Traditional versus Digital Media - Essay Example

Traditional versus Digital Media Executive Summary This paper is based on a comparative study on the effectiveness of traditional and digital media and how it has changed the way the customers’ purchasing decisions are influenced. The digital marketing has allowed the marketers to reach out to a large number of customers in a much lower cost and effectively influence their purchasing behaviour. The digital media has given several ways to make marketing communications such as search engines, social media, banner ads and smartphone applications. These forms of promotional medium are relatively new to the customers and are quite effective in creating customer awareness by drawing their attention. The digital marketing has been boosted by the rise of technological advancements, this has not only changed the way marketers advertise their products, but it has also changed the customers’ method of purchasing. The concept of online shopping has opened up new prospects of digital marketing. The marketers can easily monitor the purchasing trends of the customers and offer customized discounts and product suggestions. Thus, it is evident that digital media marketing is more effective in conducting the promotional activities. Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction 4 2.0 Literature Review 4 3.0 Traditional versus Digital media 5 4.0 Conclusion 8 Reference List 9 1.0 Introduction The global business market place is constantly changing mostly in terms of the increasing competitiveness. The firms are trying to seek out for new ways to add value for the customers and competitive advantage in the industry (Evans, 2010). Moreover, the customers’ and psychology are also evolving over the years. Not only they are easily bored with the same product but they also have become quite immune to the traditional marketing media. This is a major concern for the marketers as it has become imperative to adopt new marketing communication medium which will help to break the clutter and attract new customers. The following sections cover a comparative discussion on the effectiveness of traditional and digital marketing and how they are effective on influencing the consumers’ buying behaviour. 2.0 Literature Review According to Wicks (2014), the traditional marketing media mostly include the television commercials, radio commercials, print advertisements, telephone advertisements and direct sales. The print media is further divided into news paper advertisements, street side billboards, hoarding, etc. These forms of promotional activities have been used over the decades. Lavinsky (2013) have mentioned that with the advent of the internet and rapid rise of computer and gadget usage, the marketing technique have evolved over the last ten years. The internet plays the major role in the drastic changes in the promotional activities and how the marketers have made it easy for the customers to make their purchase decision. Gupta (2015) further added that the digital media is helping the marketers to reach a larger audience in a more cost effective way. The Digital marketing media includes social media ads, banner ads, pay per click ads, etc. These forms of advertisement are more effective to reach a large number of audiences in less effort and time. Olenski (2015) opined that the rise of smartphone usage has given rise to a new way to communicate to the customers. The marketers are being able to send banner ads to certain ad supported mobile applications. Wicks (2014) stated that the rise of digital marketing has taken the global business market by storm, but it has also been evidenced that there are several companies that have failed to get the desired media exposure and sales figure despite of adopting digital marketing media. In this context, Lavinsky (2013) further added that a particular promotional activity must be based on the psychosocial nature of the target audience. This can be justified by the fact that different products are target at different customer segments which bear different psychological background. Hoffman and Fodor (2010) mentioned in this context that a particular category of customers may be more attracted to a certain marketing media than the rest. Thus, it is advisable for the marketers to create a proper mix of promotional activities that can strike a proper balance between the traditional and digital media. Sole dependence on a particular media may not yield the desired result. Olenski (2015) mentioned on a global perspective that the customers are not completely habituated with the entire idea of digital marketing. Although the rise of internet usage is increasing by the years, but it still needs time to completely become a primary marketing medium. Thus in order to influence a large customer base, the marketers needs to make sure that its promotional mix contains both digital and traditional media. Gupta (2015) mentioned that the effectiveness of television commercials and print ads are still as effective as it was a decade age. So it can be stated that the traditional media has not lost its effectiveness in influencing the purchase decision of the customers. However, the relatively newer forms of marketing media like internet banner ads are less costly than the traditional ones, thereby making it more viable for the new firms that have financial constraints. 3.0 Traditional versus Digital media This section covers the detailed appraisal of the traditional and digital media and how they can influence the purchase decision of the customers. The advent of technology has changed the way the people live their lives, the way the business operations are run and how the marketers communicate with the customers. The rise of internet usage has literally revolutionized the way the marketing activities are conducted. It has allowed the customers to have easy access to product and brand information (Saravanakumar and SuganthaLakshmi, 2012). Moreover, word of mouth spreads faster and more effectively owing to the world wide usage of social media. The rise of eCommerce or online shopping has changed the way the customers purchase their products. Although the concept of e-Commerce is quite popular in a global context but it has not yet overshadowed the physical retail business in all the sectors. However, the pace at which technology is taking over lifestyle of the consumers, is quite concerning for the marketers. Therefore, in order to adapt to the changing market environment, the marketers need to make changes in the marketing strategies (Kim and Ko, 2012). Presently, the time spent by and individual with an internet connected device has increased over the years. Previously, a traditional media can only communicate with the customers for a limited period of time (Stokes, 2011). However, this concept of customer communication and relationship has changed over time. The rapid growth of internet connected devices like laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc. has allowed the marketers to communicate with the customers easily. The increasing internet usage allows an individual to spend more time in the internet, thereby allowing the marketers to have a wider window of time to influence the users (Chaffey, Smith and Smith, 2012). Moreover, the consumers have become more immune to traditional promotional activities. Wind and Mahajan (2002) explained that since the consumers are being exposed to the same type of promotional activities over a