eMarketing: The Essential Guide to Marketing in a Digital World

Reviewed by Minh Huynh, Associate Professor, Southeastern Louisiana University on 6/20/17

Comprehensiveness rating: 4

This textbook has an excellent coverage of the subject matter. It includes almost all aspects in e-marketing ranging from emarketing tactics to strategy as well as Web design, writing for the web, marketing research. It is good for giving students a broad introduction of emarketing. The index and glossary are good.

Unfortunately, the comprehensiveness makes it difficult to focus on certain areas where students seem to be more interested in. For instance, the social media and the mobile advertising are today's hot areas, but the textbook could not elevate these areas over others. Also, a lot of content in the book are aging. Given the comprehensive nature of this book, it will take author(s) much time and effort to remove the obsolete content, update the existing content, and include the new content.

Content Accuracy rating: 2

Although the content was accurate at the time of writing, it has been less accurate in the passage of time. The problem is that the subject of emarketing is like fast moving target. It is constantly changing. Things get old quickly and new things keep coming out. Therefore, what used to be accurate could become quickly obsolete or less accurate. For instance, statistics used were not longer accurate and tools/software mentioned no longer were used or did not exist in the present context. Looking at the references at the end of each chapter, most were around 2008. A lot of changes have taken place even in one year, let alone a decade.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

This is related to the comment #1 and #2. The relevance/longevity of this particular edition of the textbook is low. This is not the fault of the author(s). The content just need to be updated to bring relevance to the present context. The subject of emarketing tends to have short longevity.

Clarity rating: 4

The book did a good job in explaining and illustrating the concept, tactics, and real-world examples. The jagon/terminology was explained. There was no need for any technical or business background to understand the content.

Consistency rating: 4

The consistency is high.

Modularity rating: 4

Although the text already has some degree of modularity. In the later edition, the modularity is much better. For instance in the 4th edition published in 2011, the book was divided into four key modules: Think, Create, Engage, and Optimize. All the chapters fit well under each of the modules. Sections inside the chapters are well organized to support the chapters and the modules. With a high level of modularity, the text provides instructors leeway to pick and choose areas to cover and to emphasize.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

Overall, the organization/structure/flow of this textbook is fair. However, the later edition has improved even more. The organization flows in a logical fashion and the content is linked by the key modules: Think, Create, Engage, and Optimize.

Interface rating: 3

The book is easy to read and follow. All the illustrations are well crafted. The use of color is quite good. However, to print the e-book is little more challenging. Due to the light color of some texts, while they look OK on the screen, some texts did not print out well on the paper. Also, there is NO mobile friendly version. PDF format lacks the responsiveness when it is read from a mobile device.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text contains no grammatical errors, but one needs to be aware that it was written in British English.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

The text tries to reach out to the global audience. It used examples and cases from different countries including Europe, S. Africa, and the U.S. Although this is a good attempt, in practice trying to reach global audience makes the text less cultural relevance to a specific country. For instance, when the text was adopted and used in the U.S., students seemed not to be able to appreciate or relate to tools/services/software from other countries. They never heard of companies or organizations that might be familiar to others. Perhaps, it could be the same case for students in other countries to appreciate when things related to U.S. were presented in the textbook. In this subject of emarketing, it is more difficult to be cultural relevance. I think therefore it might be better just to include country specific information rather than trying to reaching to many different countries.

Overall, the text is a good text for emarketing at the time of its writing (about 10 years ago). However, things have changed much since then. In order to be accurate, relevant, consistent, and informative, the text needs to be updated. Obsolete content needs to be removed. Old content needs to be updated. New content needs to be added.

My recommendation is not to adopt the existing edition of the text currently posted in the Open Textbook Library. If anyone likes the text, he/she should look for the newer edition of the same text. It has all the strengths of this text but with up-to-date information. More recent references, update links, relevant materials, and current and future trends are among the features in the newer edition of the text. I adopted and used the 4th Edition (published in 2011). Even this one is already aged. Unfortunately, the more recent edition is no longer free and open as the older edition.