Travis Thomas . Com

Ok, this post this morning isn’t specifically related to internet marketing but is more of a commentary on something I see so often in business today.  Far too often the terms “Marketing” and “Advertising” are used interchangeably when they really aren’t the same thing.

Marketing is defined as the systematic planning, implementation, and conrol of a mix of business activities designed to bring together buyers and sellers.

Advertising is the paid, public, non-personal announcement of a persuasive message by a sponsor of a product or service existing or potential customers.

The key thing, as internet marketers, that we must realize is that advertising and marketing are not the same thing.  Marketing encompasses all of the activities and planning that you do to promote a product or service.  Advertising is just a segment, a large one, of the overall marketing plan.

Really, the whole point of this post is to differentiate the two concepts and illustrate the fact that being good at internet marketing, or any sort of marketing, is about more than just putting together a good ad in Google AdWords and directing traffic to a web site containing some affiliate offer or your own products.

With a good marketing plan, you’ll know how to tie all your efforts - advertising, mailing list broadcasts, blog posts, articles, niche sites, and more - into one cohesive strategy to make yourself a lot of money, and isn’t that what it’s all about?