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Online Marketing – Art or Practice?

I've become increasingly interested in the art of online marketing.

Some may argue the use of the term art when used in reference to marketing but I checked this out fairly carefully right after I wrote that sentence.

According to the handy dictionary on my Mac, art can be defined as:

• a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice : the art of conversation
• works produced by such skill and imagination
• the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power

Wikipedia backs this last one up with the definition:

• Art is the process or product of deliberately and creatively arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions

If you still aren't convinced, think of any ad that has ever appealed to you in any way.  Sometimes they are visually stunning or interesting to watch, but the most impact is often achieved through basic human emotion.

By this last definition, anything that deliberately appeals to your  senses or emotions in a creative fashion can be labeled art.  So, to answer the question posed by the title above, I'll stick to calling marketing, at least effective marketing, a form of art.

My wife points out that I've argued an objection that no one posed in this post.  Hopefully you'll forgive me; she did

I have so much to say on marketing that I opted to devote an entire page to the topic. Stay tuned to read my musings on testing and measuring your online marketing efforts.