DIGITAL AND TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING – A REALITY CHECK

In 8 years of business as an advertising and brand management firm in a small town in Assam, has made me ponder some important points that why small industries are reluctant of investing. Is it fear of competitive copying? Fear of Investing? Lack of advertising knowledge or just a waste of time?

Advertising and branding today is not a waste of money or time, but rather an investment. One should look how to position his or her brand no matter big or small, it should have a competitive edge over the others.

The crossover from traditional advertising to digital advertising has given a tremendous opportunity for a novice social media enthusiast to post a photo of their business on a Facebook or an Instagram page without the lack of proper content, design and reach. The result, if you are lucky, you get a few clients or some leads. But the whole question is that, is it working?

The public sector companies, which primarily believed in traditional advertising few years back have made a smooth transition to digital media to get more audience and public connect. The answer is simple. The cost of new media is way cheaper and have more retention value over traditional media.

The most alluring form of digital media advertising is healthcare industry. You need not spend thousands of dollars to get patients or quality leads for your services and specialties. Being in healthcare digital marketing for last 6 years, we came across lots of hurdles in brand positioning. A case study of a client, who was doing relatively well in the field of diagnostics, suddenly came the competition which was beyond our capacity as a brand management firm. So, we took up marketing as well brand positioning in both traditional and digital media. Introducing hub and spoke methodology along with digital marketing increased its business by manifold.

In today’s context one cannot segregate the traditional and new media business to do branding and marketing. Both need to go parallels. Digital media has more audience value over traditional media. One spends more in digital media, one gets more reach, leads and repetitive viewing with latest AI technologies. Today’s digital ads give more freedom and luxury of being creative in terms of design and content. A small business house can get more customers if digital content is mixed with traditional media. A pamphlet, a leaflet and brochure still hold their value even in the age of digital marketing. A focus advertising with proper target audience still holds a chance of winning in both digital and traditional advertising.