5 benefits of digital marketing over traditional marketing strategy

So you are about to consider venturing into digital marketing, but having heard a lot from many different sources until you no longer know why you should even consider digital marketing right? Or did you just last here accidentally, chances are the former is true. Either way, we are here to explore the benefits that digital marketing adds to your marketing strategy to help you make an informed decision. 

First, let’s define digital marketing. Digital marketing is defined by Oracle Kenya as the creation and sharing of content through digital media platforms such as websites, landing pages, social media, email, and mobile applications. This sharing can be carried out organically or using paid adverts that enhance the deliverability of the marketing campaign. Here are the 5 top benefits;

1. Easily quantifiable results
   The biggest and probably most important part of marketing is getting the numbers right, that is, achieving the results. One may never know whether the results have been achieved until they look at the quantities, and this is where digital marketing edges out traditional marketing. While it is not entirely impossible to quantify results on traditional marketing platforms, it is way much easier and real time on digital media platforms.
   For example it is easier to calculate essential KPIs such as click through rates (CTRs), especially since some platforms will provide a real time summary of the performance of marketing campaigns. The photo below shows real time data provided for a post on Facebook, which can be quantified easily.

2. Makes it easier to personalize marketing efforts
   One of the most effective strategies to effective digital marketing is personalizing messages. Think back to a time when you received a message from a company and the email read, “Dear [your name]”. To some extent it captured your attention and you decided to keep reading, thinking you were special to the sender, until you read and realized it was all a marketing ploy, right?
   Now, with traditional marketing, it is really cumbersome to personalize marketing messages because chances are everyone reads from the same output, but in digital marketing where people access digital media on personal devices, marketing messages can be customized to read the names of the users based on data collected from them.
   As a matter of fact, such data also makes it possible to track a certain user’s online patterns and behavior and make almost accurate predictions on their buyer decisions, making it easier to add value where it can be added. For example, for a user who checks adverts about a mother’s day gift every year, it is almost certain that if a company sends them a suggestion before the next mother’s day, accompanied by a gracious discount, they are likely to buy without hesitation.
3. Digital marketing reaches more people
   Digital marketing reaches way more people than traditional marketing ever could, well for the most part. This is because digital marketing can be optimized to deliver certain results and even edited in real time to meet the objectives. For example, with digital marketing you can almost be certain that your campaign budget will deliver a specific number of impressions within a given amount of time, and that a given addition to the budget would entitle you to an additional number of people reached.
   With most traditional marketing methods, one is only hopeful to reach a given number of people, but with digital marketing and use of advanced technology, one is assured of meeting and most probably even exceeding expected results. For example, with digital marketing, one can reach 10,000 people who are more likely to use their digital devices and see an advert than they are to step outside and see a billboard advertisement.
4. Is cost efficient/ keeps costs low
   By all means, while this is relatively an arguable point, it takes much less hustle and money to get and maintain a digital marketing campaign than it does to maintain a traditional marketing campaign. Consider how branding physical stores would often mean closing down for repairs, and the amount of resources needed would sometimes make it hard to do so as much as monthly changes in visual branding, but such changes on digital media can be as simple as the snap of a finger, with less need for resources and closure of business.
   It would cost way less to change the font of a brand’s name on a digital platform than it would in a physical store where paint work and several other repairs and installations would definitely be needed.
5. Breaks geographical barriers
   The beauty with digital media is that for the most part, it is able to break many pre-existing barriers such as geographical barriers, and makes it possible to reach places where one cannot reach in other means, while still keeping costs low. For example, as a consulting firm based in Kenya, Rensyl Integral is able to run adverts that target companies based outside our Kenyan sphere all thanks to digital marketing. We can, and have been able to implement projects where companies target audiences in geographical regions far from where the company is located, selling to such people as though they are neighbors.

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