What is eMarketing? - good articel about internet marketing

What is eMarketing and how is it better than traditional Marketing?

A look at how eMarketing differs from traditional marketing
and why so many businesses are focusing a lot more time
and spend on this dynamic form of marketing.
Marketing has pretty much been around forever in one form or another. Since the
day when humans first started trading whatever it was that they first traded, marketing
was there. Marketing was the stories they used to convince other humans to trade.
Humans have come a long way since then, (Well, we like to think we have) and
marketing has too.
The methods of marketing have changed and improved, and we’ve become a lot
more efficient at telling our stories and getting our marketing messages out there.
eMarketing is the product of the meeting between modern communication
technologies and the age-old marketing principles that humans have always applied.
That said, the specifics are reasonably complex and are best handled piece by piece.
So we’ve decided to break it all down and tackle the parts one at a time. This week
we’ll be looking at the “what” and “why” of eMarketing, outlining the benefits and
pointing out how it differs from traditional marketing methods.




What is eMarketing?

Very simply put, eMarketing or electronic marketing refers to the application of
marketing principles and techniques via electronic media and more specifically the
Internet. The terms eMarketing, Internet marketing and online marketing, are
frequently interchanged, and can often be considered synonymous.
eMarketing is the process of marketing a brand using the Internet. It includes
both direct response marketing and indirect marketing elements and uses a range of
technologies to help connect businesses to their customers.
By such a definition, eMarketing encompasses all the activities a business conducts
via the worldwide web with the aim of attracting new business, retaining current
business and developing its brand identity.
Why is it important?
When implemented correctly, the return on investment (ROI) from eMarketing can
far exceed that of traditional marketing strategies.
Whether you’re a “bricks and mortar” business or a concern operating purely online,
the Internet is a force that cannot be ignored. It can be a means to reach literally
millions of people every year. It’s at the forefront of a redefinition of way businesses
interact with their customers.




The benefits of eMarketing over traditional marketing

Reach
The nature of the internet means businesses now have a truly global reach. While
traditional media costs limit this kind of reach to huge multinationals, eMarketing
opens up new avenues for smaller businesses, on a much smaller budget, to access
potential consumers from all over the world.
Scope
Internet marketing allows the marketer to reach consumers in a wide range of ways
and enables them to offer a wide range of products and services. eMarketing
includes, among other things, information management, public relations, customer
service and sales. With the range of new technologies becoming available all the time,
this scope can only grow.
Interactivity
Whereas traditional marketing is largely about getting a brand’s message out there,
eMarketing facilitates conversations between companies and consumers. With a twoway
communication channel, companies can feed off of the responses of their
consumers, making them more dynamic and adaptive.



Immediacy
Internet marketing is able to, in ways never before imagined, provide an immediate
impact. Imagine you’re reading your favourite magazine. You see a double-page
advert for some new product or service, maybe BMW’s latest luxury sedan or Apple’s
latest iPod offering. With this kind of traditional media, it’s not that easy for you, the
consumer, to take the step from hearing about a product to actual acquisition.
With eMarketing, it’s easy to make that step as simple as possible, meaning that
within a few short clicks you could have booked a test drive or ordered the iPod. And
all of this can happen regardless of normal office hours. Effectively, Internet marketing
makes business hours 24 hours per day, 7 days per week for every week of the year.
By closing the gap between providing information and eliciting a consumer reaction,
the consumer’s buying cycle is speeded up and advertising spend can go much further
in creating immediate leads.
Demographics and targeting
Generally speaking, the demographics of the Internet are a marketer’s dream. Internet
users, considered as a group, have greater buying power and could perhaps be
considered as a population group skewed towards the middle-classes.
Buying power is not all though. The nature of the Internet is such that its users will
tend to organise themselves into far more focussed groupings. Savvy marketers who
know where to look can quite easily find access to the niche markets they wish
to target.
Marketing messages are most effective when they are presented directly to the
audience most likely to be interested. The Internet creates the perfect environment
for niche marketing to targeted groups.



Adaptivity and closed loop marketing
Closed Loop Marketing requires the constant measurement and analysis of the
results of marketing initiatives. By continuously tracking the response and effectiveness
of a campaign, the marketer can be far more dynamic in adapting to consumers’
wants and needs.
With eMarketing, responses can be analysed in real-time and campaigns can be
tweaked continuously. Combined with the immediacy of the Internet as a medium,
this means that there’s minimal advertising spend wasted on less than effective
campaigns.
Maximum marketing efficiency from eMarketing creates new opportunities to seize
strategic competitive advantages.
The combination of all these factors results in an improved ROI and ultimately, more
customers, happier customers and an improved bottom line.
Next up in the eMarketing 101 series:
Having identified the “why” of eMarketing, our next article in the series will look at
the “how” we’ll be glancing at some of the weaponry in the eMarketer’s arsenal,
and looking at how these tools should be used to target customers.
SEO, PPC, ORM, WebPR – the acronyms are never far behind. We’ll take a brief
look at each, defining what they are and giving some guidance in terms of which
tactic to use in a given situation to ensure optimum ROI on advertising spend.
Later on, we’ll examine each of these weapons more closely and see just how they
are used to produce results.

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