long time, so subconsciously they have created a barrier that suppresses the influencing factors of the promotional activities. This as a result makes it more important to focus on newer form of marketing strategies which is digital media marketing. The digital media allows the markets to apply innovative ideas into play, which is quite different than that of the traditional media. One of the newest forms of digital marketing is the social media marketing. Since, there is a global rise of social media users, so it has made easier for the marketers to reach out to large number of customers. Digital media has also changed the way the marketers maintain the long term communication with the customers (Wertime and Fenwick, 2011). Previously, the traditional media only allowed the marketers to use tele-calling, postal service and face-to-face communication to maintain a good relationship with the customers. Moreover, in order to offer customers centric discounts, offers or product suggestion, the store personnel had to memorize the purchase choice of the customers, which is quite difficult, particularly while handling large number of customers (Bird, 2007). However, the advent of digital media has made it easier for the firms to keep a good long term relationships with the customers. The marketers can easily communicate with their customers through email and social network. The social media marketing has also allowed the marketers to closely monitor the consumers’ behaviour particularly in terms of the post purchase behaviour. The marketers can post details of new product launch, discount offers and at the same time monitor the reactions of the customers. Moreover, with the use of eCommerce, the company can directly measure the effectiveness of its promotional activities (Edelman, 2010; Dholakia, 2008). The digital marketing has also given birth to the concept of Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) system. The CRM in integration with the digital marketing communication is capable of maintaining a close relationship with the customers and increase the customer retention rate of the firms. The CRM utilizes a computerized system that monitors the purchasing activities of the customers and identifies a trend which helps it to offer individual customer oriented suggestions and discount offers over emails. This concept is more effective for the eCommerce firms, where they can monitor every purchase of a customer, no matter how small it may be (Bitner, Brown and Meuter, 2010). The digital marketing has also evolved in a different direction where it allows marketers to gather data from the browser cookies and browser history. Although, in some situations it can be considered unethical to monitor personal browser history, however it has proved to be quite effective for the firms to offer search based product offerings to the consumers. Since, an individual spends a considerable time in surfing the internet, so the marketers are quite interested to know what that individual is mostly browsing for. This information can be gathered by collecting cookies and browser history. Moreover, the increased use of smartphone apps allows the marketers to send discount offers and product suggestions via notifications. This has made it easier for the marketers to effectively reach out to the customers. Currently, it has proved to be more effective to influence the customer’s purchasing decisions than email communications (Bothma, 2010). From the point of view of effectiveness of promotional activities, the marketers are constantly shifting to digital media, owing to its effectiveness in exposing a large number of consumers at once in a more cost efficient way. The marketers are looking forward to create a proper combination of traditional and digital marketing to create a maximum exposure for the customers (Cazier and Louis, 2009; Nexturninc, 2013). Moreover, the effectiveness of digital media is dependent on certain business sectors or product category. It has been evidenced that digital marketing is more effective for the eCommerce firms like Amazon, eBay, etc. and for firms that has an online retail presence. Furthermore, digital marketing is more effective in influencing the younger population as compared to the older generation, as the younger generation is proficient with internet and smartphone usage (Chen and Dhillon, 2010). 4.0 Conclusion From a comparative study between the traditional and digital media, it can be appraised that the digital marketing is more efficient in terms of reaching out to a wider audience in much less cost that any traditional media forms. The marketers have always tried to seek out for new ways to gather knowledge about consumer behaviour and their changing preferences. The digital marketing has made it easier to gather that information, particularly from social media and by tracking browser cookies. Moreover, the marketers are capable of communicating more effectively by social media websites, which as a result has helped the firms to successfully reduce customer retention costs. The CRM software has helped the retailers to track the purchasing trends of a large number of customers at ease, thereby allowing them to offer customized product suggestions based on customers’ preferences. The rise of smartphone usage has opened up new window of opportunities for the marketers to conduct their promotional activities. The smartphone applications allow the firms send instant notification regarding any discounted sale or suggestion. Digital media gradually changed the way the marketing strategies are implemented and how customer relationships are maintained. It has helped marketers to overcome several operational barriers and ensure future growth and sustainability by attracting more new customers and retaining the old ones. Reference List Bird, D., 2007. Commonsense direct and digital marketing. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Bitner, M. J., Brown, S. and Meuter, M. L., 2010. Technology Infusion in Service Encounters. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 28, (1), pp.138-149 Bothma, J., 2010. Managing E-Commerce in Business. 3rd ed. New York: Free Press. Cazier, J.A. and Louis, R.D., 2009. E-business differentiation through value-based trust. Information & Management, 43, pp. 718-727 Chaffey, D., Smith, P. R. and Smith, P. R., 2012. eMarketing eXcellence: Planning and optimizing your digital marketing. London: Routledge. Chen, S. C. and Dhillon, G. S., 2010. Interpreting Dimensions of Consumer Trust in E-Commerce, Information Technology and Management, 4, pp. 303-311. Dholakia, N., 2008. Global e-commerce and online marketing: watching the evolution. 7th ed. Derby: CIMA. Edelman, D. C., 2010. Four ways to get more value from digital marketing. McKinsey Quarterly, pp. 6-9. Evans, D., 2010. Social media marketing: the next generation of business engagement. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Gupta, V., 2015. Traditional or Digital Marketing? Is That the Right Question? 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Wertime, K. and Fenwick, I., 2011. Digimarketing: The essential guide to new media and digital marketing. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Wicks, D., 2014. Examples of Traditional Marketing. [online] Available at: [Accessed 7 April 2015] Wind, J. and Mahajan, V., 2002. Digital marketing: global strategies from the worlds leading experts. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Read More