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KEY MARKETING TERMS
UNDERSTANDING MARKETING
Term | Definition |
|---|---|
A/B Testing: | A method of comparing two versions of a webpage, email, or other marketing asset to see which one performs better. For example, testing two different headlines to see which one gets more clicks. |
ABM (Account-Based Marketing): | ABM (Account-Based Marketing): A focused strategy where marketing and sales teams work together to target a specific set of high-value client accounts, treating them as individual markets. |
Accessibility: | Designing and creating websites and content that can be used by everyone, including people with disabilities. |
Advocacy: | The final stage of the marketing funnel where loyal customers actively recommend your brand to others. |
Affiliate Marketing: | A partnership where an individual or company earns a commission for marketing another person's or company's products. |
Analytics: | The process of discovering, interpreting, and communicating meaningful patterns in data to understand and optimise marketing performance. |
Attribution: | The process of identifying which marketing channels or touchpoints contributed to a conversion, such as a sale or lead. |
Awareness: | The first stage of the marketing funnel, where potential customers first become aware of your brand or product. |
Benchmarks: | Benchmarks: Standards or points of reference against which your marketing performance can be measured and compared. |
Blog: | A regularly updated website or web page, typically run by an individual or small group, written in an informal or conversational style. |
Bounce Rate: | The percentage of visitors to a website who leave after viewing only one page. |
Brand Awareness: | The extent to which consumers are familiar with the distinctive qualities or image of a particular brand of goods or services. |
Brand Equity: | The commercial value that derives from consumer perception of the brand name of a particular product or service, rather than from the product or service itself. |
Brand Voice: | The unique personality a brand takes on in its communications, which is then expressed through its tone of voice. |
Brand: | The overall perception, identity, and reputation of a company or product in the mind of the consumer. |
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): | The total cost of sales and marketing efforts needed to acquire a new customer. |
CLV/LTV (Customer Lifetime Value): | A prediction of the total net profit a company will make from any given customer throughout their entire relationship. |
CPA (Cost Per Acquisition): | An online advertising pricing model where the advertiser pays for a specified action, such as a sale, click, or form submission. |
CPC (Cost Per Click): | The actual price you pay for each click in your pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaigns. |
CPM (Cost Per Mille): | The cost an advertiser pays for one thousand views or impressions of an advertisement. "Mille" is Latin for thousand. |
CRM (Customer Relationship Management): | A technology system for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. |
CTA (Call to Action): | An instruction to the audience designed to provoke an immediate response, usually using an imperative verb such as "Buy now" or "Learn more". |
Case Study: | A detailed story that shows how a customer successfully used your product or service to solve a problem. |
Churn: | The rate at which customers stop doing business with a company over a given period. |
Click-Through Rate (CTR): | The percentage of people who see your advert or link and then actually click on it. |
Click-Through: | The action of a user clicking on a digital advert or link to reach a specific destination. |
Cohort: | A group of users who share a common characteristic, such as signing up in the same week, often used for analysis. |
Competitive Analysis: | The process of identifying your competitors and evaluating their strategies to determine their strengths and weaknesses relative to your own. |
Content Marketing: | Creating and sharing valuable, relevant online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services. |
Conversion: | The point at which a recipient of a marketing message performs a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form. |
Copywriting: | The art and science of writing text (copy) for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing. |
Cross-sell: | A sales technique used to encourage a customer to buy a related or complementary product. For example, selling a phone case to someone buying a new phone. |
Customer Journey: | The complete sum of experiences that customers go through when interacting with your company and brand. |
Dashboard: | A tool used to visualise important marketing data and track performance metrics in one easy-to-read place. |
Demo: | A demonstration of a product or service to a prospective customer to show how it works and what it can do for them. |
Drip Campaign: | A series of automated emails sent to a specific group of people over time, designed to nurture them towards a specific action. |
Ebook: | A digital book (longer than a blog post) that is used as a marketing tool to provide in-depth information on a topic and generate leads. |
Email Marketing: | The use of email to promote products or services while developing relationships with potential customers or clients. |
