Rob Stokes, CEO of Quirk eMarketing and author of the book, says, “We have been working with various tertiary institutions, including University of Cape Town (UCT), AAA School of Advertising and the Red and Yellow School for the past nine years. It became clear that there was not enough source material for lecturers and students who wanted to learn more about online marketing. And, what was available was based purely on American case studies which don't always make sense in the other markets.”
In line with Quirk's support of the Open Education initiative (www.capetowndeclaration.org), the book is licensed under Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/) and is available as a free download online at www.quirk.biz/emarketingtextbook. For those who would prefer a traditional bound version of the text in soft cover, it is also available for purchase online and at selected Exclusive Books stores throughout the country from the first week of August.
Rather than wait for the wheels of textbook publishing to turn on to eMarketing, Quirk made the decision to put its decade's worth of experience into one easy-to-read, locally relevant book. “But we know that this book isn't the last thing to be written on eMarketing,” says Stokes.
“It's the Internet for heaven's sake. Half of it could be outdated in less than 18 months. While we talk about the latest technology, all of this is in the context of sound principles which can be applied to new technologies. We are also committed to regularly updating it, which is why the free online version of book is so important to the success of this as an education initiative.”
The book covers everything Internet-marketing-related, from search marketing to email marketing to social media, viral marketing and WebPR.
“We designed and wrote it to educate business people and students on how use the Internet to drive brand awareness and sales. The book is jam-packed with American, European and South African case studies to show how the concepts work in the real work of eMarketing,” says Stokes.
In addition to the textbook, Quirk has developed downloadable presentations on each chapter, lecture notes and additional reading lists as teaching aids to help lecturers make the most of the information. These will be available through the educator page on the Quirk site: www.quirk.biz/emarketingtextbook/educator.
The initial response to the book has been excellent, with Dave Duarte of Nomadic Marketing (the new media marketing programme at the UCT Graduate School of Business), Bronwen Auret from South African Tourism and Scott Gray, interactive marketing manager at BMW South Africa, all vocally supporting both the initiative and the book.
Stafford Masie, country manager of Google South Africa, was also said to be very impressed, saying eMarketing - the Essential Guide is “the perfect starting point for anyone entering the world of online marketing”. Google has also included a US$15 Google Adwords voucher in every printed book to give people who have never tried the service an easy way to do so.
“The thing I am most excited about is that this book is freely available for download. It's the distillation of all of Quirk's knowledge and to be able to offer it to all without any limitations is a privilege,” says Stokes.
This is not the first South African book on eMarketing. In December 2006, Juta published The e of marketing by Japie Swanepoel, a partner and strategic director at digital marketing and strategic consultancy agency longtail.
