BOFU – Bottom of funnel

BOFU is a real marketing buzzword! It has to do with the approach or service you provide to start converting your leads into buyers. This includes free trials, consultations and discount codes.

Buyer personas

A representation of your ideal customer(s) based on market research and existing customer data. Some businesses rely on creating a Persona or Avatar that represents the common traits of their ideal customers.  A customer Persona is a fictional customer, with a photo, name, and personality. A business can have more than one Persona. Many business owners use this device to describe their ideal customer in detail including what they wear, what their hobbies are and what concerns them. This helps them create a voice for their Persona which can be used to help shape the actual marketing message.

Buyer personas have the power to influence every aspect of your business. This includes marketing and content strategy, business development and website design.

CTA – Call to action

The instructions you leave with your target audience to tell them to take a desired action. This can be “Buy Now” “Learn More” or “Subscribe”. On a web page this is usually a button where both placement, size and color matter. In Direct Mail, this can be a QR code to click with your phone. My personal favorite is Call NOW. And, why should they listen to your Call to Action? It’s because you are making them an offer they can’t refuse.

Contextual marketing

When you’re shown a targeted ad based on your online browsing habits. For example, you researched a vacuum cleaner online. Now you’re seeing ads for the same vacuum cleaners on lots of different websites. Yes, there’s a fine line between helpful and “stalking” your prospect. But, this can help expose your brand to people who are in the market for your product.

CRO – Conversion rate optimization

The strategies you take to increase the percentage of your traffic that take the action you want. This is usually done by improving the user experience on your website/landing pages to guide users toward a single action. Hot tip: Optimizing your website conversion rates can result in immense benefits to your business.

Customer journey

This is the road map to knowing your customer and walking in their shoes. How did they discover your brand?  How do they navigate your products or services? What other interactions do they have with your brand before purchasing? What did they do first, second third?  Last, what was the final thing they did before they made the sale.  Your customer journey map should be able to tell you all of this and more.

Event-triggered email

An email that is sent to your subscriber based on an event. An event might be a welcome email when they sign up, an anniversary or an email with a discount code on their birthday. You might even set up your contact management system to trigger an email 3 months after their first purchase. Hot tip: A florist who remembers when their customers buy anniversary or birthday flowers for their partners can improve year round demand. This is very similar to sending out birthday cards via direct mail, which has been a top-response driver for many years.

Evergreen marketing

Content that remains valuable and doesn’t age in a hurry. It will continue to attract customers long after you publish it and requires little or infrequent updating. Depending on your industry this could be an ‘annual trends’ report or a ‘how-to guide’. I am hoping that this article on Marketing Buzzwords will become an evergreen piece. Evergreen – The gift of traffic that keeps on giving. And, delivering SEO.

 GDN – Google Display Network

A vast network of websites that run Google ads, including YouTube, Gmail and Google Finance amongst other sites – 94% of sites in the US, in fact. Unlike Google Search Ads, Google Display Ads let you use image, video, product-listing or rich media formats and be seen by customers throughout the Internet. Note: There are other display networks in the marketplace. Many of these target selected websites or apps.

Growth Hacking

Growth hacking involves using free or low-cost tactics to drive the growth of a business in a relatively short time. These strategies are solely focused on the growth of the business, so there’s less focus on long-term and brand-building campaigns.

Inbound marketing

People now have more the ability to research any product or service within seconds of thinking about it. Inbound marketing is about ensuring your site will have the helpful content customers are looking for as they navigate their buyer journey. Win loyal customers by providing value from the first encounter and not just the first transaction.

Landing Page

A landing page is a standalone website page dedicated to a specific marketing campaign that is meant to convert site visitors into leads. Landing pages typically offer visitors something that they may be interested in, like an Ebook or a free trial, in exchange for contact information. I look as a Landing Page as a lead generator. This is where you want to capture information you can use in the sales process. Getting this information then gives businesses the tools they need to nurture leads and urge them down the purchasing funnel.

Long tail keywords

Usually a specific phrase of 3-4 words a user might input to find a product or service like yours. Nowadays, people type complete sentences into Google rather than just a single word.

These Long tail keywords” or phrases are way cheaper to bid on and usually have a much higher conversion rate. In my case, I would use the phrase “I want to buy a New Homeowner List”, rather than the word “Mailing List”. I can’t afford to spend $30 a pop for the word mailing list. But I can afford to pay $5 for “I want to buy a New Homeowner List”.

Or, I would consider bidding on “marketing lists for my business”, rather than simply “marketing lists”. Hot Tip: In the water industry, think “what is the best reverse osmosis system”, rather than simply “Reverse Osmosis system”. You might even use some of the marketing buzzwords in this article.

Macro conversion

This is the primary goal you want your website visitors or audience to take. In eCommerce, this usually means they have made a purchase.  Have you ever signed up for a test software service? This could be when users switch from a free trial to a paid account.

Micro conversion

These are the smaller steps a user might take along the way to a macro conversion. While not the primary goal you want them to take, micro conversions are still milestones that bring users one step close to becoming paid customers. Perhaps this might be a second trial option.

Micro-moments

The moment that people turn to a device to get immediate information that will help them to make a decision, resolve a problem, buy something or go somewhere. This is usually done with smartphones and/or AI voice assistants like Siri or Alexa. Hot tip: Snippets, snippets, snippets.

MOFU – Middle of funnel

The content you show website visitors who are considering your product or business, i.e. comparison sheets, white papers or case studies.

