Marketing Terminology
When you’re ready to grow your small business, one of the biggest tasks for small businesses is to expand upon what you already do well in order to reach new potential customers. This is where marketing comes in to educate customers, explain the value of what you offer, or ask for referrals.
Marketing your business can be done in numerous ways – to consumers, other businesses, and the government. There are also several types of marketing, including: traditional, digital, content, social media, email, influencer, grassroot, and more. The type of marketing best for your business could be very different than the type of marketing others use.
Marketing terminology is often confusing, and can mean different things within different types of marketing so we have created this guide of terms to help reduce the confusion.
Marketing Terms
A/B Tests: Using two versions of marketing materials to see which works best with a group of users.
Audience: The ideal customers you want to reach – this can include age, location, pain points, income, and more.
Boosted Post: a paid social media post targeting a specific demographic of customers with a higher likelihood of product interest.
Bounce Rate: metric used to show percentage of website visitors who viewed only one page within the site. A high bounce rate can show marketers changes are needed to make users stay the website longer.
Brand Mission: How you plan to accomplish your goals through your core beliefs.
Brand Promise: A 1-2 sentence statement of what customers can expect from your company.
Brand Voice & tone: Based on your industry and business, the voice/tone of your business can make or break it.
B2B (Business-to-Business): Companies that market their products or services to other businesses.
B2C (Business-to-Consumer): Companies that market their products or services directly to the consumer.
Buyer Personal: the type of people being targeted by ads and content. This group is created through data from actual consumers and are used to create the tone and message delivered.
Call to Action (CTA): used to guide potential customers to take a step such as “click here”
Campaign: a cohesive set of marketing materials used with a specific goal in mind (buy, sign up, etc)
Click-through rate (CTR): metric of how many clicked on the ad shown
Competitive Advantage: The ability of a company to produce goods and services that put it in a superior business position from its competitors.
Content: information created to be seen by an audience of potential buyers/users. This can include emails, blog posts, newsletters, social media posts, videos, or more.
Content Calendar: Also known as an editorial calendar, this is a written schedule of the plan for when and where upcoming content will be published.
Content Marketing: A strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a target audience. It involves creating and sharing informative, entertaining, or educational content, such as blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, podcasts, and social media posts, to build brand awareness, establish credibility, and ultimately drive profitable customer actions.
Conversion Rate: metric used in digital marketing to measure how many users completed a certain action (clicking on a link, filing out a form, purchasing item, etc…)
Cost per mille (CPM): cost per every thousand impressions of campaign.
Cross-channel: cohesive creative material used to be used across different platforms (ie: television commercial, social media, and direct mail)
CRM / CRM Platform (Customer relationship management): A platform used by companies to allow departments within the organization to organize notes, activates, and metrics in one cohesive system for easy accessibility and sharing.
Customer Segmentation: Breaking down various groups / categories of customers based on needs, spending, specific demographics, etc…
Email marketing: Using email to reach customers and potential customers with special offers, new products, gated content (such as ebooks or webinars), and other services.
Engagement: 1) The relationship built over time between a business with a consumer or potential consumer. 2) In digital marketing this is often measured by actions taken such as clicking on a link or commenting on a social media post.
External Linking: Linking on your website to pages outside of your website of relevant and authoritative sources.
Google Analytics: A platform that collects data from your website (and app) to create reports from the use of your website and app such as demographics, time on pages, and more.
Image Alt Text: Also known as alt tags or alt attributes, is a descriptive text attribute that can be added to HTML code to provide alternative information about an image. Alt text is primarily used for accessibility purposes, as it helps individuals with visual impairments understand the content and context of an image when it cannot be displayed.
Inbound Marketing: A marketing methodology that focuses on attracting and engaging potential customers through the creation and distribution of valuable content and experiences. It aims to align with the interests and needs of the target audience, rather than relying on traditional interruptive advertising methods.
Infographics: Using a visual image such as a chart or diagram, that represent information in an easy to read format
Internal Linking: Linking to other pages within your website
Key Performance Indicator (KPI): A measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company or organization is achieving its key objectives or goals. KPIs are used to evaluate performance, track progress, and provide insight into the overall health and success of a business.
Keyword: words and /or short phrases entered into search engines to find information
Landing Page (lead capture page): A specific page on your website designed to get visitors to perform specific actions, such as a “call to action button” to sign up or buy. Often tied to specific marketing campaign.
Lead: potential buyers who have engaged with the brand in the past and are likely to purchase
Marketing Action Plan: Guide created to develop and execute the marketing strategies of a business.
Marketing Channels: Four traditional types of marketing channels used are: paid, free, digital, and traditional.
Meta Tag / Metadata: short text used to describe a page’s content / data that appears in the HTML code, not on the page. They tell search engines what the web page is about.
Metrics: indicators marketers used to measure the effectiveness of their campaign
Monthly unique visitors (MUV): The number of individuals who visited the social media site at least once within the month. (Each person is counted only one time per month, no mater how many times they visited).
Off-Site content: content used outside of the company’s website to attract potential customers to the website, product, or service. Often social media is used for this.
Omnichannel marketing: Consistent brand experience through the integration of various marketing forms used by a company.
On-site content: content created and used on the company’s website to provide the best user experience.
Organic marketing: Using methods other than paid to draw traffic to your business.
Outbound marketing: traditional marketing technique that interrupts consumers in their normal day through techniques such as cold calling or direct mail.
Pay Per Click (PPC) – Advertising on a third-party website or social media where there is cost each time the advertisement is clicked on to the company. This guarantees you are paying for traffic to your website.
Positioning Statement: A statement as to how you fill the market needs / where you fit into the marketplace through your product/service’s offerings and target audience.
Qualified Lead: an individual with the potential to buy the product based on marketing efforts.
Readable Content: Written information on your website that can be articles, blog posts, e-books, white papers, or landing page.
Return on Investment (ROI): a measurement used to determine if the money earned from the campaign justified the initial cost.
Remarketing / Retargeting: Marketing to users who have accessed a website, browsed an eCommerce store, or made an online purchase within a certain timeframe.
Sales Plan: Objectives within a set time frame for a company’s sales activity including goals, target audience, and strategy to attain results.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM): A digital marketing strategy that involves promoting a website or web pages in search engine results pages (SERPs) through paid advertising.
Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS): The page of results that returns from a search engine after a user submits the query for search.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The practice of optimizing a website and its content to improve its visibility and organic (non-paid) ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO aims to increase the quantity and quality of traffic to a website by improving its relevance and authority in relation to specific search queries.
SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based objectives that you can measure against or strive for.
Social Media Marketing: Introducing consumers to your brand and build connections through interactions on social media channels.
S.W.O.T. Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats – strategic plan looking at the factors that affect a marketing campaigns impact.
Target Market: A specific group of consumers to which a product or service is aimed at based on a shared set of characteristics.
User Experience (UX) – A design process that assists in making a website or app easy to navigate for visitors.
Unique selling proposition (USP): The unique feature, superior quality, or price that makes your product stand out in comparison to the competition.
Value Proposition: A clearly written promise statement that communicates to your customers the benefits of your service or product and why they should do business with you and not your competitors.