Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: Why Not Both?

Traditional marketing versus digital marketing has become a hot topic among marketing professionals.

I set out to learn the pros and cons of each and return with my findings so that you can make an informed decision about marketing your brand.

I’ll go over what the two terms mean, and how they work together. Then, I’ll dive deeper into traditional marketing, which sometimes feels like it doesn’t get a fair shake in the current digital-dominated landscape.

But if you’re trying to choose between the two, I’ll give away the ending before we begin: the answer is both.

Table of Contents

What is traditional marketing?

Traditional marketing is all marketing that happens offline. This includes print, broadcast, direct mail, phone, and out-of-home advertising like billboards and posters.

It’s called the traditional method because it’s the way marketing was done pre-internet. But even though the contemporary market has incorporated newer methods, traditional marketing isn’t going away.

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What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing, on the other hand, is any marketing that’s conducted online. Examples here include paid social media ads, email marketing, and PPC advertising, along with content marketing, SEO, and much more.

This post won’t go into all the details, but for a deep dive into digital marketing, check out What is Digital Marketing: Everything You Need to Know.

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As the world becomes more digital, the way we market has evolved. Not only is digital marketing sometimes more cost-effective than traditional, but it’s also a more direct way to connect with target audiences globally.

Digital marketing has now overtaken traditional marketing as the primary way to reach consumers. But really, these two strategies coexist, and mixing methods is becoming the norm.

In today’s landscape, it’s no surprise that digital marketing is an increasingly important revenue driver. In fact, 78% of businesses that use social selling outperform those that don’t.

Disadvantages to digital marketing do exist, however. Chief among them are privacy and security concerns. According to the same 2024 report, online data privacy is valued as a human right by 74% of survey respondents.

In response, the tide has shifted toward more safeguards, with 84% of marketers saying it’s affected their strategy. Apart from that, digital marketing faces the challenge of people being fed up with disruptive ads, like pop-ups and video, while viewing offline ads favorably.

What about AI?

In 2024, according to our State of Marketing Report, 85% of marketers say generative AI has changed how they will create content, and marketers using AI are “95% more likely to say their marketing strategy was very effective this year than those who don’t.”

AI is, of course, changing the game for everyone — including the marketing industry — and it’s yet to be seen how it will affect the relationship between traditional and digital. But one thing is for sure: it’s currently the single biggest trend driving industry growth.

Types of Traditional Marketing

Now that we understand both sides of the coin, let’s take a deeper look at traditional marketing. It can take many forms, but the major types are as follows.

Print Media

Print media uses newspapers, magazines, and other printed materials to market to potential customers. This option is scalable, from locally to globally read publications.

A now-infamous example of an attention-grabbing newspaper ad is Norwegian Airlines’ “Brad is single” campaign, which capitalized on the breakup of a celebrity couple. I’m not one to gossip, but if you’re looking to draw eyes to your low, low prices, that’s a way to do it.

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Broadcasting

This refers to TV and radio commercials and aims to create brand awareness. Broadcasting relies on repetition, as the same ad will play over and over.

An ad that has always stuck with me is for Wendy’s hamburgers – where a woman examines the competitor’s offering and asks, “Where’s the beef?”

Originally aired in 1984, the commercial later became so iconic that I can still call up the woman’s voice in my head — even though I didn’t see the ad when it appeared. Forty years later, I’d say that’s good advertising.

Direct Mail

Direct mail is when marketing materials are sent straight to your door.

These can be letters, postcards, flyers, catalogs, or even gifts, and the point is to connect with an individual directly — unlike with print or broadcast, where the aim is to reach as many people as possible.

An example of a direct mail campaign where the mailing matched its purpose comes from Ikea. To market one of its side tables, a small pop-up version of the table came encased in the Ikea catalog.

It caught my attention for the perfect parallel between Ikea’s flat-packed furniture and the paper miniature meant to advertise it.

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Phone

Telemarketing, which includes cold-calling, is another traditional method for reaching a prospect directly. Direct phone marketing goes a step further than direct mail in aiming to generate a connection with the prospective customer.

