austin seo services.
What Is Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing campaigns will typically comprise of traditional ad campaigns such as television ads, magazine or newspaper ads, coupons, canvassing, etc. These are ‘old school’ advertisement strategies that rely heavily on word of mouth and distribution.
In many cases, traditional marketing campaigns will rely on the use of promotions and sales in order to drive value. In many cases, traditional marketing campaigns will be targeted in short bursts and designed to change rapidly with new products and sales.
Traditional Marketing Has the Most Setbacks
Traditional marketing has plenty of merits, but also comes with quite a few constraints as well. The major drawback of traditional marketing is the lack of data that can be collected on the results. It is almost impossible to accurately judge what your return on investment is with traditional marketing.
This is because it is hard to gauge which customers were driven to your business by the marketing campaign, and which came organically. This can make it very difficult to create future marketing campaigns. Traditional marketing can often become a ‘shot in the dark’.
What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing campaigns are typically driven by email newsletters, email campaigns, targeted ad campaigns, and social media marketing. These are usually more aimed towards marketing the business as a whole, such as services and product lines, rather than sales or promotions.
With digital marketing, convenience and speed are the focus of the entire concept. Digital marketing campaigns can run constantly, without the need for ‘pulling’ them to replace them with new campaigns.
Digital Marketing Is Data Driven
A small business can simply run new campaigns concurrently and likely spend the same amount of money. In addition, digital marketing is extremely data driven. This means that it is exceptionally easy for small business owners to gauge their return on investment and find data on demographics and their target audience.
You Must Learn About Targeting Ads With Digital Marketing
One drawback of digital marketing is the need to be a bit ‘web wise’ when it comes to targeting ads and campaigns. This means that you will have to have a clearer understanding of where the ads and emails will be going before sending them out. Blanket marketing does not work as well in the digital world as it does in the physical world of marketing.
Digital Marketing Is the Way Of the Future
When being brutally honest, one must accept that digital marketing is the way of the future. It is the way that all marketing is shifting and is headed their rapidly. That is not to say that traditional marketing is not useful; it is simply on its way out.
Final Thoughts
For a small business, it is advised to spend a good deal of time developing a strong online presence. If the business absolutely must engage in traditional marketing, they should try do do so sparingly and with the intention of driving it towards digital marketing slowly over time.
Ultimately, digital marketing is still the ‘wild west’ of marketing. However, slowly but surely, it is becoming the standard across all business platforms.
