Digital Marketing vs Traditional Marketing Paper Example

Part II: Research Methods Proposal

Digital marketing vs traditional marketing, what option offers the best way to reach the market and get them to buy.

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Research Question

What option between digital marketing and traditional marketing offers the best way to reach the market and get them to buy?

Research Objectives

• To conduct in-depth research concerning the best marketing option between digital marketing and traditional marketing.
• To explore past research studies on works related to traditional and digital marketing.
• To collect data that relates to digital and traditional marketing through the use of secondary research methods.

Background to the Research Proposal

The problem that the proposal will strive to solve is the best option between the traditional and digital marketing strategies. Therefore, the main objective will be to understand the preferences of consumers in the appreciation of the marketing methods used. Another objective is to understand the effectiveness of the different marketing strategies employed. Since the inception of digital technology, many companies have utilized digital platforms to market themselves. For example, the majority of urban population watch television on a daily basis. As technology progressed, television became a less preferred technology, with the use of smartphones and social media taking the toll (Kannan, 2017, p.14).

The current consumers, especially generation Y, prefer using social media to get information than using old media platforms like magazines and newspapers. Social media eat up a lot of young people's time and resources. It is with that change of culture that most companies, organizations, and businesses have concentrated on marketing their products and services on digital platforms (Todor, 2016, p.27). Among the population of consumers who are digital compliant, there is a portion of the population who are still clutching to the old ways. For example, most people classified as generation X are not compliant with the system of the new age like having smartphones and using social media. Another exceptional group is the one with low levels of literacy. Some consumers are illiterate and the message of marketing from the digital marketing platforms cannot have meaning to them. Also, a category of consumers with good levels of literacy but with no money to buy digital gadgets do exist. All the exceptional scenarios above will be considered in depth while conducting research.

The research will not strive to draw a conclusion of the preferences of the consumers as far as how many consumers are reached with the marketing methods. Rather, much preference will be given to the methods of marketing that make consumers really buy the products and services. That is mainly determined by the amount trust that consumers have on the products and services in question (Lamberton and Stephen, 2016, p.45). When consumers have little or no trust in a marketing method, they will less likely invest their money in it. For example, social media is full of uncensored content. Since the platform is free and uncensored, most con persons will take advantage to steal from the unsuspecting users. Such cases of fraud have been reported before. In that case, many consumers would less prefer the use of socials sites. Because of the issue of trust, the research is built on finding the most popular marketing strategy and their popularity will be measured in terms of preference and trust. Some of the traditional means of marketing that will be used for the study include; newspapers, magazines, posters, brochures, notice boards and the word of mouth. Some of the digital marketing strategies that would be utilized, on the other hand, include; social media platforms, television and websites (Kotler, Kartajaya and Setiawan, 2016, p.32). This research will want to unravel the difference between the digital and the traditional marketing strategies of marketing, which one makes consumers purchase products and services. The researcher will not get data from companies' databases but will get raw information from random consumers.

Research Methodology

This chapter is inclusive of the methodology used in the dissertation. This chapter provides the outline of the strategy that will be used in the research, the methods that will be used in the collection of data, the method and process of research, type of data analysis used, the limitations of the project and the ethical considerations. The study will take a deductive approach. The reason for this approach is that the conclusion made to the study subjects will be a maximum representation of the subjects. That will increase the accuracy of the research conclusion.

Research Strategy

An applied approach will be used in this dissertation in addition to the examination of data to draw information. In the applied approach, existing research that relates to the topic will be used to add to the points and conclusion to the dissertation. Therefore, both the primary and secondary research approaches will be used. That is because of the consideration that secondary sources alone would be insufficient to warrant sufficient information. Thus, raw data will be extracted from different methods of data collection and the data analyzed. This dissertation took different perspectives and approaches in the determination of whether the traditional form of marketing is better than the digital form. For example, the research approached the analysis in the case of an urbanized population and the rural population. In understanding that the urban population has a different lifestyle that conforms to technology compliance and awareness as compared to the rural one, the study, in approaching the situation put the different audiences in perspective. The researcher opted to understand the type of the majority audience in terms of purchasing power as far as the demography of age is concerned. That is, is generation Y or the "dot-com" age the one with the most purchasing power or the generation? Also, is the generation X compliant with digital operations or traditional way of operating?

Research Method - Qualitative Versus Quantitative Techniques

In a bid to reach the satisfaction of the research objectives, qualitative research will be conducted. This research type concentrates more on the meaning, metaphors, description of things, characteristics and the definition of things than the number of things. In most cases, quantitative research helps to provide explanations of situations, phenomena or events. That quantitative research approach will then assist in providing the proportion to the explanations. In this specific dissertation, qualitative research method will assist in the identification population categorization and getting to understand if the population is in preference to the traditional methods of marketing or the digital methods. Essentially, the research would need the respondents to state how they got to know of their favourite shopping places and items (Smith and Osborn, 2015, p.67). The quantitative research method will come in handy in categorizing the respondents in terms of how many knew their favourite shopping places and items through the traditional means and digital means. Therefore, the study will rely on both qualitative and quantitative research. The qualitative research will provide an explanation of why and how the consumers prefer either the traditional or digital means of marketing, while the quantitative approach will strive to find out how many of the respondents fall into the different answers provided. The following table summarizes the difference between the qualitative approach and the quantitative approach of research.

Aims to provide a detailed and a complete description Aims to provide a classification of features, construction of models of statistics, counting features.

The researcher does not have a full or clear picture of what he/she looks for. There will only be a rough idea of what a researcher is looking for but not the exact answers of the respondents. The researcher here knows almost in particular what they are looking for, in advance.

During the early phases of the research, this method of research is best and recommended. This is mainly to provide the researcher on what to count, measure or quantify in the later stages of the research. This approach is mostly recommended for the later phases of the research project. That is because the researcher would already know what to quantify

As the study unfolds, the design also emerges All the study aspects are designed carefully before the collection of data.

The instrument for gathering data is the researcher Numerical data is collected using data collection tools like questionnaires.

Mostly, the data is in the form of pictures, objects and words. Statistics and numbers define the form of data

Subjectivity- The way the individual researcher interprets data or events is important like the use of in-depth interviews or participant observation. Objective: Precise measurements and analysis are sought like the use of questionnaires and surveys.

Qualitative data bears more richness, is time-consuming and are less generalizable. There is more efficiency in the quantitative data, and has a high ability for hypothesis testing but are missing in contextual detail.

There is a high tendency of subjective immersion into the subject matter Researchers remain object

This research will aim to balance the study by using both the qualitative and quantitative research. That is because, while the qualitative research may have more of the subjective interpretation, most of the questions that will be asked to the respondents will need minimum interpretation. In that case, the questions should attract direct answers of whether there are high preferences to the traditional means of marketing or the digital means. Although not all the questions will attract all the answers in that form, the majority of them should point out whether they fall under the category of the traditional marketing forms or the digital marketing forms. In many cases, digital marketing attracts wide viewership among the consumers but the main question that the research will strive to answer or understand is the response of the consumers (Harland, 2014, p.15). Because of the untrustworthiness reputation that the social media and other forms of digital platforms have received, there is a big effect on how people respond to marketing through those channels. Many companies, organizations or businesses measure the width of consumer reachability through the number of viewers and 'likes' on the company or product. Will the viewers be influenced to buy or use the products or services in question or not? Sometimes, a salesperson targets and reaches twe...