Before trying to define the term of eMarketing (or electronic marketing, so to speak), we should first get a load at the premises of its apparition and development.
The theories concerning eMarketing have not been unified yet, ascribable a large diversity in specialists' opinions. Still, one of the aspects that is established and has ceased being discussed in contradictory, is the fact that electronic marketing first appeared under the form of various techniques used by companies distributing their products through online channels (Internet - based). That happened back in the pioneering age before 1995. These companies that opened the road were called "e-tailers", as opposed to the traditional retailers (also famed as "brick-and-mortar" retailers). During their limited life, these electronic retailers began to develop and demoniacally introduced new marketing techniques supported the support offered by the net.
The online technologies mentioned above developed in the context created by the e-tailers, they are wide used these days by B2C and B2B organizations. In other words, they evolved towards what we call now eMarketing (you can also spell it e-Marketing if you wish, the "e-" stands in both cases for "electronic").
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You power find as extremely useful and suggestive the perspective offered by the eMarketing Association (eMA). You detected a lot, especially over the past 2 years, about the decline of online businesses (or the decline of dotcoms), but this temporary difficulty can be viewed as a law of similarity to the impasse of Columbus during his expedition that made him noted more than half millennium ago. The first "business plan" with which Columbus started this trip (that of delivery the Asian resources in his country and acquiring fabulously rich) was a complete disaster: ruinous estimations, not enough resources allocated, total lack of information upon the environment he will develop his "business" in, but... he discovered America instead and changed the world for ever. In a similar manner, we can say that the dotcoms, despite their terrible strategies (if any), "discovered" by mistake the world of eMarketing.
As we already noticed, shaping eMarketing is still extremely problematic. Still, what do we mean when we use this term? As many other English words, the term was born by adding the prefix "e-" to a term already famed and used, in this case "marketing". The prefix "e-" is actually the extreme contraction of the word "electronic" and is quite present in today's language of many people: "e-marketing", "e-business", "e-mail", "e-learning", "e-commerce", "e-", "e-", "e-"...
The simplest definition of eMarketing could be that wise by Mark Sceats: the eMarketing that uses net as manifestation channel.
A more comprehensive, practical definition is the one developed by specialists of CISCO company: eMarketing is a generic term utilised for a wide range of activities - advertising, client communications, branding, faithfulness programs etc. - using the net. More than the simple development of a website, the eMarketing focuses on online communications, direct dialog with consumers who thus participate to the creation of new products, determination efficient methods to win client's faithfulness and ease their business-making process. eMarketing is the sum of activities a company makes with the purpose of determination, attracting, winning and retaining clients.
At last, for those of you interested in a more scientific approach, we could say that eMarketing allows relative exchanges in digital, networked and interactive environments (acronym: DNI environments). Earlier in the account of eMarketing, it was abstractized as being focused upon the exchanges, but today's theoreticians suggest the exchange paradigm is a limited modality to define eMarketing.
Whichever definition you will choose to use, will depend on where exactly you need to use it and for what purpose. You can probably formulate a definition yourself, according to your own knowledge, experience and view upon what is eMarketing.
However, one conclusion necessarily to be drawn in connection with eMarketing: it has developed over the past few years into a standalone discipline, with its own abstract apparatus, tools and laws, but with a still-to-be systematised knowledge.
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