I admit I had to look up an example for this one, and it’s difficult to find much information since calls are so ephemeral.

But I found a leading telemarketing campaign from Microsoft in 2009 when sales reps were calling to sell the Office Suite software. Sources say the company generated $1 million in revenue from this campaign alone.

Out-of-Home (OOH)

OOH marketing means it occurs outside your home, and the primary examples are static billboards, posters, signs on buses, and painted wallscapes.

This is a form of visual marketing that most often uses images to convey its message. OOH is location-based and aims to market to people passing by a particular spot.

As someone who spent much of my life walking around cities as an urban researcher, this type of marketing is the most likely to call my attention.

A smart example that comes to mind is the Coca-Cola billboards that appeared in European cities in 2019. The image takes the brand’s recognizable white ribbon and turns it into an arm, with a hand that points to a recycling bin on the street.

The campaign hints at Coke’s promise to make its bottles fully recyclable. And I personally, love this type of interaction between the ad and the urban environment.

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Importance of Traditional Marketing

It might already be pretty clear from the above examples, but I want to break down some of the reasons why traditional marketing is still important alongside digital marketing.

Trust

Connecting with potential customers is at the heart of marketing. And recent surveys show that when asked about their most trusted advertising formats, traditional marketing channels fill out the top slots, with print ads ranking first.

So, even if it seems like we live in a digital marketing landscape, when it comes to trust, what’s tried and true works better.

Loyalty

Given that I hardly receive mail anymore, I was surprised to learn that direct mail ranked third in the same trust surveys.

In addition, according to a 2024 post from the Data & Marketing Association, personalized mailings are set to make a comeback with contemporary marketers for their ability to convert into long-lasting loyalty.

Reach

Looking at broadcasting, I was skeptical about how effective radio ads could still be, but when I got my hands on the results of a 2023 Edison Research survey, it turned out that if you spend any time in a car, you’re likely to be listening to AM/FM radio (76% of listeners are).

That makes you a perfect audience for ads in that channel.

Cold-calling was the other one I wasn’t so sure of. But just like direct mail, cold-calling effectiveness is on the rise — and again I was surprised by the numbers.

Cognism’s 2024 State of Cold Calling Report announced that the success rate of B2B cold-calling doubled from 2023 to 2024 (from roughly 2% to 4%).

Pros and Cons of Traditional Marketing

Compared to digital marketing, traditional marketing has both pros and cons.

Pro: Local Audiences

Traditional marketing is great when you want to reach a local or niche community. If you’re operating in a small market, highly-specific ad placements can help you reach the right people.

Pro: Repetition

Another advantage is repetition of ads. And it’s not just with TV commercials or radio jingles that might get stuck in your head. When thinking about OOH, it’s easy to imagine how walking past the same bus shelter billboard daily increases brand visibility and awareness.

Pro: Credibility

And that leads me to credibility. With brand recall, especially in the public spaces we occupy on a daily basis, ads start to feel familiar, like any part of the environment, and add to credibility.

Con: Cost

Traditional marketing can be pricier than digital marketing. In 2024, an average newspaper ad could run upwards of $750, while an online ad 3-5 cents per click.

Beyond that part of the budget will be wasted on casting a wide net and getting your ad in front of people outside your target.

Con: Targeting

This brings me to precision targeting: it’s an integral part of the digital marketing world — and a part that traditional marketing really can’t compete with. If you need granular segmentation, none of the marketing channels above will give you that.

Con: Measurability

Alongside the inability to precisely zoom in on certain target audiences, measuring the results of ad campaigns is not as straightforward as with online marketing.

There are no real-time results or optimizations. And the process of changing an ad will take longer if you realize it’s underperforming.

Can traditional and digital marketing really work together?

Absolutely. My biggest takeaway after sinking my teeth into the stats is that not only is there room for both strategies to exist, but it can be an advantage to double up and use them together.

While traditional marketing can win over local audiences, it doesn’t offer a granular way to target. That gap can be filled with digital marketing.

And with marked distinctions between the two methods, I’d say it’s more a question of multiplying options than pitting the two against each other.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.