11 Commonly Used Marketing Terms You Should Know

Have you ever spent some time on the phone with a marketing professional and you get overwhelmed with terminology you do not understand? For those of you that are new to marketing, here are 11 commonly-used terms you should be aware of.

1. Inbound marketing

This is a marketing technique where the business draws users in with helpful, relevant content (blogs, updates, videos), rather than going out and generating lead through traditional marketing channels (such as cold calling, direct mail, TV ads). An example of inbound marketing is writing a business blog. Blogging is an excellent way to answer your prospects’ pressing questions in regards to the products and services you offer (e.g. how to pick the right tennis camps for your child). The more educational and consistent your blog is, the more likely you are to get your prospects to trust your brand and remember you as they move towards the purchasing phase.

2. Target audience (persona)

This is a semi-fictional character usually formed by a marketing professional, which represents your potential client. The description is formed by using your potential client’s demographics, patterns of behavior, inspirations, desires, etc. Creating such target persona allows you to better understand your users, and therefore, create a more relevant content for your website – one that resonate with them.

3. Lead

Every organization has their own definition of what a good (qualified) lead is. Generally speaking, it is a user that exhibits a buying behavior of some type. A lead could be wither marketing qualified lead (MQL) or sales qualified lead (SQL). An MQL is a user that has visited certain pages of your website, downloaded content and has provided their contact information (e.g. email, phone number, name, their interest). SQL on the other hand, are those MQLs that are ready for a direct sales follow-up by your sales team. Those leads have likely been researched and vetted first by your marketing team, and then by your sales team. The MQL process normally takes time, while the SQL stage is where things tend to speed up.

4. Email marketing

This is the process of marketing to a specific segment via email. It is a very cost-effective marketing channel and is normally a must-have for any business’ digital marketing strategy.

5. Marketing automation

Marketing automation is a software or platform that allows marketers to automate and measure marketing tasks and workflows. It can simplify some of the most time-consuming tasks of the company’s marketing managers since you do not have to manually press “send” on each and every email, message, campaign, or post you create.  Having good automation tools are crucial (e.g. MailChimp, Constant Contact, Hubspot, Marketo, LeadSquared, just to name few).

6. Business blogging

Business blogging is a marketing tactic that helps businesses gain more online presence (to be found on the internet). Plenty of people have personal blogs, which they use either as a hobby or as a way to make money. A business blog, however, is a marketing channel (just like email marketing and social media) where you publish content on carefully selected topics. The more pages (e.g. blog articles) you publish on the internet, the more likely is for your business to be found by potential clients.

7. ROI

You probably have heard the saying “you gotta spend money to make money.” Well, the saying really applies to marketing as well – you may have the most amazing product in the world, but if no one knows about it you will not be making any money. Since marketing take a lot of time and it can be a significant expense, you want to know if your marketing efforts are translating into profits. This is why we measure return on investment (ROI) on the amount of money you spend on marketing. A simple formula for that could be:

ROI = (Incremental Profit – Campaign Cost) / Campaign Cost.

An acceptable ration can be 1:5 (for every $1 spent on marketing, you earn $5 in sales), but some companies’ benchmarks could even be 1:10.

8. Evergreen content

Evergreen content is marketing content that has long-term value by staying relevant. Some examples include: guides, articles, eBooks, tutorials, webcasts, case studies. The following are NOT evergreen content: news, holiday articles, blogs about latest fashion trends, statistics.

9. Landing page

A landing page is a web page that allows you to collect valuable information about your visitors via a form that they fill out. Landing pages are valuable lead generation tool because once you have your visitor’s email address, you can begin nurturing them (via email marketing, for example) and getting them closer to the buying decision.

10. CTA

Call-to-action (CTA) is an image or text that prompts your visitors, leads or existing customers to take certain action. An example of an action could be: download an eBook, sign up for an event, get coupon code. CTAs could also be accompanied by a button or look like a button. A common example of a CTA in sales is “Buy Now.”

11. Hashtag

Hashtag is a word or combination or words that follows a pound sign. It is commonly used on social media. Hashtag is normally written by users and is a way to categorize a topic.

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