Isn’t it frustrating when you’re talking to marketers about some exciting business prospects, and they throw in jargon like KPI, ICP, or ROI that you don’t understand?
Well, you are not alone. There are loads of people that find this topic very confusing. However, it’s one of the core competencies for any business in this modern era, so you have to get familiar with the terminologies.
This article defines and explains certain marketing terms that could be essential to your growth – whether as an individual or a brand.
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The 50 marketing terms newbies should know
We’ve subdivided these marketing terms into three categories to help you easily pan through them.
- Basic marketing terms
- Digital marketing terms
- Metrics
Basic Marketing Terms
- Lead
A lead is simply a potential customer for a product or service. It can be someone who has shown interest in your product or service and might buy from you in the future.
Leads are the lifeblood of any business, and having a solid lead generation process in place will help you grow your business faster.
- Buyer Persona
A buyer persona is a fictional representation of the types of persons who might be interested in your product or service. A well-crafted buyer persona includes demographic data such as age, gender, and location, but it also includes information about the person’s goals, challenges, and pain points.
In order to develop an effective buyer persona, you need to research your target customers.
- Ideal customer profile (ICP)
An ideal customer profile is a detailed description of your actual customers. This description includes their demographics (age, sex, location), psychographics (what they like to do in their free time, what they think about certain topics), and behavior patterns (how they usually make purchasing decisions).
- Brand
A brand is a name, logo, slogan, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s products or services as distinct from others.
Branding is the process of creating a brand identity for your product, service, or company, and it’s important that you do it right because it gives customers something to remember about you.
- Onboarding
Onboarding refers to the process of bringing in new employees or customers into a business through techniques that help establish trust, familiarity, and retention of your product or service.
Onboarding has become essential to the customer lifecycle because it helps companies build customer relationships.
- Customer journey
A customer journey is a path that customers take as they move through their buying process — from researching products or services to making a purchase, trying out an app, or visiting a website and ultimately using those products or services.
- Call-to-action (CTA)
Call-to-action is a phrase that usually appears as a button or headline on a website or in an email. It often tells readers or visitors exactly what you want them to do next.
Some of the examples are
“buy now, sign up for our newsletter, download our guide on [insert topic here],” etc.
- On-site content
This is content on a company’s website to educate its target customers about their business or services. It could be written text or images.
However, it’s best to incorporate both texts and images on-site because images can be more effective in driving traffic and increasing engagement with your site.
- Off-site content
Off-site content is any information that isn’t on your website or blog but is aimed at attracting customers to your website or blog. That includes social media posts, google ads, podcasts, and other types of content.
- Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing focuses on attracting customers by providing them with useful content, such as articles or videos that answer their questions about your product or service.
For example, if your business sells dog food, you can write an article on why feeding dogs raw meat is better than feeding them kibble.
The goal is to turn anonymous visitors into paying customers who trust your brand and follow your social media accounts because they want more information from you in the future.
- Outbound marketing
Outbound marketing is a form of marketing that focuses on communicating with customers through traditional advertising channels, such as TV, radio, print, direct email, cold calling, etc.
- Email marketing
Email marketing is the process of sending emails to people who have signed up for your newsletter or your email marketing list.
As well as being a great way of keeping in touch with existing customers, you can use email marketing software like MailChimp or EmailOctopus to automate your email campaigns to new customers, offer discounts and promotions, and so much more!
Recommendation:  We’ve curated a list of the best email marketing tools based on functionality and quality of service. |
- Content marketing
Content marketing is the process of creating and sharing valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience in order to drive profitable customer action.
- Conversational marketing
Conversational marketing is a marketing concept that’s been around for a while. But the term has gained traction in recent years thanks to the popularity of chatbots, virtual assistants, and other digital assistants.
Basically, conversational marketing entails creating a connection with your customers through conversations rather than through advertisements or other forms of outbound communication.
- Unique selling proposition (USP)
A unique selling proposition is a unique benefit that gives a company a cutting edge over its competitors.
If every company sells similar products, services, or ideas, how do you get customers to buy from you? You need to have a memorable and relevant USP.
- Marketing automation
Marketing automation is a tool designed for automating marketing tasks. It helps you nurture leads through the buying process, draw key customer insights, and drive ROI.
