24 Marketing Terms Every Business Should Know in 2024
Marketing, like every industry, continues to evolve and each year brings new methods, software, and terminology to the industry. While it may be impossible to learn every marketing term being used, there are some critical digital marketing terms that every marketer and business should be familiar with.
The experts at a leading digital marketing and custom web design agency in Chicago, Idea Marketing Group, have compiled a list of the key digital marketing terms that you need to know for 2024. Learn more about each of these marketing terms, and how you can leverage your knowledge of marketing terms to improve your business.
Key Digital Marketing Terms Every Marketer Should Know
Whether you’re a seasoned marketer looking for a quick refresher or a beginner eager to learn more digital marketing terms, we’ve curated a list of 24 marketing terms that every marketer should know. From SEO and UTM to CPL and CRO, we’ll explain what each means and help you to navigate the dynamic landscape of modern digital marketing. Join us as we break down these 24 essential marketing terms to know, providing insights into their significance, usage, and how they can improve your marketing strategy.
Ad-Retargeting
Ad Campaigns that target audiences who’ve already visited your website, clicked on ads, or expressed interest in your products or services.
While many businesses are using, or are at least familiar with, PPC and paid ads, a new type of ad is becoming increasingly popular due to its success rate. Ad-retargeting is the newest tool in the arsenal of PPC and paid ads available for digital marketing strategies.
Ad-retargeting focuses on targeting visitors or users who have already expressed interest in your products or services by visiting your website, social media, or clicking on your other ads. These ads use a tracking pixel to then follow these visitors and display them on other websites and platforms in a wide variety of sizes and ad styles. Since they’ve already taken action on your product or were previously interested these ads increase the likelihood that the targeted audience will take action. In 2022 ad-retargeting is essential to create a marketing campaign with a high conversion rate. Learn more about increasing conversion rate and other key marketing terms with our blog 5 Tips to Improve Your Manufacturing Website Conversion Rate.
These ads can also be configured to target lookalike audiences that share similar interests, behavior, or other demographic characteristics to widen your audience of likely prospects.
Backlinks
A link to your website from another website, treated with high priority by search engines like Google.
Backlinks are simply links from one website to another. Search engines use these as ranking criteria because when one website links to another they believe the content is valuable. High-quality backlinks can increase your ranking position and visibility in Search Engine Results (i.e SEO). Using backlinks can be an essential part of your inbound lead improvement strategy. Read more about backlinks and other associated marketing terms in our blog How to Improve Your Manufacturing Website SEO with Backlinks.
Bounce Rate
Users who visit your site and leave without taking action.
Your website’s bounce rate is the percentage rate of visitors that visit your website and leave without taking any action. This rate can negatively affect your search engine ranking and hurt your business. Reducing your website’s bounce rate can vastly improve your website and business performance. Creating engaging content that speaks to your audience is a key factor in reducing your bounce rate. If you’re unsure how to create engaging content there are many options available for engaging content marketing plans that deliver expert-written content that is ready to use.
Content Management System CMS
Software on which your website or blog is built and manages your content.
Your CMS is the software that your website is built on and where you can manage your content. A poor CMS system can result in problems updating your website, adding new products or services, or result in errors when your website loads.
A good CMS system can reduce the time it takes to make website updates or improvements, display content, and general website performance. We recommend WordPress since that’s what our team of web development and manufacturing marketing specialists use to design custom websites for our clients. Check out our recent blog Is a Custom WordPress Design or a CMS Template better for Your Manufacturing Website?
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
The process of increasing the percentage of conversions from a website or marketing campaign.
Creating a manufacturing marketing strategy needs to focus on prioritizing a high Conversion Rate. If your audience fails to complete their actions, you’re losing out on potential sales. That’s why conversion rate optimization is so important to any digital marketing strategy.
Here’s a helpful podcast about improving conversion through Funnel Optimization Strategies With Expert Dmitriy Pisarev of Business JetPack.
Cost-Per-Lead (CPL)
The individual cost associated with obtaining each new lead.
Unfortunately, customers aren’t free.
Your audience is bombarded with dozens of ad campaigns each day, each vying for their attention and dollars. To reach your audience and create customers your need a strategy that speaks to them but also doesn’t break the bank!
