Personally, I hate sitting in meetings listening to words that, at times, seem quite frankly made up and so far outside the realm common usage you feel like yelling “That’s not a real word!”
There will always be the marketing buzzwords that come into fashion but thankfully leave us as quickly as they arrived. However, some terminology is commonly used within the business and marketing industry. I have created this small (but continually growing) guide to some of the more useful terminology that you might come across whilst discussing marketing.
A/B Testing
A/B Testing is a marketing process where you take the same message but change one variable. For example, an email offering a service but with different content or pictures, or a Facebook campaign that targets different KPIs such as Reach or Engagement.
Bounce Rate
On websites, the bounce rate is the number of users who look at one page and then navigate away to a different site. A high bounce rate means that people aren’t spending long enough on your site to gain any insight into your business or to buy.
An email bounce means that an email couldn’t be delivered to an inbox. If you have a high email bounce rate it usually means that your mailing lists need to be updated.
Content Marketing
Content Marketing is different from normal marketing, in that you create content to attract customers. So, instead of telling them all about what your business does, you make informative videos or blogs that might solve a common problem or educate potential clients more about an aspect of your industry. They are designed to attract interest and to be shared across social media.
Copywriting
A Copywriter is someone who creates content whether it’s for blogs, print publications, websites if it needs words it probably needs a Copywriter.
Cost per Impression (CPI)
You’ve boosted a post on Facebook and now you see the final analytics. The cost per impression is the amount it has cost out of your set budget for each person to see your ad. So, if you spend £10 and 10 people see the ad the CPI would be £1. If 1000 people see the ad the CPI would be 1p. This doesn’t mean that they’ve clicked on anything on the post, just that they have seen it.
Email Marketing
In the simplest terms, it is sending marketing communications via email to either other commercial organisations or customers. Care should be taken to ensure compliance with PECR and the GDPR.
Engagements
On social media engagement happens when someone clicks on, likes, comments on, or shares your post. A high engagement rate means that your message has struck a chord with your target audience. A low engagement rate means that your campaign may have missed its mark.
Google Analytics
Is a tool that enables you to view, track and interrogate data that goes to your website. Where the users come from, demographics, how long they stayed on the site, which page they arrived on and how many pages were viewed are a small sample of the data contained within Google Analytics.
Google My Business
Is a free online listing (like a directory) which can assist with visibility in local searches and online maps. It is also considered a verified source of data, which can assist with data consistency across the web.
Hashtags
#’s are a way of indexing information and images within search engines, (or on the internet if you are more comfortable with that term). The simplest analogy I used to explain # is that they are like the old library card system. If you wanted to find books on cats, you would look in the index draw containing the card for cats and on it would be the books to go and look up. Searching on the internet for “cats” is like pulling the ‘cat card’. For further information on hashtags, we have a blog post here.
Impressions
Impressions refer to the number of times that your content has been seen. Unlike Reach, Impressions can relate to the same user seeing the same piece of content multiple times. For example, if someone sees an advert on their newsfeed 7 times because it’s been shared by 7 friends, they will have had 7 impressions.
Influencer Marketing
This form of marketing considers the celebrity or person of influence over the desired end-user or consumer. Endorsements and sponsorship agreements are all part of the influencer marketing sector, which has grown significantly over the last few years as blogger, vbloggers and reality tv stars have become part of everyday popular culture.
Infographics
This is a combination of the words Information and Graphics. Infographics are used to present information in a visually appealing way. These are shared on social media platforms and there is a lot of data to suggest that people like to click on them. Pre-social media days, infographics were graphs, pie charts, flow diagrams and top ten lists of the business world.
Omnichannel
This is related to marketing and content strategies. Omnichannel strategies use multiple channels to create an integrated and harmonious strategy. Omnichannel strategies are sometimes mistaken to mean a strategy that utilises all available channels, but this is incorrect. They use the channels that best integrate and amplify to achieve the best result for the marketing goal.
Online Reviews
These are views/comments from your clients/customers that have been placed online. I have written several blogs regarding the importance of online reviews which can be found here
PPC
Pay Per Click, is a form of online advertising that costs the advertiser money when web users click on their advert and go through to a designated webpage. There is a complex set of algorithms combined with a split second preset keyword bidding system driving who sees what adverts for which keywords.
Reach
Reach is the total number of unique users who have seen your content. This means that it has popped up on their timeline. It doesn’t mean that they have interacted with it in any way.
SoLoMo
This stands for Social Local Mobile and almost made it on to the list of annoying buzzwords. SoLoMo is a marketing strategy using social media, local advertising sources and mobile advertising as an integrated marketing strategy. The only reason it stayed off the annoying list is that I have used it effectively for clients.
Search Engines
Google, Bing, Yahoo are all powered by large computer programmes called search engines.
SEO
Stands for Search Engine Optimisation. This is the way we structure information, data, and website architecture with the intention of impacting search results on search engines.
Social Media Platforms
Facebook is probably the most well-known. Social media sites provide a place on the internet where online communities (friends, families, people who share common interests) can gather virtually to both share content and interact. There are multiple social media platforms including Twitter, Vimeo, Tumblr, Instagram and Reddit.
Vblog
A Vblog is a blog but in video format, this is then uploaded to the internet, popular sites include WordPress, Youtube Vimeo.
NAMA pride ourselves in trying to avoid the use of marketing buzzwords and jargon. We prefer to ensure that our clients fully understand our services and what we are discussing. If you’d like a jargon-free chat, get in touch.
