The age-old debate, Traditional versus Digital marketing. How are they different?

Traditional marketing, quite simply, is marketing done through conventional channels, such as TV, radio, and newspaper; it is considered the genesis of marketing. Digital marketing on the other hand, uses digital channels, such as social media, websites, and email.

1. Consumption: Traditional marketing delivers media that is consumed by a mass audience. The mass audience is perceived as a single entity, with the intention of the traditional marketer being to reach as much of the audience as possible. Think of a TV advertisement for the latest Hyundai vehicle; it is being served to you and hundreds of thousands of others with no room for differentiation or personalisation.
   
   Digital marketing however is focused on an individual audience, using platforms such as social media, to deliver customised and personalised media. The digital marketer identifies that the individual audience has nuances and seeks to tailor the media to reach the various segments of the individual audience directly instead of advertising en masse to reach as many persons as possible.
   
   
2. Audience: Traditional marketing media or “passive media” is any type of media that the audience can only consume; passive media cannot be engaged with by the audience. Let’s look at newspapers for example; the audience can only only consume and cannot engage with the media in any way.
   
   Digital marketing media on the other hand is “active media”, and is created with the intention of giving the audience the opportunity to engage with it. Think of paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram; when a sponsored advertisement shows up for the audience, they can choose a variety of actions to engage with it, such as signing-up, calling, liking, commenting and sharing.
   
   
3. Messaging: Traditional marketing uses the “one-to-many” messaging concept, with a singular message designed to deliver the same content to as many people as possible. This message is unyielding and cannot be adapted or personalised to reach the individual members of the audience.
   
   With digital marketing, the marketer applies the “one-to-one” messaging concept and creates multiple versions of the same message to reach each member of the audience directly. Think of a Google Display advertisement that is personalised to reach both the Millennial audience and the Gen-X audience, with the Millennial audience given the call-to-action to sign-up on a website form while the Gen-X audience is given the call-to-action to view a product page. Same message/media but two versions designed to reach two different segments of an audience.
   
   
4. Acquisition: Traditional marketing uses “push” tactics to serve content to as many persons in the audience as possible with the intention of closing some of them. This manner of acquisition makes push tactics more difficult to measure, more expensive and in some instances, wasteful.
   
   In comparison, digital marketing uses “pull” tactics to serve content to persons that are more likely to already be interested in what you have to offer. This was made possible through the creation of digital platforms such as social media, which allows the digital marketer to keenly measure results of said marketing tactics, monitor spend, and gauge return on investment
   
   
   That being said, each type of marketing has its merits and demerits and it is up to the marketer to determine which type should be used to maximise the returns of any marketing campaign.
   
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