The Ultimate B2B Marketing and PR Glossary

With developments in the marketing and PR industries happening every day, there seems to be new jargon popping up everywhere we look, like “Metaverse,” “share of voice,” and more acronyms than we know what to do with. So let’s review some essential B2B marketing and PR terms (and remember to bookmark this page for your next “What the heck is that?” moment!).
A/B testing Above (or Below) The Fold Accessibility Account-Based Marketing Algorithm (Social Media) Alt Text Audiogram AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent) B2B (Business-to-Business) B2C (Business-to-Consumer) Backlink Brand Brand Awareness Brand Voice Bullet Points & Blessings Buyer Persona Buyer’s Journey BOF or BoFu Bounce Rate Byline CAC Campaign Case Studies Churn Rate CLV Communications Consumer Content Marketing Content Calendar Conversion Rate Cookies Copywriting CPL CRM CTA (Call To Action) CTM Strategy Customer Behavior Dark Social Dashboard Demand Generation Demographics Digital Marketing Discord DNS (Domain Name System) Drip Campaign Earned Media Email Marketing ESP (Email Service Provider) Fractional CMO Funnel vs. Flywheel GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) Ghostwriting Growth Marketing GTM ICP Inbound Marketing Influencer Marketing Infographic ISP (Internet Service Provider) Journey Map Keywords Keyword Research KPI Landing Page Lead Gen Lead Nurturing LOE (Level of Effort) Loss Aversion Low-Hanging Fruit Marketing Marketing Tech Stack (MarTech) Messy Middle Metaverse Mixed Marketing Model MOF or MoFu Move the Needle MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) Niche NPS Op-Ed Outbound Marketing Owned Media Paid Media Paid Search Persona Personal Brand PLA (Product Listing Ad) PPC Product Market Fit Product Marketing Public Relations Q1 (2,3,4) Responsive Design Retainer Client Retargeting Retail Media Network Sales-enabled PR Sales Funnel Segmentation Self-Service Advertising SEM SEO SERPs Share of Voice (SOV) Shared Media SLA (Service Level Agreement) Social Listening Social Media Social Media Marketing Social Media Network Social Media Topic Calendar Social Selling SOW (Scope of Work) STEM Fields Thought Leadership TOF or ToFu User-Generated Content (UGC) Web3 White Labeling White Paper White Space Wireframe Word-of-Mouth Marketing

A/B testing

Also known as split testing, A/B testing refers to the process of creating two versions of something to see which performs better. It could be a landing page, subject line, email newsletter, or another digital asset. One asset is “A,” and the other is “B.” Both assets are simultaneously shown to different users, and whichever performs better based on the metrics set will inform how future campaigns are constructed.

Above (or Below) The Fold

The term “above (or below) the fold” comes from the heyday of newspapers and printed media. When an advertisement was placed “above the fold,” it was visible from the front page and didn’t require the reader to unfold the paper to see it. Conversely, “below the fold” meant that it was placed past where the paper naturally folded or on another page altogether. In a modern context, this references whether or not the reader has to scroll to see your advertisement, with “above” being immediately visible and “below” being farther down the webpage.

Related Reading: Creating Stellar HTML Emails – Tips from Our Email Marketing Pros

Accessibility

While the definition of accessibility may seem obvious, it is of growing importance for brands to create and share accessible content. This means that anyone, regardless of ability, should easily be able to navigate, understand, and use your content. For brands, that could mean using captions on all videos, including alt text on images, and creating screen-reader-friendly websites.

Account-Based Marketing

Using tactics to target specific potential clients to convert them into consumers is account-based marketing (ABM). Also known as key account marketing, ABM is a strategic way to show high-value potential clients that your company understands their needs and can alleviate specialized pain points.

Algorithm (Social Media)

All social media platforms (and search engines, for that matter), use an algorithm, a form of computer coding that sorts social media posts and content to show the most relevant, popular, or trending content, rather than sorting by posting time and date.

 
Related reading: Hack the LinkedIn Algorithm in 4 Easy Steps

Alt Text

When adding an image to your website or social media, you may be prompted to add alt text. But where does it go, and what does it do? Alt text, or alternative text, is text that shows in the box where an image is placed. Some internet users have settings that don’t load images—for reasons of browsing speed or visual impairment. This allows those users to use screen-reading technology that tells them what the image is of, thus making your digital presence more inclusive to all ability levels.

Audiogram

An audiogram is a (typically animated) visual accompaniment to an audio clip. This can include pictures, subtitles, graphics, or even animation to help solidify the content of the recording. These are particularly helpful in marketing because of their highly-shareable nature, compatibility with social media, and enhanced, engaging content.

