Marketing automation, mobile optimization, middle of the funnel — common marketing jargon, oh my! In the wide world of marketing, you’re likely to come across some mumbo jumbo that marketers use. But what does it all mean?
Maybe you’re a seasoned marketing veteran who needs a little refresher or a fresh-faced intern like me who didn’t know what half of these terms meant, but deciphering all these phrases can prove to be beneficial to your business. Put on your decoder ring and join me to make sense of some common marketing jargon!
Marketing funnel
Coined by advertising advocate Elias St. Elmo Lewis, the marketing funnel — also called the purchasing funnel — is a model that describes a customer’s journey towards purchasing a service or goods from a business. The model is typically seen as an inverted pyramid (hence the funnel name) and consists of four stages of buying:
- Awareness. “Oh, I have a problem and they have a solution”
- Interest. “This option is an attractive choice to solve my issue”
- Desire. “I think I want this specific product”
- Action. “I’m buying this and not buying that”
If you’ve seen the word “marketing funnel” being used, you’ve probably also seen the acronyms TOFU, MOFU and BOFU alongside it. (If like me you thought WTF, don’t worry I gotchu). These simply refer to the top, middle and bottom of the funnel and are an important part of determining how your business wants to market to your audience.
Understanding where your potential customers are in their purchasing process can help you tailor your messaging to answer specific questions and ensure you’re providing consumers with the information they are looking for. That means more attraction and retention — and who doesn’t want that?
Buyer persona
A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. These personas, usually complete with avatars, names, and job positions, are based on data from your real-life current customers and market research. The more detailed these personas are, the better they will benefit your business and its marketing tactics.
Don’t forget to include information like demographics, pain points, purchase factors, key messages that resonate with them, and what they need from a marketing agency. And don’t be afraid to give your personas a little personality! Maybe they’re a CMO with a love for wine tastings or a project manager who kicks ass at karaoke. Getting a deeper understanding of your customers and their mindsets can help make sure your marketing efforts are hitting home.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization, aka SEO, is the process of improving your company’s webpage’s position on the results page of an organic search. It’s common knowledge that the higher your rank on search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo, the more visible your content is. (My colleague calls this “doing it all for the Google.”). If you want to increase the quality and quantity of traffic to your site, you may need to create an SEO strategy.
Optimizing your website involves some planning like keyword research, image tagging, and improving the overall structure of your site. This research will give you an idea of what questions your audience are asking and what kind of answers they are looking for. And did I mention that organic search results get way more clicks than paid ads? All in all, SEO helps make your content findable and drives traffic to your site — and once again, what marketer doesn’t want that?
A/B testing
A/B testing is sometimes referred to as split testing because it is an experiment that involves splitting your audience into two separate groups and providing them with two versions of the same content. Creating a version A and version B of your content will point you towards which type will perform better over a period of time. This technique can help lower bounce rates on your website, increase customer conversion, or increase site traffic.
Pro tip: A/B testing is known to be low cost and high reward, so it’s worth checking out for your business. And it can be used for a variety of content, for everything from landing pages to email campaigns. So unless you’re a marketing psychic and can predict exactly what people are going to click on or resonate with (and if you are one of those, please hit me up), A/B testing can help you accurately determine what content is going to succeed.
Call-to-action (CTA)
You know those little blurbs at the end of a webpage, piece of content, or advertisement telling you to “contact us” or “read more” or something like that? A CTA, or call-to-action, does exactly that: it encourages the reader to take some sort of action, turning themselves from just a visitor to a potential lead for your sales team to pursue.
CTAs can take on many different forms but usually include simple and effective language, and a link that directs readers towards a specific landing page or piece of content. Not sure how to craft the perfect call-to-action to get your audience to check out all the cool content you have to offer? We might know someone who can help. Chat with us and see what we can do to make your CTAs click!
See what I did there?
Now these are just some of the many marketing terms that you’re likely to come across, but I’ll give your brain a break from all the mumbo jumbo. If you’re hungry for more, come back next week and check out part two of the common marketing jargon dictionary!
At Content Matterz, we’re fluent in common marketing jargon. If you’re looking for some killer content, contact us today to see what we can do for you.