Omnichannel

An omnichannel marketing strategy refers to the concept of providing a seamless user experience across all channels relevant to the buyer’s journey. The term emphasizes a shift in the way people progress through the marketing funnel.

Online stores and ‘bricks and mortar’ stores now support one another to give the customer the best experiences from both worlds. A very current example of this might be when an online customer walks past a physical retail location. They can get a special digital display offer relevant to their last online purchase.

If you want to read about Omnichannel marketing in depth, click HERE for my article.

Path length

The number of page views and events (i.e. clicks, scrolls) it takes for a user to finally make a transaction or conversion goal on your website. In the old days, we used to say it took 8 calls to convert a customer. Nowadays, we translate the number of contacts into page views. Hot tip: Create virtual page views or scroll depth events in Google Tag Manager for one-page sites.

 PPC – Pay per click

An internet advertising model where you, as the advertiser, pay a certain amount (bid) to the ad platform every time a user clicks on your ads. Bidding strategies and payment methods are making it easier for marketers to get ROI on advertising.

Phygital

The practice of using technology to bridge the gap between the physical and digital world. The goal is to provide a unique interactive experience for the user. This is one of the ultimate goals of a properly integrated digital marketing campaign.

Psychographics

If your customer demographics are the what, then psychographics are the ‘why’. Psychographic data explains who your customers really are i.e. their values, interests, pain points and personalities. This knowledge is invaluable to your business and how well you model your solutions to their needs. This data may also be called Lifestyle Data.

Re-targeting

This is where you can target users who previously visited your website. Most people think of this as a form of online advertising. This is where you serve these past visitors banner ads on display networks across the web, apps and social networks. In 2020, some savvy marketers even started using direct mail for re-targeting.  You might also see this called remarketing. Hot tip: Create an audience for all those users who abandoned their carts without signing up for an account. You might give them a different offer since they may be better prospects.

SaaS

Software-as-a-service. This is also known as cloud-based software. SaaS is a way of delivering applications over the Internet—as a service. Remember the old days of feeding diskettes into your PC to upload software? It’s obsolete.  Instead of installing and maintaining your software, you simply access it via the Internet. This frees you from complex software and hardware management and keeps your software up-to-date.

SEM – Search engine marketing

This is the ability to have your ads served only when a user searches for a keyword (or phrase) that you are bidding on. Targeting can be narrowed by location, age, gender and other demographics. Retargeting can also be done via SEM. This allows you to target website visitors or people who abandoned their cart but didn’t leave their email address yet.

SEO – Search engine optimization

This has to do with how discoverable your page is. Your SEO results are based on how your customers use to find you. To win at the SEO game you have to understand what search terms your customers use. You also need to stay on top of the rules Google has about reading and crawling your page content. These rules change often. SEO is never done. It is an on-going project.

SERP – Search engine results page

Search engine results pages are web pages served to users when they search for something online. This is a keyword or search term typed into a search engine, such as Google or Bing. The user enters their search query often using specific terms and phrases known as keywords. Then the search engine presents them with a SERP.

There’s more than just search results on the SERP these days. Search snippets that show products, movie times, definitions as well as ads also populate the page and help increase your chances of being clicked in conjunction with your organic results.

SoLoMo

SoLoMo is a combination Social, Local and Mobile media. The concept revolves around the idea that customers now consume more content via mobile and trust the opinions of their community (social) around their geographical location (local).

Snackable Content

Snackable content refers to content of any sort (video, text, images, etc.) that is short, small, and easy to consume. When employed properly, it spreads your message quickly and efficiently, and increases Word of Mouth (WOM) spread and brand interaction.

Snippets

A snippet is a way for marketers to tell the search engine what information from your site should be shown to a user based on their search.

The snippet generally consists of a title, a URL and a description of the page. The content of a snippet matches parts of the search query. When that happens, you’ll see your keyword highlighted in the snippet description.

Search engines often use pieces of your content to fill in the parts that make up the snippet.  For example, Google generates page titles and descriptions (or “snippets”) when it displays your keywords in SEO. It is completely automated. In most cases, search engines determine the best possible snippet for you. However, you can try to override that by adding a meta description to your page.

A strong snippet is a must have in the future of SEO. That’s because voice based search and AI needs as much help as you can give it. Also, snippets help you get prime position on the SERP. Since snippets are fairly new to the SEO, it is a strategy you want to investigate for 2021.

TOFU – Top of funnel

The channels, content and advertisements you create to build awareness for your brand, educate visitors and “draw” them into your website to take the first step. While the ‘funnel’ methodology is being replaced with ‘flywheel’ we think these terms will stick around.

UTM – Urchin tracking module

A string of simple, customizable code that you add to the end of your URLs. This code helps you identify and track web traffic and campaign performance in your Analytics dashboard. If you are working with a company that handles your PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising, they will add this code to your ads. In 2021, you might want to use UTMs for clearer insights on your next campaign.

UX – User Experience

User experience is a person’s emotions and attitudes about using a particular product, system or service. How does someone feel when they come to your website? Is it intuitive? Can they find what they want? Place an order easily? You want your User to have a great experience.

 

I will be making updates to this list. If there are marketing buzzwords you’ve heard of and want a definition for, let me know.

Believe me, I know that one article can’t possibly answer all your questions. That’s why I am offering the link below, where you can literally ask us anything. Just click and send your questions through. I will do my best to get you the answer!

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