If you’re trying your hand at DIY-ing your marketing, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all the marketing jargon that a lot of online resources use.
So here’s my handy glossary of commonly used marketing buzzwords broken down into simple terms so that you can cut through the confusion and get on with marketing your business.
Target Audience
Your target audience is the specific group of people or customers to which a marketing campaign is designed to reach and appeal. For example, a fitness apparel brand might target fitness enthusiasts and athletes as their primary target audience.
Brand Identity
Brand Identity is the visual and emotional representation of a brand, including its logo, colours, and messaging. It’s one of the key parts of a business that distinguishes you from your competitors. An example would be McDonald's; their brand identity includes the Golden Arches logo and the slogan "I'm lovin' it."
ROI
An abbreviation for Return on Investment, ROI measures the profitability of a marketing campaign or business activity, calculated by dividing the net gain by the cost of the investment.
So if a marketing campaign costs £1,000 and generates £5,000 in sales, the ROI is 400%.
Call to Action
A Call to Action (sometimes shortened to CTA) is a prompt or instruction that encourages the audience to take a specific action, such as clicking a link or making a purchase. Things like "Click here to subscribe!" or “Buy Now!” are CTAs often used in email marketing, social media marketing and content marketing.
Segmentation
Segmentation is when you divide a larger market into smaller, more homogenous groups based on demographics, behaviour, or other factors to target them more effectively. For example, an airline may segment its market into business travellers, leisure travellers, and frequent flyers.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate refers to the percentage of website visitors or potential customers who take a desired action, like purchasing or signing up for a newsletter. So if you ran a campaign and generated 100 visits to your online store, then received 5 purchases, your conversion rate for that campaign would be 5%.
Marketing Funnel
A marketing funnel is a visualisation of the different stages a customer goes through in the buying process. It’s typically divided into four main sections: awareness, consideration, conversion and advocacy. Bonus tip: use these sections to guide your content creation make sure you’re not spending too much time on content aimed at one stage of the marketing funnel.
A/B Testing (Split Testing)
Sometimes also known as Split Testing, A/B Testing is the method of comparing two versions of a webpage, email, social post or ad to determine which one performs better in terms of your objectives (such as engagement or conversion rates). An example of A/B Testing would be an e-commerce site testing two different product page layouts to see which one leads to more sales.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or LTV)
Customer Lifetime Value refers to the predicted revenue a business can expect to earn from a single customer over their entire relationship with the company. For example, a subscription-based streaming service calculates CLV by estimating how long a customer will remain a subscriber and how much they’ll spend during that time.
Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing is a strategy that provides a seamless and integrated customer experience across various marketing channels, including online and offline. Something that every business should be striving towards. You’ve probably seen clothing retailers allowing customers to browse online, shop in-store, and use a mobile app for personalised recommendations - that’s a perfect example of omnichannel marketing in action.
Content Curation
Simply put, content curation is the process of discovering, organising, and sharing relevant content from various sources to engage and inform your audience. For example, a marketing agency might share industry news articles, blog posts, and videos from reputable sources on its social media profiles to make sure its audience sees them as the go-to place for information.
You should feel much more in the marketing loop after reading up on these key terms. Don’t forget to bookmark this page for future reference!
Ready to take your business to new heights? T Clarke Freelance can help. I’ve worked with many businesses like yours, providing them with a tailored marketing strategy and scroll-stopping content that promises to turn followers into customers. Book a free consultation with me and get your hands on free content ideas that you can implement straight away using the resources you already have.
