The worst thing that can happen is for you to be involved in a conversation that you don’t fully comprehend. When it involves discussions about marketing, you could feel as though you are on the outside looking in. If you’re just trying to stay up to date in this industry, acronyms and terms like “SEO,” “ROI,” and “B2B” seem to appear at a rate that’s enough to make your head spin. The number of crucial marketing terms and concepts keeps growing as approaches, technologies, and time pass.
Although there is a lot to take in, you don’t have to wait around and try to figure out what everyone is talking about. We have put up a list of the terms, acronyms, and concepts used in marketing that tend to pop up!
- Lead
- Simply defined, leads in marketing refer to any individual or organization within your marketing reach who has interacted with your brand way or has the potential to become a future customer. A lead can be someone that sees or downloads your content, signs up for a trial, or visits your store.
- Content
- Any information created with the intention of being viewed by an audience is considered content. Blog postings, email newsletters, social media updates, videos, and even printed pamphlets may fall under this category.
- Infographic
- A well-designed, easy-to-read image is used to display statistics and other information in infographics.
- Analytics
- Analytics, as used in marketing, is the procedure of examining data to ascertain the return on investment of a specific marketing activity. The dashboard or system that marketers use to evaluate and monitor this data is also referred to as an analytics tool.
- Brand
- A company’s brand is how prospective customers view and interact with it. The logo and other design components of a brand, the tone used in customer interactions, and the target market that the company is recognized for serving are all examples of brand components.
- Buyer Persona
- Buyer personas are the imaginary people marketers target when they design ads or create content like website copy. Although buyer personas aren’t real people, they are created based on data from actual consumers. These personas are then used to inform the audience, tactics and tone of the messages delivered.
- Call To Action (CTA)
- A call to action is a prompt that encourages website visitors to take a certain action, such as subscribing to an email newsletter or submitting a contact form. CTAs are used to guide potential customers through the next step in a sales funnel.
- Customer Journey
- The customer journey is a phrase that businesses use to describe the process from when a potential customer shows interest in a product or service to the point that the interaction is finished.
- Case Study
- Case studies are a type of content that typically showcases a company’s work with a past customer, often with a heavy focus on statistics or other quantifiable data that help highlight how the company achieved the desired results.
- B2B
- This acronym is shorthand for business-to-business marketing. B2B companies are those that market their products or services to other businesses.
- B2C
- This acronym stands for business-to-consumer marketing. B2C companies sell their products or services directly to the end consumer.
- Testimonial
- A common element found in marketing materials, a testimonial is a person’s written or spoken statement explaining the value of a product or service. These often come from customers and are used to bolster the credibility of a marketing message.
- Engagement
- Engagement refers to the connection and relationship marketers build over time with their customers. In digital marketing, engagement can sometimes be measured as actions a visitor takes, such as clicking a link or commenting on a social media post.
- Public Relations (PR)
- Public relations involve managing the spread of information about a company—whether good or bad. PR professionals work to spread positive news about their brand and minimize the impact of negative news.
- Qualified Lead
- A qualified lead is the name of an individual that the marketing team has deemed to be a viable prospect for marketing their product; this is based on marketing efforts that have shown this individual has potential interest in the product.
- Return On Investment (ROI)
- Every marketing campaign requires an initial investment of time and/or money. Return on investment is a metric that measures whether a campaign earned enough money to be worth the initial cost.
- Sales Funnel
- A sales funnel refers to the buying journey new leads take before they make a purchase. The sales funnel includes several steps, from learning that a brand exists to becoming a loyal customer.
- Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
- A USP is referring to what exactly makes your product stand out in comparison to the competition around it. This could be a unique feature, superior quality, a low price or even the ability to “bundle” with another product.
- On-Site Content
- All the content that a company produces and shares on its own website. On-site content is produced to give a potential customer the best experience while they are searching for your product or service.
- Off-Site Content
- The content that is made away from a company’s home website, off-site content is designed to catch the eye of a potential customer and draw them to a company’s website, product or service.
- Cold Calling/Emailing
- A tactic used by salespeople to contact potential customers via phone or email with whom the company has had no previous contact.
- Onboarding
- Integrating a new employee or client into a company/organization by familiarizing them with your product or service.
- Campaign
- A campaign is a cohesive set of marketing activities designed to achieve a specific goal, like increasing sales for a certain product or spreading awareness of a new product feature.
- Brand Awareness
- The extent to which potential customers are familiar with your company and the distinct images or qualities that are associated with what you are selling.
Types Of Marketing:
- Inbound Marketing
- This marketing method uses strategies like content marketing and social media marketing to attract new customers. Rather than pursuing customers with a hard sell, inbound marketers forge connections with people by meeting them where they’re at in the purchase process. Ideally, this approach draws them in to learn more about the brand. For example, a grill manufacturer is writing an article comparing the pros and cons of gas grills versus charcoal grills. This provides helpful information about a common topic of interest for prospective customers and may lead to more direct sales questions, e.g., “Which gas grill should I purchase?”
- Outbound Marketing
- This traditional type of marketing seeks to get the attention of potential buyers by interrupting them in their daily lives using techniques like cold calls or direct mail campaigns.
- Social Media Marketing
- This digital marketing method uses social media channels to introduce potential customers to a brand and to gradually build a connection through regular interaction.
- Email Marketing
- Email marketing is content sent via email to current or potential customers who subscribed to a marketing email list. Check your inbox—you’ve seen countless examples.
- Content Marketing
- This marketing method focuses on creating relevant, consistent content to attract new leads and turn them into customers. Blog posts, email newsletters, vlogs and podcasts can all be pieces of a content marketing strategy.