Related Reading: Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, and Recycle Your Content

AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent)

An AVE, or advertising value equivalent, is almost like a price check. This is when a monetary value is assigned to a piece of PR content that states how much it would be worth to a customer. The price mainly depends on the piece’s scope, prominence, potential readership, and other components.

Related Reading: Understanding the Basics of Paid Advertising Online

B2B (Business-to-Business)

B2B (Business-to-Business) is a business model where companies make transactions with one another instead of with a consumer. This can be for marketing purposes, for example, where a company wants to launch a campaign and needs to contract another business to help them design it (this is the work we do here at Zen!). Some of the other B2B markets include producers and government institutions.

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B2C (Business-to-Consumer)

B2C (Business-to-Consumer) is a business model where companies make transactions directly with the consumer, as opposed to other businesses. These individuals are the end-users of this transaction and are typically interested in a product or service that the company offers. Some popular examples of this are online retailers such as Amazon and fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s or Wendy’s.  Related Reading:

Backlink

Similar to a citation, a backlink refers to one webpage linking to another website. Also called inbound links or incoming links, backlinks are essential for building SEO, as the quality and quantity of backlinks can improve a website’s organic ranking in search engine algorithms. The more backlinks to your site, the more popular or helpful it appears to be for users.

Related reading: Google’s John Mueller Says Total Number of Backlinks Doesn’t Matter—Here’s What Does

Bounce Rate

A “bounce rate” is a marketing term used in web traffic monitoring that describes the number of customers who come to your website but leave the site (or “bounce”) instead of purchasing any items. This is an important metric for companies who want to reevaluate their current marketing strategy to drive sales by getting customers to buy once they are on the company website. Related Reading: 11 Email Marketing Strategies That Guarantee a 50% Click-to-Open Rate

Brand

Some marketers may say that a brand is what they curate and develop to reach consumers. But really, a brand is made up of the impression consumers get and create in their own minds of any particular organization. So the consumer’s experience with a company becomes the company’s brand. Marketers can help shape the brand through consumer engagement.

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Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is the extent to which consumers recognize a particular brand’s qualities, logo, products, or services.

Brand Voice

Comparable to a person’s personality, a brand voice is a brand’s unique tone, disposition, or communication style. For example, a brand may be known for being inspirational (Nike), friendly and upbeat (Coca-Cola), or quirky and fun (MeUndies).

Related reading: 5 Steps to Developing an Outstanding Brand Voice on Social Media

Bullet Points & Blessings

Coined by Zen Media CEO, Shama Hyder: “Give us a few bullet points on XYZ topic and your blessing to run with them, and we’ll get to work.” Bullet Points & Blessings is when a marketing and PR agency has a strong enough understanding of a client’s brand that they can turn a few bullet points into an elegantly written blog post, a compelling PR article, snappy and attention-grabbing social posts, and more.

Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a fictional representation of an actual buyer that may include demographics, psychographics, geographics, and behavioral segmentation. A buyer persona is often used to help marketers envision their target consumers more accurately.

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Buyer’s Journey

The buyer’s journey is the process a customer undergoes when deciding to make a purchase. From discovering a product to conducting research, the buyer’s journey ends when the customer either converts to a sale or chooses not to go through with it. Companies should pay close attention to their buyer’s behaviors and the things they do throughout this process.

Related reading: Content Marketing Tips for the Five Stages of the Consumer Buying Decision Process

BOF or BoFu

BoFu (bottom-of-funnel) refers to the bottom of the consumer funnel. BoFu is where marketers work to convert interest into sales with demos, case studies, and consumer stories.

Byline

A byline is a line of text on a written piece of content that gives credit to its writer(s).

CAC

CAC (customer acquisition cost) is the cost of sales plus the cost of marketing, divided by the number of new customers acquired.

Campaign

A marketing campaign is a collection of strategies designed to accomplish a specific goal or objective for a brand, including increasing brand awareness, promoting products or services, and more.

A single campaign can contain one or many strategies. Marketers define each strategy and plan its execution through messaging (the common theme(s) portrayed throughout a campaign) and tactics (like social media posts, earned media, paid ads, and more). 

A campaign runs for a set amount of time, and marketers measure it throughout its duration and after completion to obtain ROI and other insights.

Related Reading: The 10 Best Digital Marketing Campaigns of All Time

Case Studies

A case study analyzes a particular instance (or “case”) of something to demonstrate quantifiable results. In marketing, case studies are used as social proof to give buyers the context to determine whether they’re making a good choice.

Related reading: 5 Tips for Crafting The Perfect Case Study

Churn Rate

Also known as the rate of attrition or customer churn, churn rate refers to the number of customers who stop using the service or buying the product in a given period of time. The higher the churn rate, the more customers a company loses. 