Essentially, you’ll be sending emails to your customers based on their behavior, which is much more powerful than just blasting out emails to everyone.
| Recommendation: Here’s our list of the top-performing market automation software available in the market today. |
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
A customer relationship management (CRM) is a broad term that describes any process or technology used to manage and analyze customer interactions and data.
With CRM software, you can manage all of your customer interactions, from tracking leads to managing sales, marketing, and support strategies in one central repository.
| Recommendation: Manage your customer relationships and data effectively using our list of excellent CRM software available today. |
- Content Marketing System (CMS)
A content management system (CMS) is software for creating, storing, and managing digital content.
You can also use a CMS to manage the look and feel of your website by using the colors, fonts, and other elements even if you have no knowledge of coding.
| Recommendation: Are you looking for a CMS for your website? Here’s our list of top content management software that will help you keep your website updated with fresh new content that will help you engage with customers and boost sales |
- Sales funnel
A sales funnel refers to the processes that lead potential customers from the first contact with a business to the point where they make a purchase and become a customer.
- Top of the funnel (ToFU)
ToFu refers to visitors who have just heard of a company, product, or service but haven’t engaged with it yet.
They may have just arrived on the site after clicking an ad on Facebook or Google, or found it through organic search results. Either way, they don’t know much about the product or service provider.
- Middle of the funnel (MoFu)
Middle of the funnel (MoFu) refers to a stage of the sales process where potential customers are starting to show interest in what you have to offer.
In order to gain the trust of the potential customer, you can use a conversational marketing strategy.
- Bottom of the funnel (BoFu)
The bottom of the funnel is a term that has become synonymous with marketing and sales. It refers to the stage where prospects are ready to make a purchase but haven’t yet done so yet.
In this stage, they may ask for a demo or inquire about the best price available.
- Public relations (PR)
Public relations is a form of marketing through which a business or individual seeks to develop a positive image, build relationships, manage scandals, and reach out to customers and partners.
Digital Marketing Terms
- Landing page
A landing page is a web page where visitors land after clicking on an advertisement or a search engine result.
A landing page typically displays one main objective and focuses on getting visitors to take action (e.g., make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, etc.).
- SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it refers to strategies used to increase organic traffic toward a website or blog.
To increase your website’s visibility organically, you’ll need to create high-quality content, optimize your keywords, build links from other domains, and more.
| Recommendation: Here are some SEO software to help you monitor, research, plan keywords, optimize, and analyze your website. |
- Search engine marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a type of online marketing that focuses on generating website traffic through paid search advertising. Search engines like Google and Bing are the primary sources of traffic for most online marketers.
- Engagement
Engagement, in marketing terms, refers to the state of being connected and involved with a brand.
It is a metric for measuring how much users interact with a business.
- Bounce rate
Bounce rate is a metric that measures the percentage of single-page sessions on a website or app.
For example, if someone lands on your homepage and then leaves without looking at any other pages (or spending time on the site), their visit is considered a bounce.
- Impression
An impression is a sales metric that measures the number of times an ad appears on a website or in an app.
- Click-through rate (CTR)
CTR refers to the percentage of users who click on an ad when they see it online. This is important because it shows how well your ads are getting people to click through to your website or landing page.
If you want to increase this number, ensure your ad includes a strong call-to-action (CTA).
- Churn rate
Churn rate refers to the percentage of customers who stop using a product or cancel their service within a certain period (usually annually).
- Return on Investment (ROI)
Return on investment (ROI) measures how much money you earn in relation to the money you’ve invested.
It’s one of the most important numbers you need to track because it tells you how efficiently you use your time and resources.
If your ROI isn’t high, then it means you need to make adjustments to your budget or optimize your marketing strategy.
- Key performance indicator (KPI)
Key performance indicators are quantifiable metrics that measure a company’s progress on specific goals.
For example, some businesses may consider a KPI to be the number of sales inquiries generated by their marketing efforts. Others might identify the number of visitors who subscribe to their newsletter as their KPI.
- Customer acquisition
Customer acquisition is the process of getting new customers for a business or brand. It’s one of the most important parts of any marketing strategy since it allows you to grow your business and revenue.