Engagement Rate: | A metric that measures the amount of interaction (likes, comments, shares) that a piece of content receives relative to its reach or audience size. |
Event Marketing: | The process of developing a themed exhibit, display, or presentation to promote a product, service, cause, or organisation. |
Freemium: | A pricing strategy where a company offers a basic version of its product or service for free, with charges for advanced or premium features. |
Funnel (Marketing Funnel): | A model illustrating the theoretical customer journey from the moment of first awareness through to purchase and advocacy. |
Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy: | An action plan that specifies how a company will reach target customers and achieve competitive advantage when launching a new product or entering a new market. |
Hashtag: | A word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used on social media to identify messages on a specific topic. |
Heatmap: | A graphical representation of data where values are depicted by colour, often used on websites to show where users click and scroll the most. |
Homepage: | The main or introductory page of a website. |
Impressions: | The total number of times a piece of content, like an advert or a social media post, is displayed on a screen. |
Influencer Marketing: | A type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from individuals who have a dedicated social following and are viewed as experts within their niche. |
KPI (Key Performance Indicator): | A measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives. |
Keywords: | The words and phrases that people type into search engines to find information, which SEO and SEM campaigns target. |
Landing Page: | A standalone web page, created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign, where a visitor "lands" after they click on a link. |
Launch Plan: | A detailed, step-by-step plan that outlines all the tasks and activities required to successfully introduce a new product or service to the market. |
Lead: | A potential customer who has shown interest in your company's product or service in some way, such as by providing their contact information. |
MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead): | A lead who has shown more interest than other leads and is judged more likely to become a customer based on their engagement with marketing efforts. |
Market Share: | The portion of a market controlled by a particular company or product, expressed as a percentage of total sales in that market. |
Marketing Automation: | The use of software to automate repetitive marketing tasks, such as email marketing, social media posting, and ad campaigns. |
Media Mix: | The combination of communication channels a business uses to meet its marketing objectives. |
Messaging: | The specific, consistent language and narrative a brand uses to communicate its value and connect with its audience. |
Microsite: | A small, separate website with a unique URL that is created for a specific campaign or purpose. |
Mobile-First: | A design and development approach that prioritises creating a good experience for users on mobile devices before designing for larger screens like desktops. |
Multivariate Testing: | A method similar to A/B testing but used to test multiple variations of multiple elements on a page simultaneously to see which combination works best. |
Nurture: | The process of building relationships with potential customers at every stage of their journey, providing them with relevant information to guide them towards a purchase. |
Omnichannel: | A marketing approach that provides customers with a completely seamless and integrated experience across multiple devices and touchpoints. |
Onboarding: | The process of helping new customers get started with your product or service and showing them how to get value from it. |
Open Rate: | The percentage of recipients who opened a specific email out of the total number of emails successfully delivered. |
Organic: | Traffic, leads, or reach generated from unpaid search results or social media posts, as opposed to paid advertising. |
PESTLE Analysis: | A strategic framework used to analyse and monitor the macro-environmental factors (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) that may have an impact on an organisation's performance. |
PPC (Pay-Per-Click): | A model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their adverts is clicked. |
PR (Public Relations): | The professional maintenance of a favourable public image by a company or other organisation. |
Paid: | Traffic, leads, or reach generated from paid advertising, such as search engine adverts or sponsored social media posts. |
Partnership: | A collaborative relationship between two or more businesses with the goal of achieving mutual benefits, such as expanding reach or sharing resources. |
Personas: | Fictional, generalised characters that represent the different user types that might use a site, brand, or product in a similar way. |
Pipeline: | A visual representation of the sales process, showing where prospects are in the journey from first contact to closing a deal. |
Positioning Statement: | A concise internal statement that explains how your brand or product fills a particular consumer need in a way that your competitors don’t. |
Positioning: | The process of creating a distinct and valued place in the minds of the target market for a brand, product, or service. |
