Marketers love an acronym. Why? Because in an industry as fast-paced and ever-changing as ours, the less time something takes, the better. But instead of googling terms like UVP and CPL to decode your latest client call, use this handy guide to translate! Whether you’re new to the industry or simply looking for a refresher, we’ve lined up ten terms (including our favorite acronyms) every marketer should know.
1. Lead
A lead is anyone who has interacted with a given brand and has the potential to purchase that brand’s goods or services. For example, someone may visit your website and sign up for your free newsletter. This demonstrated brand interest opens the door for new communication with that site visitor, allowing you to employ messaging and other marketing tactics designed to facilitate a purchase (and brand loyalty).
With a strong lead nurturing strategy that includes engaging content, a seamless user experience and appropriately timed communication, you can encourage leads to come back, purchase and even share your brand with others.
2. Cost Per Lead (CPL)
This refers to the amount spent on generating new prospective customers (leads) for a brand. You may hear this term used most frequently in reference to paid marketing initiatives, like search ads. An analysis of the amount invested in something like a Google ad and the number of leads that ad generates for your brand will reveal your CPL and whether that ad is worth the money.
3. Conversion Rate
How many visitors to a website request a free estimate or sign up for email communication? A conversion rate is the ratio between how many site visitors complete a desired action (like filling out a contact form) and the total number of site visitors. This can fluctuate depending on monthly marketing strategies and website optimizations, but if your conversion rate is consistently low, you should reassess your strategy and user experience.
4. Sales Funnel
Also known as the purchasing funnel, this is the relational journey customers take with a brand on their way to purchase. Each stage of the funnel takes the potential customer closer to making the purchase. Marketing teams employ varying strategies at each stage to drive customers down the funnel, messaging with the customer’s brand awareness and engagement in mind. Typically five stages, the funnel includes awareness, evaluation, nurturing, conversion and advocacy.
5. User Experience (UX)
Part of priming potential customers for purchase is offering them a seamless experience with the business. From their initial exposure to a brand through purchase and advocacy on the brand’s behalf, an excellent, optimal user experience keeps a potential customer moving down the funnel. This can often come down to design: good UX design is clear, navigable and usually demonstrates some kind of content hierarchy. It strategically encourages users to engage with your website or landing page in a way that increases their purchasing likelihood, placing a form at key points or highlighting special offers.
6. Landing Page
A landing page is a standalone, often single-page, website used to generate leads. Typically, these pages revolve around an offer to a potential customer—a free eBook, a downloadable template, a free estimate—that requires the customer to provide their contact information in exchange for the content. Landing pages are often the first entry point for a lead on the path to conversion and can be tailored to suit varying audience segments. Brands may even create multiple unique landing pages with unique offers to target multiple audiences within their market.
7. A/B Testing
What message will appeal most to potential customers? What ad imagery results in the most click-throughs? What offer converts the most leads? A/B testing allows you to find out. Test runs of two versions of the same piece of content, with a change in only one variable, allow you to determine which performs better (according to your chosen metric) and should be utilized consistently.
8. Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
Defining what makes your product or service different is key to building a successful marketing strategy. Customers want to know why they should purchase from you—what does your product or service offer that competitors may not? A strong unique value proposition makes this clear by highlighting product benefits, problems it can solve and how it outperforms a similar product. All UVPs offer starting points for messaging and creative within your marketing strategy.
9. Performance Marketing
Why invest in marketing strategies that don’t perform? With a performance-focused approach to your marketing, you quickly get the information you need: which marketing strategies are working. Determining what tactics best engage customers—helping you meet lead or sales quotas—helps you know where the investment is worth it and where to reduce spending. Generally, any marketing that involves analyzing results to inform decision-making can be considered performance marketing.
10. Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
Performance marketing requires ongoing evaluation of applied marketing strategies and campaigns. You can do this by establishing metrics of success, or key performance indicators. These can vary depending on the objective you aim to evaluate; for example, you may define success by the number of qualified leads your landing page generates or the amount of traffic to an optimized blog post. Ultimately, KPIs help you figure out your next move by using data.
For more on all things digital marketing, including building brand authenticity and using Chat GPT to optimize your site, visit our blog!
