What is traditional marketing? If you think of television commercials, radio ads, and flyers marked “occupant” you’re in the right ballpark.

When you think about the typical forms of marketing you can think of a fisherman throwing a large net out into the water to only pull up a couple of fish. There’s no denying the large reach of traditional marketing, but that reach doesn’t always produce results.

What Were You Doing During Commercials

Unless you’re watching the Super Bowl, most of the time you probably got up, performed a task or had a conversation during the commercial breaks for your shows. While the company that paid for the advertising spot would have rather had your full attention, you were not interested in the products and services being offered most of the time. This has been one of the greatest issues with traditional forms of advertising.

Traditional Marketing is Extremely Expensive

Compared to digital forms of advertising, traditional efforts are expensive. Small companies normally can’t afford a television commercial spot and might not be able to afford a radio ad. Thanks to the development of the internet, social media, and smartphones, more affordable digital marketing processes have been developed that can make even a small business being run out of a garage look big time.

Cold Calling is a Thing of the Past

Did you have a job at a newspaper or magazine office and your job was to call a specified number of people every day? That was cold calling. While there are still some companies that employ this tactic, more companies now rely on Pay-Per-Click campaigns which only charge them when a consumer clicks on an ad. This allows an online user to engage with the ad and shows interest in the products or services right away.

Today’s Consumer Search for a Personal Experience

The personal experience that consumers desire isn’t limited to the time they spend on social media with their friends and family. This desire is in every aspect of their lives. When you offer digital advertising, it’s possible to reach people on a personal level. No longer is the traditional marketing aspect of yelling deals at consumers good enough to gain their attention.

Commercials Can be Left Out

Another reason traditional marketing fails is the fact that commercials can be left out of our viewing experience. While some people will gladly enjoy a cheaper version of their streaming services, some services such as Hulu and Netflix, offer ad-free programming for a nominal fee. That should be a signal that your company should avoid traditional forms of marketing for the products and services you offer.

How Effective Were Traditional Ads?

Did any company truly receive a full picture of how impactful their advertising was? The quick answer to this is “no” because there weren’t any tools to measure the impact. The best they could do was ask a couple of survey questions to their customers to see what ads were ranking the best, but that never gave a clear picture of the impact of the advertising, which left a lot of guesswork to be done.

Today, not only can we track each advertising campaign and understand the ROI involved in the marketing effort. We know when leads come from specific ads and we can track a consumer’s path through a website. There are so many tools that we can measure nearly everything that takes place in the digital world and won’t have to guess as to which ads are performing well and which ones are not.

New Generations are Growing Up without Traditional Ads

The latest generation is full of people that have had a smartphone in their hands from an early age. Many families are giving their kids cell phones before they reach middle school and these kids are growing up with digital marketing and not traditional marketing. Like it or not, this means a change in the entire marketing landscape is already taking place and looks to continue.

Traditional Marketing is Nearly Dead

There are still all forms of traditional advertising being used, but mostly only by the largest companies with the most money. Most companies have put more effort into digital marketing. With digital, your advertising can reach your audience more directly, where they are, measure the results, and spend a lot less to reach customers. Digital advertising is here to stay and continues to get better while traditional forms of advertising are falling by the wayside.