By strategizing your manufacturing business’s value proposition, your unique traits, and choosing a cost-effective marking strategy your business can acquire customers for less.
Content Syndication
Republishing your content to other sites increases reach and drives traffic to your site.
Content syndication is your business’s opportunity to push your quality and evergreen content to other reputable sites that will help drive traffic to your manufacturing website and reach a larger audience.
By creating quality content for your business that is posted to other sites you can improve your website’s reputation and search engine ranking. To craft quality content that enables content syndication you can always rely on a content marketing package provided by Idea Marketing Group. Creating great content that other sites find valuable is one of the best methods to improve your inbound lead marketing strategy.
This is a closely associated marketing term with Evergreen Content. Understanding, and utilizing both of these marketing terms are essential to building a strong marketing strategy.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Software to build and manage your customer relationships.
A well-utilized Customer Relationship Management system is a must-have for any successful manufacturing business. Platforms like Hubspot provide great options.
Just because you closed the sale doesn’t mean your marketing strategy ends there. Nurturing your client relationship should continue through the full lifetime of your clients. Maintaining and growing your relationship with your clients is the key to future sales and growth. Customers are likely to continue using your services and even refer your business to their networks and colleagues. You can also create additional sales opportunities with other products or services that may interest your client.
Maintaining your CRM and continued marketing are key components to improving your business in 2022.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The number of people who view a link or ad and click on it.
A strong CTR will drive more traffic to your business and deliver more sales opportunities. If you can develop a marketing strategy that combines an ad campaign with a high CTR (think ad-retargeting) with strong conversion rate optimization then your business will see improvements in its performance. This is one of the marketing terms that every business should focus on.
Customer Acquisition Cost
The total cost to acquire a new customer.
The CAC can be calculated by dividing the total cost of your marketing efforts by the total number of new customers in the same period.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that marketing results aren’t always immediate. Think about it like a football team that’s down the whole game and makes a comeback to win the game in the last quarter.
Give your marketing strategy time to come to fruition. Consistency and monitoring campaigns are the keys to successful marketing strategies. Using a year period to find your CAC will likely provide a more accurate number.
Customer Profile (Or Target Audience)
The process of identifying the key qualities or characteristics of your ideal customers, also known as buyer personas or your target audience.
This includes demographics, geographical location, income, education, psychographics, and many more unique characteristics that paint the picture of who your customers are.
Sometimes your business may need several different customer profiles for your products and services.
Let’s look at an example of these marketing terms:
Pretend Bob will be the ideal customer profile for your motorcycle manufacturing business. Create a customer profile for Bob based on analyzing past customers and understanding the most common traits.
- Gender: Male
- Age: 30-65
- Income level: Disposable income
- Interests: Travel, Vehicles & Motorcycles, Sports
- Behavior: Has purchased a motorcycle in the past or has visited more than one motorcycle sales page or locations within the last 6 months
- Education: Technical Degree or College
You now have a basic version of your ideal customer and can better target that profile with marketing campaigns. But perhaps your data is split, which means you may need to consider a second customer profile.
If the second largest customer group identifies as female, you’ll need to make a second customer profile for Shelly. Use the same criteria you used for Bob and then divide your marketing efforts based on the proportion of sales that fit each customer profile.
You can learn more about these marketing terms in our article, “Essential Tools to Find Your Target Audience Online (and 3 important questions to ask!).”
Evergreen Content
Content that will be valuable to your audience for many years to come.
Content that your audience finds engaging can increase your business’s reach, and build trust in your business. Evergreen content is the type of content that your audience will find useful not only today but for years to come.
If your business wants to create Evergreen content for your audience you need to have an in-depth understanding of your audience demographic. What motivates your audience? What pain points can your product or service fix? What content do they find useful or informative?
Our clients at Inplex rely on our digital marketing experts to create evergreen blog content for their website that discusses the benefits of their products and processes along with the potential uses of their products.
By understanding your audience you can find the underlying issues that your content can address that will be valuable to audiences for many more years to come. View some of the expert content and evergreen content we feature on our website blog.
This marketing term is also closely related to Content Syndication.
Inbound Marketing
Attract customers to enter their information on your website by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them.