- Omnichannel Marketing
- Omnichannel marketing refers to the integration of all the various forms of marketing that a company uses to ensure that a customer has a consistent brand experience.
Digital Marketing Terms:
- Landing Page
- A landing page is a static, stand-alone website page that includes a strong call to action as part of a marketing campaign.
- Chatbot
- A chatbot is an automated tool found on many websites, typically used to help address common customer questions or concerns. They scan chat messages from customers to identify potential keywords and topics of interest and then relay pre-populated messages. Chatbots can escalate to a human representative as needed, often with additional context to help make those person-to-person conversations more efficient.
- Keyword
- Keywords are words or short phrases that users enter into a search engine to find the information they’re looking for. Savvy digital marketers incorporate these terms (when relevant) into web pages to improve their site’s overall visibility in search engines.
- Bounce Rate
- A bounce rate is an engagement metric that shows the percentage of website visitors who left the site after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate isn’t necessarily bad in all contexts, but in some cases, it serves as a sign for marketers that they need to adjust their website so visitors stay and view more of the site.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- A click-through rate is a metric that measures how many people click an ad after seeing it.
- Content Management System (CMS)
- A content management system is a type of web publishing tool designed to manage the digital content marketers create for the web. These typically offer an easy-to-use interface for editing the layout or other elements of a webpage.
- User Experience (UX)
- User experience refers to the design process of making a website (or app) easy for visitors to understand and navigate.
- Lead Management
- A lead magnet is an incentive, such as a coupon code or a free eBook download, that potential customers receive in exchange for their contact information.
- Clickbait
- Clickbait is a term used to describe a way content creators can manipulate an individual to get them to click a link or press play. Clickbait takes advantage of provocative titles, appeals to authority and imagery that pique the interest of a potential viewer. For example, “Doctors hate this one weird trick for driving engagement.”
- Social Proof
- Social proof is a psychological phenomenon in which people are more likely to trust or purchase from a brand if they’ve heard positive reviews from their friends or peers.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Search engine optimization is the process of using keywords and other technical strategies to increase the likelihood that a certain webpage will be shown on a list of online search results.
Social Media Marketing Terms:
- Blog
- A blog is a website (or section of a website) that’s frequently updated with new content. Marketers use blogging to attract new customers and bring awareness to their brand.
- Vlog
- Vlogs are “video blogs” that are regularly released as part of a brand’s content marketing strategy.
- Monthly Unique Visitor (MUV)
- This refers to an individual who visits a social media site at least once within a given month. This term is used to understand how wide-reaching a page is in terms of the unique clicks it draws, rather than just focusing on the overall number.
- Avatar
- Also known as a profile picture on most platforms, an avatar is a small image that represents you on your social media pages. Whether logo or an actual picture of yourself, it is an image that is used that your followers will immediately recognize and associate with you or your company.
- Boosted Post
- A boosted post is a post that different social media companies will put money behind in order to increase the number of people who will see it. Mixed in with elements of marketing research, boosted posts are social media posts that are targeted at specific demographics in order to reach potential customers that have a higher likelihood of being interested in the product.
- Cross-Channel
- Cross-channel refers to any kind of social media marketing that goes across different platforms with an intentional goal/strategy to connect to the various kinds of users that engage on that platform. This can also apply more broadly in marketing—for example, you’ll commonly find cross-channel campaigns with cohesive creative materials tailored for a traditional TV audience, social media and direct mail.
- Dark Post
- A dark post is a social media advertisement that does not appear on the company’s formal page, but rather only appears in the feeds of users they have specifically targeted.
Market Research & Analysis Terms:
- A/B Tests
- Marketers run experiments called A/B tests to determine which marketing tactic yields the best results. For example, a digital marketer may conduct an A/B test that will serve up two different versions of a webpage—typically the current page versus a new iteration—to users to determine which performs better. This is a simple scientific approach for comparing the effectiveness of a control group versus a variation.
- Conversion Rate
- A conversion rate is a metric that measures how many users took a certain action, like filling out a form or clicking on a specific link. Typically, this is tied to actions leading to a purchase, but the goal action can vary.
- Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
- Key performance indicators are specific metrics that show whether a company is meeting its marketing goals. This can vary depending on the context—for some, it may be the number of sales inquiries, for others it may be the number of visitors who watch over 75% of a video on a page.
- Metrics
- Metrics are measurable indicators that tell marketers how well their campaigns are performing. Common metrics include click-through rate, cost per lead, bounce rate and conversion rate.
- Cost Per Mile (CPM)
- This is a phrase in market research that refers to the cost of an advertisement for every thousand impressions. It is a way for businesses to keep track of how effective their advertising spending is being.
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
- An ICP is the type of customer that best fits a company. When selling to customers that fall within specific demographics, ICPs tend to offer the most benefit in terms of product purchased.
- Point Of Contact (POC)
- POCs are the moment at which a business and customer begin exchanging information, providing a service or handling a transaction.
- Likert Scale
- A common question format for marketing surveys used to gauge the intensity of a sentiment via a numbered scale, a Likert scale often ranges from “1. Strongly disagree” to “5. Strongly agree.” This format is useful for quantifying sentiment but often needs to be paired with more qualitative questions to understand why a respondent feels this way.
- S.W.O.T Analysis
- SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and it is a market research term used in strategic planning by looking at all factors that could impact marketing effectiveness.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
- CAC is the money that a company spends in order to get new customers by looking at the effectiveness of marketing, advertising and potentially the cost of paying sales personnel.
- Customer Segmentation
- This is the process market researchers use to break down various groups/categories of customers based on their needs, spending and specific demographics.
