25 Marketing Terms All Business Owners Should Know
While you absolutely must have a marketing plan for your business to succeed, understanding the marketing side of business is pretty complicated. In addition to deciding who, what, when, where, why, and how you are going to market your business, there is a whole slew of special marketing terms that marketers use to explain things.
Have you ever been in a situation where a marketer has used a term you did not understand? You either had to stand there and smile, pretending you knew what they were talking about and Google it later, or ask them what they meant straight out, which could have been embarrassing.
We want to make sure that business owners understand the world of marketing and to do that, we’ve created a list of 25 marketing terms that all business owners should know. This list is by no means completely comprehensive of all the marketing terms out there but it is a good start to boost your understanding of marketing.
1. A/B Testing
A/B Testing (or split testing) is simply comparing two versions of something to see which performs better. Marketers will often use this tool to compare websites, emails, and other forms of ads and see which is more useable.
2. Analytics
Marketing analytics are not that different from other types of analytics. It comprises all of the systems and processes marketers use to evaluate how well the marketing programs are performing.
3. Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is a term used in mobile marketing. When a customer “bounces” from a webpage, it means that they visited your landing page but didn’t click on any links before leaving. The bounce rate is the percentage of those who bounce from the website out of the total visitors to the website.
If you send out marketing emails, you likely also have an email bounce rate. When an email bounces, it means that the email was sent to an email but did not go through. The email bounce rate is then the percentage of the emails that bounce out of all the emails sent.
4. Business Blogging
Business blogging is similar to regular blogging. Business blogging is a marketing tactic to drive more customers to a website and establishing themselves as an authority by providing information relevant to their business. It follows the style of blogging by keeping the content more short-form and conversational.
5. Business to Business (B2B)
If you’ve seen the acronym B2B, it merely means Business to Business marketing. In other words, businesses that market to other businesses. Examples include: Google and Hubspot.com
6. Business to Consumer (B2C)
B2C means business to consumer and primarily means that businesses are marketing to consumers. Examples include: Apple and Nike.
7. Call to Action
A call-to-action is a button, image, or link that encourages consumers to do something. Often, this could be a “subscribe now” or “download our ebook” etc. These are important because they are bait that can then turn a visitor into a lead.
8. Content
In marketing terms, content is any piece of information that is meant to watched, read, and/or shared. This means it could be a blog, video, social media post, or slideshow, etc.
9. Context
In terms of content, context is essential. You want to make sure that your content is well written and delivered specifically to your target audience.
10. Conversion Path
The conversion path is the website based series of steps that help capture leads. It usually follows something along the lines of a call-to-action that leads to a landing page with a capture form, which then redirects to a thank you page where the content is located. If this doesn’t make sense, Hubspot.com has a great analogy in the form of a rabbit hunting cartoon.
11. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is simply the percentage of visitors to a website that completed a certain action, such as filling in a form. The higher the conversion rate, the higher the performance of the site.
12. Customer Acquisition Cost
This marketing term is exactly what it sounds like. What is the cost of acquiring new customers? The formula to figure this out is simple: Add up marketing costs + salaries + commissions + bonuses + overhead. Then divide that by the number of new customers in that time period.
13. Friction
Friction is used in terms of website design. If a design is cluttered and hard for customers to use, it means it has a lot of friction. It does not run smoothly. In marketing, this is a term that should be avoided as much as possible.
14. Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing, at its simplest, is a marketing strategy used to pull customers in, rather than sending marketers out to get their attention.
15. Keyword
Keywords are phrases that customers search for on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Using keywords is one of the ways that businesses are ranked on search engines.
16. Lead
A lead is someone who has shown interest in a company’s products. This could have been through filling out a form, following on social media, or sharing contact information in exchange for a piece of exclusive content.
17. Mobile Optimization
Mobile Optimization is designing a website that is not only mobile friendly (responsive design) but designed specifically for mobile users. This could include having less content and a simpler design for a more optimized mobile experience.
18.Responsive Design
In comparison to mobile optimization, responsive design is when a website is designed to service all forms of viewing. The website ‘responds’ to whatever device the customer is using. (We prefer mobile optimization as it leads to better results.)
19. ROI – Return on Investment
ROI is another tool used to measure the effectiveness of a business by evaluating the return on an investment. There is a simple formula for ROI which is (Gain from investment-cost of investment)/ cost of investment.
20. Sales Funnel
The sales funnel is a process that takes customers through the buying process from awareness to actual purchase.
21. SEO – Search Engine Optimization
SEO is basically the practice of improving where a company ranks in a search engine search. SEO is a complex, intertwined process and involves many different elements. Marketers are constantly working on improving SEO and consequently, this is a term you will probably hear often.
22. Social Media
Social media involves media that is designed with a main focus on social interaction. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram are popular examples. Social Media is a great marketing tool to reach your customer base.
23. Unique Visitor
A unique visitor is a website visitor that returns within a certain period of time. Comparing unique visitors with overall site visits helps to determine traffic on websites.
24. User Experience
User experience is how a customer experiences a particular business from beginning to end. It’s important to think about how the customer will experience everything in order to appeal more to the customer.
25. Viral Content
Viral content is content that is highly shareable and that becomes incredibly popular through sharing. When a content piece actually goes viral, it is usually a surprise.
While these are very basic definitions of some common marketing terms, reviewing them will help business owners understand marketing better. What are some terms that you think are essential in understanding marketing?