Crafting a strategy that speaks to your ideal customer means you can leverage your campaigns to attract those customers and encourage them to take action instead of speaking to larger audiences that do not match your customer profile.
Inbound marketing typically is more cost-effective than mass marketing or outbound marketing strategies and has much higher rates of success. Learn more about these marketing terms and how to create a custom inbound marketing strategy for your manufacturing business with 8 Expert Tips to Increase Your Manufacturing Inbound Leads.
Landing Page
A web page with a form to capture visitor information and convert it into leads.
Why do ad campaigns need a landing page?
While not required to create an ad campaign through PPC software, a landing page used with your ad campaign is a great way to track the traffic and conversion rate. Using your landing page you can create a form or ticket that visitors are prompted to complete. This information can be used to drive future email campaigns and sales.
Lead Qualification
Verifying that your leads fit your ideal customer profile.
Finding qualified leads is an important part of the sales process. No business wants to waste their time and money advertising to an audience that doesn’t fit their customer profile, or is not interested in their products. By crafting a marketing strategy that targets the right audience
Local SEO
Local SEO is the part of your digital marketing strategy that requires optimizing a business’s online presence to enhance its visibility in local search results on search engines like Google. This SEO strategy focuses on attracting customers in a specific geographic location, making it highly relevant for brick-and-mortar businesses, brands with specific geographic targets, and service providers catering to local communities.
Some key components of local SEO include:
- Google My Business (GMB): Claiming and optimizing a Google Business Profile listing is a fundamental aspect of local SEO. It includes accurate business information, customer reviews, and other details that enhance local search visibility. As a business you need to understand how to optimize your Google business profile.
- Local Citations: Consistent and accurate online mentions of a business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) across various online directories and platforms. This builds credibility and trust with search engines.
- Target Local Keywords: Incorporating location-specific keywords in website content, meta tags, and other elements to align with local search queries. This helps search engines understand the geographic relevance of the business. For example, if you were targeting Digital Marketing Agency in Chicago, you should create a landing page targeting a phrase like “Chicago Digital Marketing Agency.” Use variations of this phrase throughout your content as well.
- Local Link Building: Acquiring high-quality backlinks from locally relevant websites. This can include local news outlets, community organizations, and other businesses in the area. Backlinking is a key component of any successful SEO strategy.
- Mobile Optimization: Ensuring that the business website is mobile-friendly, as local searches often occur on mobile devices. Mobile optimization (and speed) is a critical factor for local SEO success.
- Online Reviews: Actively managing and encouraging customer reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and other industry-specific review sites. Positive reviews can positively impact local search rankings and build trust within your target audience.
Marketing Funnel
The process that all customers go through before completing a purchase, also called the sales to funnel or buying cycle. It includes Awareness, Consideration, Intent, Purchase, and finally renewal or repurchase.
It’s important as a business to understand the decision-making process that your customers go through before making a purchase. By understanding this cycle and its various stages you can better tailor your marketing strategies to target specific stages of the buying cycle.
For example, use demographic and interest ads to reach customers that are unaware of your products/services or are aware of the products/services available but unaware of your business. These ads should clearly represent your brand and your products and services.
Ad-retargeting is perfect for customers in the intent phase, customers that are ready to buy but haven’t decided on the specific product or service. These are some of the most valuable audiences and campaigns should focus on decision making or addressing any reasons the customer may be hesitating. Think cart abandoners, customers who add an item to the cart but leave without completing the purchase. Understanding what caused them to pause, and addressing it, can complete the sale.
Omni Channel Marketing Approach
The multichannel approach to marketing and sales is focused on reaching the customer and providing a cohesive customer experience no matter the channel, desktop, laptop, mobile tablet, or even brick and mortar.
To create a successful digital marketing strategy your business needs to focus on creating a cohesive message across every platform and use the Omni Channel marketing strategy. It doesn’t matter where a customer chooses to interact with your brand, the experience should always be the same!
Businesses that do not understand marketing terms like this are most likely missing out on valuable opportunities for business.
SWOT Analysis
An internal evaluation to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your business or other organizations.
What are your business’s strengths? Weaknesses? Evaluating your business and its operations should be a routine part of every business strategy.
