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A-Z: Essential Marketing jargon

Book open Reading time: 3 mins

If you’re set on a career in the marketing and media industry, not only should you be keeping up with the latest trends and news; but it’s important you understand all the marketing lingo and latest jargon.  Many of the terms and concepts you may be familiar with but aren’t entirely sure what they mean exactly.

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So, to help you along your way, here at Bright, we’ve pulled together some lingo you can brush up on and maybe learn about for the first time. Then you’ll be ready to face those interviewers and dazzle your new marketing colleagues. This time, we’re looking at general terms and jargon you may come across when planning marketing strategies and analysing campaigns and brands. 

A/B Testing

Trying out two marketing strategies which are identical but for one part - so you can see which does better.

Above the line

 A form of advertising - press, radio, and television that earns a commission for the advertising agency, that contracts the advertising space and broadcast time on behalf of a client.

Ad copy

The words in an advert.

Advertising

The placement and purchase of announcements and persuasive messages to publicise a company or product.

Advertorial

An advert which looks like a news article or editorial.

Affiliate marketing

Performance-based marketing where a business pays an affiliate for each visitor or customer introduced via the affiliate's efforts, e.g. PPC

Analytics

Discovery of meaningful patterns in data.

B2B advertising

Business to business advertising

B2C advertising

Business to customer advertising

Below the line

Promotional methods such as catalogue marketing, direct marketing, and trade fair marketing that are under the direct control of the marketer or client and earn no commissions for the advertising agency.

Brand

Legally called a trademark: something that identifies one company's services/products as distinct from its competitors.

Brand equity

The financial impact of the brand on the bottom line profits.

Brief

Instructions of what a client wants.

Call-to-action "CTA"

This is the name for wording and links on a website which drive you to do something, like "click here" "read more" "buy now".

CIM "Chartered Institute of Marketing"

The world's leading professional marketing body, representing and developing marketers, teams, leaders and the profession as a whole. They offer a range of professional marketing qualifications recognised throughout the profession.

Content

An article, video, image etc which exists to be seen and engaged with. For example, this list!

Context

Context is making sure that the content reaches the right audience.

Data Capture

Capturing the details of users, for example contact details and preferences.

Direct marketing

Advertising directly to consumers, for example via emails, rather than through a mass medium.

DPS

 Double page spread of advertising in a print medium

Dynamic content

Dynamic content is having content which reaches different users depending on what information the website already knows. For example, if a website has recorded that you like black skirts, it will show you content related to black skirts.

Eighty-twenty rule

80% of products are bought by 20% of the consumers.

End-user

Person who uses the product, not necessarily analogous with the purchaser.

Inbound marketing

Marketing which focuses on pulling in a consumer by the means of content.

Lead nurturing

The act of providing contextually relevant content to the right audience at the right stage in the buying cycle to channel them into becoming customers.

Marketing automation

Its purpose is to streamline marketing campaigns by replacing manual processes with automated solutions. For example, tracking codes can track what the user does and feedback to the marketer.

Meme

An idea which spreads from person to person. They are cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selectivity. On the internet, memes are typically funny images or phrases. The word itself derives from the Ancient Greek for imitation, like a mime.

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Outbound marketing

Marketing which focuses on buying ads, email lists etc.

Persona

The imaginary profile of a target customer.

Qualified lead

A user which has opted in to receive communication from you, such as a newsletter subscriber.

ROI "Return on Investment"

The measure of the success of a marketing spend.

Marketing graduate opportunities

Now you know the marketing lingo, look at our latest list of marketing and PR graduate opportunities to kick-start your career.