eMarketing, when you come to think of it, what is it exactly?
What is the difference between ecommerce, internet marketing and emarketing? Are they distinct disciplines or distinct research fields? What differentiate them as research fields then, from their fields of practice?
Here are the kind of questions you don’t need to ask yourself, one might answer. And it is the kind of answer, another might not tolerate either. So for both of them, here is a good reference to settle the matter!
The truth is that beyond those basic defining questions commonly avoided, so many people are now self-declaring themselves experts on the topic…it ends up very rare that we can find trustable references on electronic marketing matters.
Here is a 2009 textbook titled ‘Electronic marketing’ by Charles Hofacker, PhD, marketing professor at Florida State University, seen on Elmar, the American Marketing Association’s virtual community newsletter.
My favorite chapters are in section IV, about ‘The Electronic Network as a Connection Service’ vs ‘as a distribution channel’. Here is the table of content to give you an overview of the book content (186 p.):
Section I. Marketing and Electronic Networks
Chapter 1. What Is Electronic Marketing?
Chapter 2. Electronic Service
Chapter 3. Internet Design and Philosophy
Chapter 4. Observational and Experimental Data
Chapter 5. Legal and Ethical Aspects of E-Marketing
Chapter 6. Internal Company Operations
Section II. The Electronic Network as a Communications Medium
Chapter 7. Consumer-Business Relationships
Chapter 8. Business-Business Relationships
Chapter 9. The Online Audience
Chapter 10. Human Information Processing
Chapter 11. Visual Design Practice
Chapter 12. Writing for the Web
Chapter 13. Web Site Structure
Chapter 14. Interactive Advertising
Section III. The Electronic Network as a Distribution Channel
Chapter 15. Consumer Problem Solving Online
Chapter 16. Consumer Search
Chapter 17. Channels and Direct Channels
Chapter 18. Selling Strategy
Chapter 19. Hubs and Auctions
Chapter 20. Information versus Inventory
Section IV. The Electronic Network as a Connection Service
Chapter 21. Firm-Generated Content
Chapter 22. User-Generated Content
Chapter 23. Virtual Communities
Chapter 24. Strategy in a Networked World
Chapter 25. The Future of E-Marketing
This book is available for sale, and this version differs from the previous version in terms of the addition of a chapter on strategy, Chapter 24.
Evaluation copies are available on request if you use a university email account and send your request to chofack@cob.fsu.edu. I thank professor Hofacker very much for sending me a pdf version of his book while still in preparation a few months ago.
I also recommend the textbook by Dave Chaffey and PR Smith, “eMarketing eXcellence” (2008, 3rd edition) which offer very well chosen ‘emarketing excellence’ examples to illustrate concepts. Also disseminated throughout the book, you can find helpful topic-related research-based theoretical frameworks under the label of ‘e-marketing insight’. For teaching contexts, every chapter begins with a few very well defined learning objectives, and ends with useful concise chapter summaries.
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