A Comparative Analysis Of Traditional And Digital Marketing Strategies: A Case Study Of Suzuki Maruti India

Background and Introduction

Traditional marketing has been used for decades with varying results; largely, it has mostly been successful. Traditional marketing is designed to lead customers and prospective customers by making use of the four (or seven P’s), the sales funnel based on a suitable marketing strategy. The traditional marketing model; is based on the AIDA (awareness, interest, desire, and action) and uses various pull marketing tools such as advertising using print and electronic media and brochures and flyers. With advancements in technology, digital marketing has also grown and gotten into the mainstream, especially in the past 10 to 15 years (Lovato, 2016).  Digital marketing touches all the elements of the 4/7 P’s of marketing, only it employs a digital model that encompasses all online marketing initiatives. Businesses leverage digital channels that include social media, Google search, e-mail, and websites to connect with clients. Suzuki-Maruti India has seen its market share in vehicle sales grow steadily in the recent past to become the leading car maker in India with 50% market share (Thakkar & Mukherjee, 2018).

 Its growth has also outpaced the average industry growth. Many reasons have been advanced for this growth, including research and development among others; pricing has been a major strategy used by Suzuki-Maruti India. The innovative marketing strategies used by the company have been responsible for its growth and popularity. However, it is not yet clear whether the use of traditional marketing channels and strategies or digital marketing strategies is responsible for its impressive success. It is essential to understand how the firm has managed to attain such impressive market growth and become the leader in the Indian automotive sector in the context of its marketing strategy; which has been more effective and how has the firm used them (traditional and digital marketing) ? Apart from using the traditional marketing mix elements, Suzuki Maruti-India (SMI) has dabbled a great deal in digital channels, with a robust social media monitoring campaign to better meet customer needs

To make an item by item comparison of the use of traditional marketing and digital marketing by Suzuki Maruti India  

• Evaluate the overall marketing strategy of Suzuki Maruti India
• To determine the extent to which Suzuki Maruti India uses both traditional and digital marketing methods and their impacts
• To compare and contrast the use of digital and traditional marketing by Suzuki Maruti India
• To establish how each of the two marketing methods have impacted the business performance of Suzuki Maruti India

• How has traditional and digital marketing approaches been used by Suzuki Maruti India?
• Which of the two methods has had a greater impact in the success of the company?
• How does the use of traditional and digital marketing by Suzuki Maruti India compare and contrast?

The world has become more competitive in the context of business, and so companies continue to explore better ways of interacting with customers and being able to better meet the needs of customers in order to remain afloat and continue to grow.  With the growth in competitiveness, technology has grown in leaps and bounds, providing opportunities through which companies can become more competitive and better understand and meet the needs of customers. In the past, marketers and companies only had traditional marketing methods and tools to use; with the growth in technology, particularly the internet and social media, companies now have another highly effective channel with which to interact with customers and position their products and brands through digital marketing.  Traditional marketing is largely a form of outbound marketing and it is what was successfully used by marketers and companies over the past several years as their main strategy for interacting and conveying information to consumers, until the 2000s when digital methods started gaining traction.  Today, many people and companies use digital marketing, yet they do not fully understand traditional marketing and the context in which it can be used with digital marketing.  Generally, companies and marketers have the tendency of overestimating the attraction of new things, while underestimating the power of traditional behavior of customers.

Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

At the same time, not much progress is made when people predict how things are likely to stay the same (Grant, 2011). Suzuki Maruti India has seen exponential growth to become the leading car manufacturer in India, in just three short decades and has managed to fend off competition from global brands that are better established and with more experience in global markets (ETAuto, 2018).  The company has used innovative marketing strategies to achieve this feat, employing traditional marketing models as well as digital marketing.  It has adopted various strategies in its advertising, brand positioning, and distribution to capture the market (ETAuto, 2018). People never really change, despite the fact that marketing methods change; further, marketing in itself does not really change much as a result (that people don’t really change much). Yet many gurus in the marketing filed have continuous stated that inbound marketing (read digital) is the future, that everything has been changed by social media and that advertising, at least in the traditional sense is dead (Grant, 2011).  

