Digital Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing: Literature Review and Practical Lessons

Introduction

Since the Internet was born, has taken place to important changes that have affected people's lives on a social, economic or personal level (Haythornthwaite, 2005; Matthyssens et al., 2008). Not only people have been conditioned by this change, but the business world, which has had to adapt to the new methods of conducting business (Saura et al., 2019). Therefore companies had to change their way of reaching customers, doing business or using different technological tools that have allowed greater effectiveness and profitability (Martínez-Navalón et al., 2020; Ribeiro-Navarrete et al., 2021). One of the areas of the company that has been specifically affected by these changes has been marketing (Lagrosen, 2005). In particular, companies had to implement digital marketing, i.e. to promote their products and services through the internet. That is why traditional marketing has been affected in most cases, because companies had to invest more in digital marketing, leaving aside traditional marketing.

According to Morozan et al. (2009) through digital marketing it is possible to promote products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a relevant, personal and cost-effective way. Digital marketing strategies can measure multiple factors, such as sales or conversions, to time spent viewing a website or preferences. Therefore digital marketing allows for much more flexibility and full customer treatment. Also, it enables a personalisation of the strategy that is more tailored to the target audience. In addition to this, digital marketing allows to have a clear information about products and services, has a greater engagement of customers or enables instant purchase (Yasmin et al., 2015). Therefore, companies should try to find out through digital channels what their customers want and demand, as this is directly related to customer satisfaction and trust towards the product and services (Gelashvili et al., 2021).

In the meantime, traditional marketing is based on promotional strategies such as direct sales, television, radio, mail and print media (Cant and Wiid, 2016). In most cases, traditional marketing reaches a local audience more easily than other types of marketing and longevity is the main reason why people are used to traditional marketing (Todor, 2016). According to study elaborated by Kashani et al. (2005) traditional marketing focuses on the immediate “consumers” of the company's products and services who are defined as the “next in line”. Companies using the traditional marketing system must plan, implement and control the strategies to achieve the proposed objectives, in addition to this they must set marketing goals for the company (Armstrong et al., 2009). Traditional marketing methods to reach the customers are different among them it is possible to distinguish newspapers, radio, TV, billboards along roads and highways, etc. (Sinha, 2018).