Difference Between Internet marketing, Marketing and SMM

The abundance of marketing specializations that have emerged in recent years is confusing the activities of each. What kind of marketing does the company need, what style or type? The question remains open for many. If the concept of traditional marketing still finds understanding in companies, then the differences between an Internet marketer and an SMM manager are far from always. Meanwhile, choosing the proper marketing and specialist qualifications significantly affects the company’s results in the market. Therefore, we propose in this article to understand the difference between the professions of a marketer, an Internet marketer and an SMM specialist.

What is the difference between a marketer and an Internet marketer?

By calling a marketer traditional, it does not mean that this specialist is old-fashioned and loses its relevance with an increase in the share of online technologies in consumers’ lives. It’s just a different purpose. So, what is the difference between a marketer and an Internet marketer?

The critical difference is that the scope of an internet marketer is in an online environment. All his efforts aim to develop the presence of a company or brand on the Internet. He spends 90% of his time interacting with the target audience and improving traffic to convert into purchases. Considering that in current conditions, consumers spend significant time online, it may be sufficient to have an Internet marketer to solve the main range of tasks of promoting their goods and services for many business areas. 

Unlike his colleague in online promotion, a marketer looks at the company’s goals from the position of a marketing bowl or 4P, i.e. four main components: product, price, distribution channels, and promotion. This means that his vision is more comprehensive and involves implementing a strategy of a higher level than that of an Internet marketer. This explains why the latter may be subordinate to a traditional marketer, whose task to promote the company’s offer to its consumers includes the Internet and covers offline media channels. 

The Marketing Mix

Thus, we say that an Internet marketer is a deeper promotion specialization – one of the four components of marketing mix. For him, the transition to traditional marketing is a matter of career growth and competency development. For example, suppose a conventional marketer in a company is assigned exclusively with promotion tasks, then together with an Internet marketer. In that case, they become complementary to each other to combine the efforts of offline and online advertising. 

It is worth noting that promotion in the online environment has several advantages for business. First, this leads to the fact that more and more money from companies’ advertising budgets flows into the Internet. This is because online promotion makes it possible to identify the user and target personalized advertising messages to him, leading to higher conversion rates to purchases. 

An internet marketer has more options to monitor the progress of an advertising campaign in near real-time. This creates all the conditions to effectively manage the budget distribution between different movements and channels based on the ROI. Traditional media channels do not have this capability. 

It is easier for an Internet marketer to defend his budget to management because the online environment allows him to measure a comprehensive set of metrics that characterize the quality of contacts with the target audience. All this indicates a pronounced trend of shifting the promotion of goods and services towards Internet technologies. As a result, the Internet marketer’s outlook looks more positive than its counterpart, which focuses exclusively on traditional media channels. More precisely, shortly, all marketers will have to have Internet promotion competencies, and then the difference between the two specialists in their qualifications will disappear.

Differences between an Internet marketer and an SMM manager

It is even more interesting to distinguish between the areas of professional competence of an Internet marketing and an SMM manager. Both work with the Internet, and often Internet promotion and SMM are confused with each other and replaced with the other. Despite the name of his position, the SMM manager or social media marketing manager has nothing to do with management. The only reason why he is not called a marketer is because of the duplication of words. Otherwise, his name would be a social media marketer.  

However, back to the difference in professions. By the nature of his activity, an Internet marketer is puzzled by ensuring the influx of customers with all available online promotion tools. To do this, he uses the site, landing pages, search engine optimization, contextual advertising, email newsletters, content promotion, etc. On the other hand, SMM or social media marketing builds interactions with the target audience solely based on one type of platform – social networks. It turns out that an Internet marketer sets tasks and controls the work in the direction of the SMM of the relevant specialist. 

More details on the difference between an Internet marketer and an SMM manager are given below:

Internet Marketing	SMM-manager
The main task of an Internet marketer is to attract customers in the online environment and retain them. To do this, it operates with a whole set of tools (landing pages, SEO company in Islamabad, advertising, emails, SMM, etc.).	The SMM manager creates and develops the brand community in social networks. Its main weapon is content. For greater coverage of posts, you can use their paid promotion.
Uses all available online channels to drive traffic to the company’s web resource.	Works with accounts in one or more social networks: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, YouTube, TikTok and others.
Uses the features of online user behavior, builds consumer route maps leading to a purchase.	Studying the reaction of the audience, interacting with subscribers, posting content. Making online broadcasts, holding contests, looking for and collaborating with influencers. Doing everything to attract people’s attention and get their reaction.
Operates with indicators of audience coverage, conversion, cost per lead, average check of an online purchase. The percentage of abandoned carts, the level of customer churn, the period of return to repeat purchases.	The indicators of reach and audience engagement are mainly important, i.e. The number of actions taken by users in response to posted content.

Conclusion

The difference between professions. We can say that the strategy for promoting goods and services of an Internet marketer. It includes several components(SEO, email newsletters, etc.). The SMM manager enables the company’s product based on one type of platform – social networks.  

As a result, we can confidently say that an Internet marketing is a whole set of independent areas. Where there is a place for individual specialists. A universal specialist in online promotion does not have a thorough and deep knowledge of each specialization. There are two ways to become a professional internet marketer. The first is to improve your skills in online promotion, already having experience in marketing. In this case, individual specializations will remain in a general understanding. But this will be enough to build a strategy and set tasks for particular specialists. The second method is suitable for those who have no experience in marketing, or it is insignificant. It consists of the gradual development of certain areas to gradually grow your business to a universal qualification of an Internet marketer.