Traditional marketing is still very much relevant and useful; TV ads are still a powerful marketing tool: an example of the fallacy of assuming traditional marketing is dead is depicted by Pepsi, that shifted all its TV advertising budget to social media and ended up losing market share having lost a lot of money in its ‘Pepsi Refresh project’ (Zmuda, 2012; Davidson, 2010). It is important to understand how the company has used traditional and digital marketing strategies and how these have impacted its growth and current market status. Given the growing use of digital channels, it is essential that how these have been used by the company is understand to add to the existing body of knowledge and to identify new insights that can be used by other companies to also attain growth.  This proposed research, using Suzuki Maruti India as a case, is also important because there have been notions that digital marketing with eventually replace traditional marketing. Traditional marketing was premised on the concept of marketing and promotion, all which had different approaches, and even departments. Marketing was more concerned with sales, customers, and brand awareness, while communications, usually put forth as public relations, dealt with every other entity in the external environment (market place) where the company interacted, such as community, government, and the media (Grant, 2011).

The conceptual framework represents the way a researcher synthesizes literature on a research subject in order to explain a phenomenon. The conceptual framework proposed and discussed in this section shows the understanding of the phenomenon under study; a comparative analysis of traditional and digital marketing by Suzuki Maruti India.

Elements of Digital Marketing

The most recognized form of marketing is the traditional method; it is a non-digital way in which companies use to promote their product offering. Digital marketing, on the other hand, refers to a method of marketing products through the use of digital marketing channels to reach consumers.  The table below shows a comparison of the traditional versus digital marketing methods;

Various elements can be used in digital marketing and all forms operate through electronic platforms/ devices. The most important elements include online advertising, social media, search engine optimization, pay per click, online advertising,  text messaging,  and affiliate marketing.

Online advertising: This is a key component of digital marketing and involves a company delivering its advertising message through the internet. The company put their ads and information on the internet so consumers are able to get free information, depending on what they are looking for (Sheehan, 2010)

E-mail marketing:  Involves capturing user e-mail addresses, such as through their visits to various sites; the company then sends targeted advertising through e-mail to the target customer.  This method is used for building customer trust, brand loyalty, and attain the loyalty of its customers (Ward, 2018).

Social media: By far the most important digital marketing element/ platform in the world today. It is a tool based on digital devices and channels in which where people interact, exchange ideas as well as information such as pictures in their social spheres.  The popular social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whats APP, Blogs, among others. A company can promote products and events using any of the platforms, and can also gain useful feedback from the social media users. The companies can also use social media for customer service, where user queries and comments can be promptly attended to through the platform (Hyder, 2013)

Text messaging: Entails sending information on products through messaging services in cellular devices; the information to be sent includes text, video, or images. This method of digital marketing became very popular in the 2000s as cell phone use rose (‘Management Association’, 2018).

Affiliate marketing: this is a form of marketing that is performance based in which affiliates get a reward for each visitor they bring through marketing efforts created on behalf of the company.  The model has four main players; the merchant, the network, the affiliate (publisher), and the customer (‘Management Association’, 2018).

Search Engine Optimization: refers to affecting a website’s visibility in the natural search results of a search engine.  The more a web page is ranked ‘higher’ by the search engine,  the more it appears on the top ranks in web browser search results and the more likely it will be visited by a web user (Ratcliff, 2016).

Case Study: Suzuki Maruti India

Pay per click: Here, search engine advertising is used to generate clicks to a given website instead of organically getting those clicks (‘Management Association’, 2018).

This refers to using mass media either in electronic or print form to reach a wide variety of consumers.  The methods most used include electronic broadcast such as Television and Radio, and print adverts such as in newspapers, magazines, and flyers and leaflets, as well as billboards (Blakeman, 2009).

