What is eMarketing?

eMarketing by its very nature is one aspect of an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. As such an aspect, eMarketing has its own approaches and tools that contribute to the achievement of marketing goals and objectives.

This also helps us to differentiate between eMarketing and E-commerce, since E-Commerce is simply buying and selling online.

What is the difference between eMarketing and Internet Marketing?

There is no real difference between eMarketing and Internet Marketing. However, with the arrival of mobile technologies such as PDA's and 3G mobile phones, as well as Interactive Television, both terms tend to be stretched to include these new media technologies. On the other hand, others would see eMarketing and Internet marketing a subtly different, for example Chaffey (below):

Internet marketing is achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies. (Chaffey 2006)

eMarketing is achieving marketing objectives through use of electronic communications technology. (Chaffey 2006)

Whilst this distinction is wholly acceptable, it is difficult to see where the distinction lies between digital technologies and electronic communications technologies, especially with the convergence of technologies such as mobile devices.

What are the eMarketing tools?

The Internet has a number of tools to offer to the marketer.

* A company can distribute via the Internet e.g. Amazon.com.
* A company can use the Internet as a way of building and maintaining a customer relationship e.g. Dell.com.
* The money collection part of a transaction could be done online e.g. electricity and telephone bills.
* Leads can be generated by attracting potential customers to sign-up for short periods of time, before signing up for the long-term e.g. which.co.uk.
* The Internet could be used for advertising e.g. Google Adwords.
* Finally, the web can be used as a way of collecting direct responses e.g. as part of a voting system for a game show.