Identifying where your business is succeeding and where it can be improving, or expanding operations means a more successful year. An in-depth SWOT analysis can help you better understand your business and what direction it needs for the future. It’s critical to achieving success in any business industry.
SEO Optimization
The process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines.
Improving SEO is the best way to drive more traffic to your website. By creating relevant content and utilizing SEO tips you can improve the ranking of your website by search engines. Pages that do not rank well or have poor SEO receive little to no organic search traffic from search engine results. Appearing in the top 10 search results should be the main priority for every business.
It’s also important to know some of the marketing terms associated with creating a strong SEO optimization strategy. Optimizing your website’s SEO will rely on understanding Shorttail Keywords – keyword phrase that is generally broader and only 1-2 words, and Longtail Keywords – keyword phrase that is generally made from three to five words.
Here are some quick examples of these marketing terms if you were creating key phrases for a blog about improving website SEO:
- Shorttail Keywords: SEO Improvement, Optimizing SEO, or SEO Strategy.
- Longtail Keywords: Tips to improve SEO strategy, Best SEO Practices, or Improving your website’s SEO strategy
It’s important to keep in mind that while using key terms to improve your SEO is important, you don’t want to be found keyword stuffing – loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking. To avoid this make sure you are using keywords and phrases naturally, and not forcing them just to include them in the content. Remember that when writing content for your website you are always writing to an audience, so write it in a way that is both educational and informative without feeling forced or artificial.
Learn more about these marketing terms and how you can improve your website’s SEO.
Remember that when writing content for your website you are always writing to an audience
Tech Stack
The technology and software your company uses to reach and manage your customers.
Technology is a crucial aspect of a successful marketing strategy, but what technology should you be using? Our team of marketing experts at Idea Marketing Group has worked with a variety of manufacturers and understands the software that helps move your business forward and drive sales.
The best part? There’s FREE software that can improve your business strategy today! That’s right, you can improve your business with some of the software recommended by the experts for free. Check out Dealfront today to find more leads.
Unique Selling Proposition
The qualities that differentiate your product or service from competitors.
What differentiates your business from your competitors? Why should customers choose your products or services?
Understanding what sets your business apart should be the core of what drives your manufacturing marketing strategy. What unique value or experience do you offer your customers?
Have you been in the industry for many years with trusted reviews? Do you have some of the best-educated talent working with your company? Or do you possess unique or patented technology that can’t be found elsewhere?
All of these are key reasons why a customer may choose your business to solve their need and are part of your Unique Selling Proposition.
Unique Visitors
The number of individual visitors that visit your website.
What are unique visitors?
Unique visitors are the number of individual visitors who are visiting your website, and an indicator of your page’s traffic levels. Don’t confuse this with website traffic. Your website traffic includes the number of visitors that each user makes, which can inflate the number.
One way to increase the number of unique visitors to your website is to optimize your SEO strategy.
Don’t confuse this with your Website Traffic – The number of visitors your website receives.
Website traffic refers to the total volume of visitors that visit your website. Using a successful marketing strategy can help drive a larger volume of traffic. You can accomplish this by optimizing SEO or Content Marketing plans. The more relevant your website’s content is the higher your website will rank, which results in a significantly higher amount of clicks (visitors).
UTM Code
A string of code that allows you to track the success of your marketing campaigns through Ad software.
A UTM code is the snippet of code that allows your business to track and record the performance of your marketing campaigns and ads.
By recording this valuable information your business can analyze the data and make changes or tweaks to the campaign to maximize performance and overall success.
Now use your new Digital Marketing key terms knowledge to create the best marketing strategy in 2022
Know you know the list of 22 key digital marketing terms that our experts think you need to know to be successful in 2022. While these marketing terms can help you get started building an expert digital marketing strategy, you might still need some help perfecting it. Simply knowing the marketing terms may not be enough.
Expert help for your Digital Marketing Strategy
If you’re new to digital marketing or haven’t been seeing the results you want from your digital marketing efforts, it may be a good idea to get more digital marketing resources from the experts in digital marketing who put together this list of marketing terms.
We offer a library of digital marketing resources and information that can help your business, and if you have additional questions you can always contact us.