Print: Involves using text, photos, logos, and illustrations using paper material such as magazines and posters as well as flyers for advertising

Broadcast: Involves using pictures, voice or a combination of both (for TV advertising) to reach audiences where broadcast companies convey this message at a fee paid by the advertiser

Outdoor: Involves placing large banners on billboards that consumers can see at a specific location on a daily basis  (Blakeman, 2009)

Both traditional and digital advertising have their various advantages and limitations.

Based on the background discussed in this section of how digital and traditional advertising compare and the methods they are undertaken, a conceptual model is hereby developed to guide this research.  This paper proposes the conceptual framework in which digital media is used synergistically by Suzuki Maruti India with traditional marketing to attain market share and sales growth.  SMI uses digital marketing through SEO, online advertising, and social media and in the process incorporates elements of traditional media marketing using the 4P’s to achieve its business objectives.  In using digital advertising, SMI uses social media to get customer sentiments and feedback, and then uses the data generated to understand the customer better in order to develop products that meet the needs of the customers.  After developing these products, SMI then uses an integrated marketing strategy in which it uses traditional marketing media channels together with digital advertising to pass their message to consumers.  From the traditional marketing channels such as print adverts in newspapers and magazines and in broadcast media (TV), the company is able to attract new customers and pass their message effectively, while using the digital media platforms to aid the traditional advertising methods.  Essentially, the company uses the positive benefits and strengths of each of the two advertising models to attain its objectives and effectively pass its message to the customer. The conceptual framework is presented below;

This research proposes the use a secondary research to collect data and information; in the context of a mixed method research approach involving both quantitative research and qualitative research. Secondary research is a form of research in which the researcher summarizes, collates, and synthesizes existing research data and information.  It entails data and information obtained from prior primary researches that are then used for analysis. This research methodology has been chosen because it is a low cost, highly effective method of undertaking research. It is also useful in enabling the research question to be clarified and the context of the research to be better understood. Further, secondary research greatly helps in aligning the objectives of the research with the research methodology. In using secondary research, the subject domain will be identified where the relevant information will be obtained from (McQuarrie, 2016). This is then followed by collection of the existing data and information and then comparing data from the various different sources and then undertaking an analysis of the data. In this proposed research, the data will be obtained from peer reviewed journals where primary research has been done, as well as from reliable and verifiable data from publishers such as Universities, media channels, and analyst sites. Further, secondary information will be obtained from Suzuki Maruti India annual reports and financial statements where the sales and advertising spend are recorded.

Conclusion

Statistics from government agencies and regulatory/ industry bodies detailing the sales volumes and other relevant data will also be used as sources of secondary data. Peer reviewed articles and papers will be obtained from databases through specific searches; such databases include Google Scholar, Lexis, Science Direct, and Indian Journal repositories.  The data and information will be collated, obtaining both qualitative and quantitative data, and then used for analysis. Key words will be used in gathering the data and if possible, the collected data normalized ready for the process of analysis (McQuarrie, 2016). The data will be analyzed through cross analysis of the qualitative data collected while quantitative data will be analyzed through the use of statistical and graphical methods. In using the statistical methods, the data will evaluated for correlation while graphical data will be used to represent trends, such as growth in sales.  The use of quantitative and qualitative data will provide complementary information to better understand the marketing methods used by SMI and undertake a comprehensive comparative analysis of the methods (Fatteross, 2018)

The research will be by employing some principles of project management; this is to ensure the research objectives are met and the research is conducted and completed within a stipulated time frame. This is because as with any undertaking, research is faced with various constraints and limitations, including time, scope, and budget. Further, the organization section details the tasks will be undertaken in conducting the research and how they are interrelated (dependencies). The table below defines the way the research will be conducted; it also has an estimate of what each activity/ task will cost in order to develop the projected project budget.

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