Before the internet existed, companies used traditional marketing techniques to get their name out. These techniques still exist today, such as broadcasting, print media advertisements, direct mail, etc.
Now, over 60% of the global population uses the internet, which has made it a hot marketing space for businesses of all types and sizes.
Although traditional advertising can produce good results in terms of lead generation, most brands turn to social media marketing for that purpose.
This article is a fact-based comparison between social media advertising and traditional marketing to explain why the former is better and a more preferable form of marketing.
Precise Targeting
Social media marketing allows companies to discover, understand, and precisely target their consumers through research. If you have a social media page for your brand, you can easily track the demographics of your followers.
In addition to helping you collect data, digital media can enable you to make smarter business decisions and boost engagement rates by analyzing your account activity.
However, the story is totally different when it comes to traditional marketing.
Traditional marketing strategies are more outbound than inbound, which means that you are advertising your product to random people without any proper targeting, even to those who would never buy from you because they are not your ideal customers.
Affordable Cost
A huge reason why brands decide to opt for social media marketing and not traditional advertising is cost. Traditional marketing methods are a lot pricier than social media marketing but with fewer benefits.
On the other hand, with social media, you have to pay significantly less than you would with traditional advertising while also targeting potential buyers who are more likely to purchase from you.
You can also run the same ad on more than one social media platform, for example: if you are running an ad on Instagram, you can use the same ad for marketing on Facebook without spending more, and vice-versa.
More Flexible
Another notable feature of social media advertising is more flexibility and control. You have more command over your published ad on social media than you would with a traditional ad.
Social media is dynamic – it is flexible and ever-changing. Thus, you can make changes to your advertisement whenever and wherever needed without hassle.
With traditional ads, your control is limited and you would have to pay extra to make any sort of edits. It would also take you a lot more time to change your traditional ad than your social media ad.
Greater Engagement
A study by Sprout Social reveals that 76% of people say that they would rather buy from a brand instead of its competitors if they feel genuinely connected to it.
Social media gives you the opportunity to directly talk to potential customers, engage with them, and build their trust with time.
That is something quite hard to do with traditional marketing techniques. Sure, you can engage with them to some extent, but the overall engagement levels will still be extremely low as compared to social media marketing.
You can also get honest feedback from customers through social media and use it to improve your business.
Conclusion
Social media has become a beaming place for brands and consumers to freely interact.
Customers can view the profiles of their favorite brands, view and engage with their posts, visit their linked sites, see reviews from previous buyers, and start a conversation with them anytime.
Because it is such a fantastic place for advertising, you want to make sure your presence on social media is attractive, and that you are using ads the correct way.
The best way to do that is by taking advantage of social media marketing services offered by professionals with years of experience under their belts.
2BTech is a digital marketing agency in Lahore that can refresh your social media game and help your brand outshine its competitors.
