Digital Marketing definition

This definition of digital marketing is a follow on from the definition of e-marketing I wrote earlier this year. I write it to illustrate the perceived impression that digital marketing includes more marketing disciplines as compared to e-Marketing.

Define:
Digital Marketing is the marketing/promotion of individual and corporate brands using numerous and ever changing forms of digital channel advertising. These channels primarily include Internet, Mobile, Television and Radio.

Most people associate digital marketing primarily with Internet and mobile enabled devices. However with the continuing increase of online marketing as a viable promotional tool we are seeing much more collaboration with older marketing channels namely TV and Radio. For example TV and radio adverts that direct people to websites or mobile apps etc.

Two forms of digital marketing exist

1. Pull Digital Marketing is where the client actively seeks out marketing content by the marketer most notably through a search engine such as Google. It can also include marketing content where the client has given permission to the marketer through email, text message and also website RSS feeds.

Sidenote: Research by Martin et al. (2003) on email marketing found that consumers find information on special sales and new product information useful, but interesting hyperlinks were not seen as beneficial. Too many email marketing campaigns are built on the whole “interesting links” approach, so it may be good to reconsider this approach if you are guilty of giving your readers a bit too many “interesting links”.

2. Push Digital Marketing exists when a marketer pushes their message onto the recipient without their consent. The most notable & ethical forms of this type is the use of display banner advertisements on websites.

However there are unethical forms of push digital marketing using email, text messaging, web feeds and social media. This type of digital marketing is classed as SPAM. Push digital marketing is only a recommended model based on the permission that user provides. Companies who use unethical SPAM digital push techniques may make a few quick bucks in the short term but in the long run will lose out to ethical digital marketers who provide what their customers are truly wanting.

So what is the difference between e-Marketing and Digital Marketing?

In my mind nothing, but officially it may be said that electronic marketing only focuses on Internet and mobile whereas digital marketing also includes TV and Radio etc. However in real life you will not find this to be true because an e marketing professional will also have to have a good working knowledge of TV, Radio, billboards etc. to be a viable strategic asset to their clients.