Cisco declares 'digital marketing' term redundant

EMEAR marketing boss compares the term to those from the 1990s

Tech marketing has advanced so much in recent years that the term "digital marketing" is no longer relevant, according to Cisco.

The tech giant's EMEAR marketing director Christine Bailey said the term is now redundant in the same way as phrases from the late 1990s beginning with 'e' for electronic - such as "e-business" and "eCRM".

"Fast-forward to 2016 and we've dropped the 'e' because doing things electronically has become the norm," she said. "The same will happen with the term 'digital' marketing.

"Cisco's chief marketing officer Karen Walker has said ‘marketing was the last function to be industrialised and the first function to be digitised'. Marching into the future, that means we're no longer doing ‘digital' marketing, we're simply marketing in a digital world."

'Digital marketing' has become a buzzword in recent years, with a number of vendors urging their channel partners to pursue the technique - which involves using analytics and social media - instead of "traditional" methods such as email campaigns.

Bailey said that digital techniques are already transforming the technology marketing world, and will continue to do so.

"Buyers are still using content to inform their digitally driven purchasing decisions, but it's not the content of yesterday," she said. "To help buyers through the journey - and to spark conversations along the way - marketers are developing new forms of content marketing that are dynamic and personalised. They're highly visual. They're fun and humorous.

"What's more, many of them are not even created solely by the marketing organisation. In 2016, we will see less content created by corporate marketing teams and agencies and more created by the folks who are closer to customers: local marketing teams, company employees, and even users themselves."