Have you ever wondered how digital marketing ROI (return on investment) compares with traditional marketing?
Marketing is not just about driving traffic and building brand awareness anymore, especially in today’s digital age. The line between traditional and digital marketing has blurred over the years, making it difficult to know when to use one or the other or when you should use both together.
We will look at each marketing strategy’s advantages and explore their differences to determine which produces better ROI.
What is Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing usually includes some kind of physical deliverable that you can see, touch, or hear, such as TV and radio commercials, print ads, direct mail, and more.
For traditional marketing, an advertising agency will typically develop the campaign idea and create the materials to advertise your product or service. The agency then places the advertisements in various locations where they know they will reach their target audience (i.e., newspapers, television, billboards, etc.)
Traditional marketing has numerous benefits, including its ability to reach a broad audience and tangibility. And, because traditional marketing can be seen, heard, or touched, it can be very persuasive in convincing customers to purchase.
Despite its widespread appeal, however, traditional marketing has fallen out of favor with many businesses. Its drawbacks include high costs, low flexibility, and turnaround time. Because traditional marketing can be costly, it is often only used to reach a specific audience that is already interested in your offer.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is using online channels to promote and sell products or services. This can include search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media marketing, email marketing, and more.
Digital marketing has become increasingly popular because it offers multiple benefits over traditional methods. For one, you can reach a wider audience with digital marketing than traditional marketing. Additionally, there is little to no cost for creating material to advertise products online and few limits on where these advertisements can be placed.
Digital marketing also provides data about what consumers like about your product, who saw the advertisement, and what else they viewed on your site after viewing the ad! You can use this data to target your online ads more effectively, and you can track the results of your campaigns to see what’s working and what’s not.
These advantages have led many businesses to shift away from traditional forms of marketing in favor of using a digital strategy.
Key Differences Between Digital Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing
With digital marketing, you can track your ROI more easily than traditional marketing methods.
You can target a specific audience with digital marketing techniques, whereas traditional marketing is more of a blanket approach.
Digital marketing lets you get your message out there faster than traditional marketing methods. You can budget more effectively with digital marketing since you can tailor your spending to reach the people most likely to convert.
You can test and iterate quickly with digital marketing, which is harder to do with traditional marketing tactics.
Digital channels tend to be more engaging than traditional channels, meaning people are more likely to remember your message.
Traditional media only reaches those who actively seek it out, but digital media makes your brand available 24/7 to anyone in the world with internet access.
Why ROI Matters in Marketing and How to Calculate It
When marketing, you need to know if your efforts are paying off. Otherwise, you could be wasting time and money on campaigns that are not bringing in any results.
Measuring your investment return can help determine which marketing activities are worth your time and resources. Plus, understanding your ROI can help you make more informed decisions about allocating your marketing budget.
There are several ways to calculate ROI, but the most basic ROI formula looks something like this:
ROI = (Marketing revenue – spend) / Marketing spend x 100
For example, if you generate $3,000 in revenue from a campaign that costs $2,000 to run, your marketing will have produced a 50% return on investment.
Remember that ROI is just one metric you can use to measure the success of your marketing campaigns. There are many other factors to consider, such as customer satisfaction, brand awareness, and engagement.
Which Marketing Strategy Offers a Better ROI?
You may wonder which marketing strategy will give you the best return on investment ROI. The answer, unfortunately, is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. However, a few digital advertising strategies tend to produce better ROI than others. These include SEO and email marketing.
While SEO has an average ROI of 22:1, email marketing has an average ROI of 42:1 — that’s 4200% ROI!
These figures show that investing in digital marketing produces much better results than going with old-fashioned promotional methods. The low cost and high success rate associated with this form of promotion make it an attractive option for any company looking to boost its sales without breaking the bank.
Conclusion
There is no easy answer when deciding between digital marketing and traditional marketing. Both have pros and cons; ultimately, the best strategy is usually a mix of both.
However, digital marketing is often the way to go if you are looking for the best ROI. With its lower costs and higher reach, digital marketing can help you get more bang for your buck.