Press Release: | An official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, making an official announcement, or making a statement. |
Pricing Strategy: | The method a company uses to price its products or services, considering factors like cost, competition, and perceived value. |
Product Marketing: | The process of bringing a product to market and promoting it, which includes defining its positioning, messaging, and launch strategy. |
Prototype: | An early, interactive sample or model of a product, website, or app built to test a concept or process. |
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): | A marketing metric that measures the amount of revenue earned for every pound spent on advertising. |
ROI (Return on Investment): | A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment, calculated by dividing the net profit by the cost of the investment. |
Reach: | The total number of unique people who see your content. |
Responsive Design: | A web design approach that ensures web pages render well on a variety of devices and window or screen sizes. |
Retention: | The activities and strategies companies use to reduce customer defections and keep them engaged with the brand. |
SEM (Search Engine Marketing): | A digital marketing strategy used to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages, primarily through paid advertising (PPC). |
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): | The practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic (non-paid) search engine results. |
SERP (Search Engine Results Page): | The page displayed by a search engine in response to a query by a user. |
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead): | A prospective customer that has been researched and vetted by both marketing and sales teams and is deemed ready for the next stage in the sales process. |
SWOT Analysis: | A strategic planning technique used to help an organisation identify its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. |
Sales Enablement: | The process of providing a company’s sales team with the resources they need to close more deals, such as content, tools, and training. |
Segment: | A subgroup of a larger market where individuals share similar characteristics, needs, or behaviours. |
Segmentation: | The process of dividing a broad consumer or business market into sub-groups of consumers (known as segments). |
Share of Voice: | A measure of the market your brand owns compared to your competitors, often used to gauge brand awareness and visibility. |
Social Media: | Websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Key platforms include Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and TikTok. |
Social Proof: | The idea that people will conform to the actions of others under the assumption that those actions are reflective of the correct behaviour. Examples include testimonials and user reviews. |
Sponsorship: | A marketing technique where a company provides financial or other support to an event, person, or organisation in exchange for exposure. |
Style Guide: | A comprehensive document that outlines a brand's writing and design standards to ensure complete consistency in its communication. |
TAM/SAM/SOM: | Acronyms for different subsets of a market: Total Addressable Market (the total demand for a product), Serviceable Available Market (the segment of the TAM you can reach), and Serviceable Obtainable Market (the portion of the SAM you can realistically capture). |
Target Audience: | A particular group of consumers at which a product or service is aimed. |
Testimonial: | A written or recorded statement from a satisfied customer that commends the value of a product or service. |
Tone of Voice: | How a brand’s personality is expressed in its writing. For example, it could be professional, friendly, or witty. |
Trial: | A period during which a potential customer can use a product or service for free to evaluate it before making a purchase decision. |
UGC (User-Generated Content): | Any form of content—such as images, videos, text, and audio—that has been posted by users on online platforms. |
UI (User Interface): | The series of screens, pages, and visual elements—like buttons and icons—that enable a person to interact with a product or service. |
UX (User Experience): | The overall experience a person has when using a product, especially a website or app, regarding how easy or pleasing it is to use. |
Unsubscribe Rate: | The percentage of email recipients who opt out from a mailing list after receiving an email. |
Upsell: | A sales technique where a seller invites the customer to purchase a more expensive item, an upgrade, or other add-ons in an attempt to make a more profitable sale. |
Usability Testing: | A technique used to evaluate a product or website by testing it on real users. |
Value Proposition: | A statement that clearly communicates the unique benefit a customer will receive by using your product, service, or brand. |
Webinar: | An online seminar or other presentation that takes place on the internet in real-time. |
White Paper: | An authoritative, in-depth report on a specific topic that presents a problem and provides a solution. |
Wireframe: | A basic visual guide used in interface design to suggest the structure of a website and the relationships between its pages and content. |
Workflow: | A series of automated actions that you can trigger to run based on a person’s behaviours or contact information. |
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