Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Demand Generation and More – What’s the Difference?

Author: Michael Brenner / Source: Marketing Insider Group

Let’s just admit it. Modern marketing has evolved so quickly over the past few years that we haven’t done the best job creating the constructive terminology to define what we’re doing.

Our innovation first, figure-out-how-to-explain-what-we’re-doing-for-the-benefit-of-others second approach has caught up with the digital marketing world – or should I say demand generation? Content marketing? Inbound?

It’s time to unravel this linguistic chaos and get out the Venn diagrams. There is a unique term for all the different approaches used in marketing because each is distinct in some way. Most overlap, which is where a lot of the confusion lies, and each has its own special sauce, or ‘reason to be.’ Otherwise, it wouldn’t exist in the first place.

Here are the explanations to help you understand the defining characteristics and strengths of each term. And, the next time someone asks you:

• What’s the difference between content marketing and inbound?
• Internet and digital?
• Why don’t marketers sit around coming up with good old ad campaigns anymore, life would be much simpler?

You have a lucid response ready to go.

Digital Marketing

Of all the types of marketing, digital is the broad umbrella term that encompasses them all. Any marketing or advertising delivered via a digital channel is digital marketing. It is all internet marketing, as well as SMS, the permission-based text messaging popularized by the evolution of fintech, and any digital TV and radio messaging.

Digital marketing has become such a powerful tool today because it allows marketers to meet consumers via their preferred channels. And, on a deeper layer, digital also dishes up the data, ready to be analyzed with all digital tools marketers have at their fingertips today. It is this data that helps marketers made better-informed decisions about what those preferred channels are, what messaging is effective, and what will improve the customer experience.

Deep into the digital era, marketers across the board, from small businesses to global brands, have already shifted from traditional to digital. 72 percent believe their branded online content is more effective than an old-fashioned magazine ad. 69 percent believe it’s better than direct mailings.

Internet Marketing

The terms internet marketing and digital marketing are often used interchangeably. For good reason – they are almost the same thing. Internet marketing is everything that digital is, minus anything that is not web-based, such as SMS and digital TV advertising. Both internet and digital marketing refer to all these tools and channels used today:

• Inbound marketing
• Content marketing
• Email marketing
• Social media
• Mobile marketing
• Banner ads
• SEO
• Pay per click advertising

Internet marketing is a business’s search engine optimized landing pages, webinars, Instagram account, email campaigns and more. It (and digital) includes demand generation, inbound andcontent marketing.

While these three are primarily web-based, there’s a lot to these modern marketing strategies that can take place offline. Sometimes, they don’t always fall within the internet and digital marketing umbrella.

Demand Generation

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