- Qualified Lead
Qualified leads are the leads that have been identified as potential clients and have been given enough information to determine if they are interested in your services or product.
This process aims to ensure that you are targeting the appropriate people with your marketing efforts.
- Lead nurturing
Lead nurturing is the process of building a relationship with a customer or prospect over time. The goal is to guide them through the buying process, from first contact until they become customers.
While this might sound like something you do manually, it’s best you nurture your leads with email automation software to ensure that each person receives the right message at the right time.
- Customer segmentation
Customer segmentation is a marketing strategy that divides customers into groups based on their needs, interests, and behaviors. The purpose of this is to create more personalized marketing strategies and messages for each group.
Metrics
- A/B test
A/B testing is a method of comparing two versions of a webpage, product, or service to identify the best option.
It’s one of the most basic forms of split testing, and it is ideal for determining which version will drive more conversions. You can use automation software like KyLeads to carry out your A/B test.
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
CAC is the average cost of getting a new customer. This includes all marketing costs associated with acquiring a new customer, such as advertising, hiring, and managing salespeople to sell directly to customers.
CAC = total amount spent on sales and marketing in a period ÷ total number of customers signed during that period
- Customer lifetime value (CLV)
The CLV is the amount of money you expect a customer to spend with your company over their lifetime with you.
CLV = (customer revenue – gross margin)/ Churn rate
This metric helps marketers determine how much they should spend acquiring new customers vs. retaining existing ones because it considers all future revenue streams from that customer instead of just one transaction or group of transactions.
- Cost per mille (CPM)
Cost per mille (CPM) is a metric that advertisers use to determine the cost for 1,000 ad impressions.
The term is often used in the context of display advertising, but it can also be applied to search ads, mobile ads, and other forms of online advertising.
It’s a way for businesses to measure the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and channels.
- Cost per click (CPC)
This is the cost of a click on an ad you paid for on another website or platform. It’s a standard metric used by advertisers, but it can be misleading for marketers who don’t understand how it works.
If a consumer clicks on an ad but doesn’t buy anything, you don’t earn any money from that ad campaign.
In other words, CPCs only measure how many people click on an ad and then purchase something — not the overall effectiveness of your campaign.
- Cost per lead (CPL)
The cost per lead is the amount you spend on acquiring a lead. For example, when you’re using paid advertising in Google Ads, it’s easy to see how much money you’re spending on things like clicks and impressions and how many leads your paid campaigns are generating from those spends.
- Point of contact (POC)
The point of contact is the place where businesses make a connection with customers: it might be an email address, phone number, or website.
- Net promoter score (NPS)
A net promoter score (NPS) is a way to measure customer loyalty. It indicates how likely people are to recommend your business to others. It’s measured on a scale of 0-10; Promoters (score of 9-10), Passives (score of 7-8), and Detractors (score of 0-6).
- Unique visitors per month (UVPM)
UVPM is a standard metric used by marketers to evaluate the total number of new people that visit their website each month.
A business with more UVPM will likely have more customers than one with less UVPM, but this isn’t always the case. The conversion into customers will depend on how well those users engage with your website content.
- Go-to-market (GTM) strategy
Go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a high-level plan that describes how a company intends to present its unique value proposition or its product or service to the market. This can include everything from branding and marketing to pricing and distribution.
- Minimum viable product (MVP)
An MVP is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and provide feedback for future product development.
The goal of an MVP release is to test whether or not there’s a market for the product.
- Product lead growth
Product lead growth is a term that’s been making waves in the marketing world for some time now. It’s the idea that you can generate leads for your product or service by focusing on the customer experience and ensuring that you’re giving them what they want.
- Total addressable market (TAM)
The total addressable market (TAM) is the potential revenue that your company could earn from people who want to buy your product or service.
In most cases, the amount of revenue you can achieve is nowhere near the total addressable market (TAM) size, but understanding your TAM can help you figure out what type of customer base to focus on when defining your marketing and sales strategy.
Bottom line
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it provides a solid base for you to understand the magnitude of this industry.
Now that you know about this list of marketing terms, you can start to take advantage of marketing trends to succeed with your business, and the money can start rolling in.