Other channels that seem to fall into digital marketing so far are telecommunications (cell/mobile phones and voice broadcasting) and digital billboards. It sounds like what you see happening in the future with these is the Internet replacing telecommunications and even computer network infrastructures so that all these channels, as you wrote, are fed by the Internet.

I wonder what this means for a sparsely populated and spread out country like Australia. Some of our more remote communities won’t be getting the upgrade to the broadband internet infrastructure that the rest of the country is getting. So if you’re sick of being bombarded by digital marketing, I suppose you’ll just have to move out to a country town somewhere!

I would agree with the importance of blending push and pull communications, particularly when you cover customer acquisition, conversion and retention separately.

It’s definitely more than SEO as many seem to think and now we have social media as well.

Dr Dave Chaffey
Author: Internet Marketing: Strategy, Implmentation and Practice

Glad you found the article useful. Not quite sure what you mean in terms of the difference in methodologies between digital and traditional marketing. Can you be a bit more specific so we can answer the question? In general, though, digital marketing certainly adheres to some general principles, such as determining your audience, giving them a Call to Action, and adjusting your message based on initial response/feedback.

The main difference is that, unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing gives you almost instant analysis and many more tools to personally monitor your campaign’s effectiveness. Again, if you can provide a bit more information as to what you are seeking, we will be able to better answer your queries.

Your article helped clarify my concept of ‘Digital marketing’.

One question which arise at this moment is,
does Digital marketing operate on the same methodologies as traditional marketing?

Thanks.

Truth be told, the whole philosophy around digital marketing changes on a seemingly daily basis so I’m glad to see that there are others out there like us to try to nail down what it all means.

For me, the main thing that I’d disagree with in your amendment is the use of the word “online” in the initial description. This word itself sets digital marketing too much in line with Internet marketing, of which there is now a lengthy ongoing discussion on wikipedia.

Digital marketing, IMHO, goes beyond Internet or online marketing, certainly for now, because it includes devices and channels which do not involve The Internet or World Wide Web – such as mobile phones.

This fact alone means it needs to be broader than Internet or Online and why it needs to have it’s own category. I think some people on wikipedia have it wrong – they want to roll digital marketing into internet marketing, but I think for me it’s almost easier to do it the other way around.

I’d like to add that this probably won’t always be the case, as IP networks will begin to seep into all these digital channels and replace the proprietary ones so that every does get distributed or accessed via the internet, but whilst we remain disconnected at times this definition needs to remain in place.

Thanks for helping with the article, much appreciated and, as you point out that’s all part of the collaborative spirit.