Is Digital Marketing Over-Hyped?

 

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In an era where businesses that haven’t at least partly gone digital are looked at as relics from the Jurassic age, can one question the efficacy of digital marketing as an important means of growing a business? With a gargantuan industry size of $780 billion, can you blame them for thinking like that? [1]With the daily number of hours spent going online via one’s phones ranging between 4 and 6 hours worldwide, can it really be otherwise?

The surging popularity of digital marketing as evidenced by its huge industry size is certainly a validation of its effectiveness. Still, just because that is the case, it does not mean we can’t have doubts about it or not subject it to greater scrutiny. Unbridled and unchecked enthusiasm for any trend can lead to unmitigated disasters as the Dot Com bubble and the subprime crisis showed us not all that long ago.

The thing to consider here is that digital marketing is one part of the marketing exercise and not the whole of it as it seems to have become. You can also market digitally and not just market digitally. There is a distinction between the two and this should not be forgotten. Just getting a discussion going about a brand online does not make it a hit or a success. There is so much more that determines a brand or business’s success than SEO and social media chatter.

Every year one hears of new-fangled technologies like VR, AR, Metaverse, NFT and, of course, everyone’s current favourite Generative AI. More than anything else, these technologies raise marketing budgets, more than the ROI. Marketing has to be in the now and present which is the hallmark of traditional forms of marketing, not digital marketing, which is forever toying with new seemingly path-breaking ideas.

A Case for Traditional Marketing

There is much that is good about traditional marketing. From credibility and flexible outreach to ease of implementation and the ability to target an older audience, it retains its ability to give digital marketing a run for its money and in many cases outperform it. Besides, it may work out cheaper in some cases considering the cost of going digital including the money spent on training and familiarizing oneself with the digital way of doing digital marketing.  

Overall, of course, digital marketing is known to be a lot cheaper and provides marketers the wherewithal to reach out far and wide without breaking the bank. Besides, its results can be tracked and tabulated better and sooner. That is the reason why it has seen such growth. But to jettison traditional marketing altogether for digital marketing would be a foolhardy move.

[1] https://www.marknteladvisors.com/research-library/digital-marketing-market.html#:~:text=The%20Global%20Digital%20Marketing%20Market,%2C%20i.e.%2C%202024%2D30.

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