Traditional Marketing is not Dead, Social Media is a Booster

In this article I clearly draw my attention to the reasons why businesses need to balance traditional marketing with the new modern marketing trends. I will define Marketing in simple terms as the management process through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. It includes many aspects but usually business entities pay attention to the Four elements called the 4 P’s of marketing. These include;

1 .Identification, selection and development of a Product

2 .Determination of its Price

3 .Selection of the distribution channel to reach the customers Place

4 .Development and implementation of a Promotional Strategy

Traditional and Social Media marketing are two completely different processes that need to be understood separately. The funnel for social media marketing is the opposite to traditional marketing , with the former looking to find new customers through word of mouth and through the recommendation of retained and loyal ones.

 

With the above mentioned elements, it’s unblemished that social media cannot fully enhance the potential of marketing by itself. Numerous organizations that are faced with tough economic and financial times resort to downsizing their marketing teams so as to adopt more online marketing. Neither Social Media nor Traditional marketing can efficiently support smooth business operations in the digital era. 

When it comes to the identification, selection and development or re-branding of existing Social Media does not have much to do with the entire process, therefore laying off your marketing team with the intention of maximizing online marketing will leave a huge gap when the necessity for re-branding arises.

The determination of price is largely determined by the prevailing market forces of demand and supply. However for companies that have efficient equipment and people always get an advantage when it emanates to pricing of the product. Their Costs of Goods Sold (COGS) are much lower than those that are inefficient in their operations. Highly trained individuals can safely execute this process. Hence undoubtedly signifying that Social Media does not have the capability when it comes to pricing and re-pricing commodities.

Well-coordinated teams and agents have the capacity to effectively distribute the products or services to the customers. Supply chain and route to consumer operations cannot be left to online operators to handle but rather social media simplifies communication in the entire process of delivering the product to the customers. Inopportunely many social media strategists have convinced many companies to adopt an online trend of running marketing without vividly giving attention to the elements of marketing. 

Online business is as efficient as the networks that support it. If there is anyone who still doubts that the more efficient the network is the better the online marketing strategy. You do not want to experience the agony that clients experience when the networks fail, in such circumstances the organization can only delver if it did not put all its eggs in one basket while drawing a marketing strategy.  Marketing is based on thinking about the business in terms of customer needs and their satisfaction. Marketing differs from selling as selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about. 

Business organizations need to understand that marketing invariables do view the entire business process as consisting of tightly integrated efforts to discover, create, arouse and satisfy customer needs. In other words; marketing has less to do with getting customers to pay for your product as it does developing a demand and fulfilling the customer’s needs. This is in contradiction to what many social media strategists will reveal to you during business consultations. 

Social Media has the potential to work hand in hand with all the elements of traditional marketing to deliver efficient ways of operating in organizations. Both small and large establishments need to draw up their marketing strategies and therein also lies the social media strategy. Therefore businesses can still run their marketing traditionally at a huge cost or employ both the modern marketing techniques of using social media with traditional marketing to improve efficiency. The power of social media is increasing every single day. What is becoming more prevalent is that not having a structured social media strategy for marketing will negatively affect a brand’s reputation.

By Mwebya Fred

mwbyfred@gmail.com

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