Online Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing

In today’s world, social media marketing is a subject that almost every person, consumer or seller should have some basic knowledge of. We live in a digital age that is constantly evolving and companies must adapt their strategy with it in order to survive. As a result, all forms of digital marketing are widely being explored across the different sectors with huge investments being made into the latest technology. This is all part of the great online race with some participants developing new and creative ways to strengthen their brand while others are simply trying to keep up or look trendy. With that in mind a lot of the focus has been taken away from the traditional forms of advertising (radio, television, print etc.) and it is often looked

Zenit Raval1, Dushyant Tanna, Dhwani Raval (2014) note that Philip Kotler’s 4Ps (Product, Price Place and Promotion) are applicable to both traditional and online marketing forms but with varying characteristics. They argue that “Internet marketing is often presented as a new theory of marketing but the basics of marketing mix are still applicable and Internet offers new opportunities to adapt them”. There are a number of places where this comes into effect. For example, when it comes to pricing, the online side of marketing is a lot more transparent as products and promotions on social media sites can be accessed at the click of a button by the user and compared to many other brands quickly. With traditional marketing, the public wouldn’t have this luxury and have to make decisions based on what is available to them at the time thus losing out on potential bargain. Because of this, online marketing has given consumers an advantage when buying. It has also given companies both an advantage and disadvantage as they need to be more competitive in pricing but can also gather data on their competing companies prices

Websites such as Facebook and Twitter allow users to feel part of a bigger trend and therefore a purpose when it comes to online marketing campaigns. Unlike traditional forms, this can involve user input with varying levels of interactivity that will encourage chatter among peers about the brand and increase participation. Alexa Bezjian-avery, Bobby Calder, Dawn Iacobucci (1998) suggest that “the excitement over new interactive media has implied that interactive systems should always be superior to traditional advertising”, using a theory that linear flowing advertising is inferior to that with a hierarchy. However this proved not to be the case in their conducted study which involved a computer set up featuring two separate test groups. The experiment presented half of the candidates with two programs, one of which was a linear advert system and the other was interactive. Both systems contained adverts that were similar in appearance. The only differentiation was whether the user could click through each ad one at a time or choose where on the system to view next. The users at the end were asked to outline as many details about each ad as possible. Results showed that those viewing in a linear format with no other options on screen spent more time on each advertisement which suggested that “interactivity may interrupt the process of persuasion.” A study with a similar purpose was carried out