CLV

CLV (consumer lifetime value) represents the net revenue a business can plan to generate from a particular customer as long as they are projected to remain a customer.

Consumer

A consumer is an individual who purchases goods or services from a company. Without consumers, businesses would not be able to thrive; they are the backbone of for-profit companies because they drive sales and, therefore, profits. Knowing your business’s consumer profile is essential to effective marketing strategies, as well.

Related Reading: How to Bring Consumers Happily Home to Your Brand: An Illustrated Journey

Content Calendar

A content calendar, sometimes known as an editorial calendar, is a schedule designed around an upcoming (or potential) marketing campaign. It provides an overview of all the planned content releases and highlights important deadlines. A content calendar is a great way to get a bird’s eye view of all the content releases coming down the line.

Related Reading: How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy That Wins Market Share

Communications

Communications are how we send and receive information from one another. In the context of B2B marketing, it refers to the ways a company’s internal team can connect. Social media is an example of a powerful B2B communication tool.

It is essential for employees to feel empowered to build relationships with one another. Communications allow for powerful collaborations to occur, which can, in turn, improve operations and increase ROI. Everyone on your team needs to be on the same page for your brand to succeed.

Related Reading: Corporate Communications, Public Relations, Marketing–What’s the Difference, and How Do They Overlap?

Copywriting

Copywriting is the act of writing material for business use, usually to drive sales or generate leads. This is typically short-form content, like ads, email, and social media.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategy used to generate interest or engage an audience with relevant content, like blog posts, videos, newsletters, podcasts, and other media.

What’s the difference between copywriting and content marketing? Good question! Copywriting is typically shorter and focuses on driving customer conversion, and content marketing focuses more on developing a relationship with a consumer to build trust over time.

Related reading: The Ultimate Guide to B2B Content Marketing

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate measures the percentage of successful customer conversions, such as newsletter sign-ups, sales, visitors to a website, or any other marketing goal. Conversation rates are calculated by taking the number of conversions and dividing it by total ad interactions during the same time period.

Related reading: 10 KPIs Every Startup CMO Should Be Tracking

Cookies

Unfortunately, not chocolate chip. Marketing cookies are a form of data storage that monitors your activity online to present you with advertisements that align with your interests. If you frequent a particular website, whether or not you buy its products, you are almost guaranteed to be targeted by its ads throughout your scrolling. These habits can also introduce you to brands and products you are unfamiliar with but are related to your consumer behaviors.

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CPL

CPL (cost-per-lead) is a performance-based advertising model where the advertiser pays a set price for each qualifying lead generated from the campaign. CPL can be calculated by dividing the total amount spent by the total attributed leads.

CRM

CRM (customer relationship management) is the process of managing relationships with new and existing customers. Typically this is done through a software tool that helps companies aggregate customer data. CRM tools can help marketers really understand their customers’ wants, needs, and preferences, which can be a golden ticket to improving marketing strategy.

CTA (Call To Action)

Buy now! Subscribe! Share this post!

These are examples of CTAs. A CTA (Call To Action) is the action you want your prospective customers to take after reviewing a marketing asset. CTAs encourage users to interact with your company and should have compelling copy. They must persuade users, show urgency, and stand out from the rest of the copy.

Usually, CTAs focus on converting leads into sales, but they can point to many things. For example, a YouTuber could ask his viewers to subscribe to his channel or give him a thumbs-up rating after watching a video. Or, a musician could encourage his Instagram followers to share his post about a new song. The possibilities are endless.

Related reading: How to Write CTAs That People Actually Click With Examples!

CTM Strategy

CTMs are customer-targeted messages, usually sent to a customer’s mobile device. Traditional CTM marketing displays ads to people based on their location and interests. Other forms of CTM strategy include geo-fencing (using GPS technology to target ads by a consumer’s specific location); retargeting (displaying ads to consumers who visited your site but didn’t convert); and behavioral targeting (displaying ads based on people’s online behavior.)

Customer Behavior

Customer behavior refers to an individual’s buying habits and the influences that drove them to purchase. This is different from cookies because it only factors in those who purchase items from a website, as opposed to all interactions with a particular brand. Awareness of customer behavior is important because it provides insight into who they should target and how to reach them most effectively.

Related Reading: Who is Your Customer? Your Guide to Creating the Perfect Customer Profile

Dark Social

The ubiquitous practice of sharing content privately; that is, not sharing something openly via social media, where companies can track shares, but instead, cutting and pasting links or even whole blog posts into emails or direct messages to send them to friends. Essentially, Dark Social encompasses all social media interactions that are private and untrackable.

