INMA_A01.QXD

The figure suggests that the way companies should use digital technologies for mar-

keting their products will vary markedly according to product type. In some, such as cars

and complex financial products such as mortgages, the main role of online marketing

will be to support research, while for standardised products like books and CDs there

will be a dual role for the web in supporting research and enabling purchase.

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.

What, then, is Internet marketing? Internet marketing can be simply defined as:

Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies.

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 tech-

nology! These digital technologies include Internet media such as web sites and e-mail as

CHAPTER 1· AN INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET MARKETING

What is Internet marketing?

Activity 1.1 What’s in a term – what do we call this ‘e-thing’?

Purpose

To illustrate how different marketers perceive Internet marketing.

Question

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 intitle: “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”

Internet marketing
The application of the
Internet and related
digital technologies in
conjunction with
traditional
communications to
achieve marketing
objectives.



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