The use of the Internet and other digital media to support marketing has been granted a bewildering range of labels by both academics and professionals. In this section we review some of the different definitions to help explain the scope and applications of this new form of marketing. Before we start by defining these terms, complete Activity 1.1 which considers the relative popularity of these terms .There are a range of terms used to describe Internet marketing – it is called different things by different people.
It is important that within companies and between agency and client there is clarity on the scope of Internet marketing, so the next few sections explore alternative definitions. One crude, but revealing method of assessing how commonly these terms are used, is to use the Google syntax which returns the number of pages which contain a particular phrase in their body or title. Type into Google the following phrases in double quotes or use entitle: “phrase” for these phrases and note the number of pages (at the top right hand of results page):
Phrase “
Internet marketing”
“E-marketing”
“Digital marketing”
“E-business”
“E-commerce”
This succinct definition helps remind us that it is the results delivered by technology that should determine investment in Internet marketing, not the adoption of the technology! These digital technologies include Internet media such as web sites and e-mail as well as other digital media such as wireless or mobile and media for delivering digital television such as cable and satellite. In practice, Internet marketing will include the use of a company web site in conjunction with online promotional techniques described in Chapter 8 such as search engine marketing, interactive advertising, e-mail marketing and partnership arrangements with other web sites.
Lastly comment
These techniques are used to support objectives of acquiring new customers and providing services to existing customers that help develop the customer relationship. However, for Internet marketing to be successful there is still a necessity for integration of these techniques with traditional media such as print, TV and direct mail.