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Dashboard

A marketing dashboard is an analytical tool that displays your company’s most relevant marketing information. They serve as an overview of all pertinent information for your business and demonstrate your current marketing strategy’s effectiveness. These are a great first step in establishing a campaign and overall help keep you informed on your company’s trends.

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Demand Generation

Demand generation is the process of creating awareness or interest in a company’s products or services.

Related reading: The Demand Generation: What It Is and Why You Want to Be A Part of It

Demographics

Marketing demographics describe different groups of people and how likely they are to interact with your brand. These metrics can be divided into multiple different categories, such as age or gender, and are used to determine the most effective approach to a new marketing campaign.

Related Reading: Who is Your Customer? Your Guide to Creating the Perfect Customer Profile

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the process of using online tactics to fulfill marketing objectives.

Related reading: Here’s Where To Focus Your Marketing Efforts According to Experts

Discord

Discord is a free voice, video, and text chat app with tens of millions of users aged 13+. Marketers can build communities in Discord, allowing brands to engage with a section of their audience deeply and authentically.

Related reading: Discord: What Is It and How Can You Use It For Marketing?

DNS (Domain Name System)

You probably already know what a DNS (Domain Name System) is without realizing it. This process converts a company website’s numeric IP address into readable, understandable website domain name. For example, instead of memorizing long strings of numbers to reach Netflix’s website, you need only remember their name. A simple and catchy domain name is important because something complicated will be too difficult for the customer to find, resulting in lost sales.

Related Reading: 51 Online Marketing Tactics That Get Results

Drip Campaign

A drip campaign is a marketing communications strategy used to send automated emails or messages to customers who engage with your website in specific ways. For example, if someone signs up for emails from your company, a drip campaign might signal a welcome email as a next step, or if a customer adds items to their cart but doesn’t check out, a drip campaign might send a follow-up email encouraging them to finalize their purchase.

Related Reading: 6 Step Guide to Launch An Email Drip Campaign (With Examples)

Earned Media

Earned media is a strategy that focuses on third-party content creation. Also known as “Word-Of-Mouth Marketing,” earned media includes influencers, PR, product reviews, and everyday online users who create buzz and share content about a company on their own accord. This strategy can build public interest and trust in a company’s products.

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Email Marketing

Email marketing is a form of direct and digital marketing that uses email to communicate to consumers or followers of a brand.

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ESP (Email Service Provider)

An ESP (Email Service Provider) is the program used to develop and launch an email marketing campaign. These platforms help companies by taking care of their outreach, so no one has to sit behind a computer all day and individually fire off thousands of emails to their customers. These services handle everything from welcome emails to weekly updates and sale incentives.

Related Reading: The Ultimate Guide to B2B Email Marketing

Fractional CMO

A fractional CMO is an independent contractor or consultant a company hires to act as its Chief Marketing Officer. Like freelancers, fractional CMOs can work with multiple companies at once and benefit your company’s marketing efforts from a holistic perspective. Brands can also consider a virtual marketing partner or a virtual CMO, which can fill similar roles to fractional CMOs.

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Funnel vs. Flywheel

The funnel and flywheel models represent two versions of a customer’s journey with your business. In the funnel model, a customer is “funneled,” or channeled, through a predesigned pipeline with no regard for their experience. Typically, this follows a marketing-sales-customer service model, with more attention paid to customers the further they progress downward. This often results in a less-than-desirable customer experience because they feel their value depends on consumership. Conversely, the flywheel is more customer-focused and follows an attract-engage-delight service model. This leaves customers feeling more appreciated, as the attention is focused on their experience rather than their financial commitment.

Related Reading: How PR Impacts the Sales Funnel

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a data privacy act instituted by the European Union in 2018. This act was designed to promote transparency between those entities that collect data and those who they are collecting it from. It is based on four key principles: data minimization, accuracy, storage limitation, and security. In short, this means that the consumer must be made aware of data collection and consent to it before their information is retained.

Ghostwriting

Ghostwriting is a process in which a writer is hired to create copy for a client without being publicly credited or associated with the content. From CEOs to entrepreneurs, ghostwriters write from the perspectives of others and conduct research to fill in the gaps. In addition, companies employ ghostwriters to collaborate with executives who lack the time or ability to create content themselves.

Related reading: Ghostwriting: Be the Expert, Outsource the Rest

Growth Marketing

Growth marketing is a long-term strategy focused on experimentation and optimization across marketing funnels. By building customer relationships and fostering loyalty, growth marketing has the potential to grow customer lifetime value organically.

GTM

GTM (go-to-market) strategy is a marketing plan to launch a new product or service. More specifically, a GTM strategy details how the unique value proposition will be delivered to the audience.

ICP

ICP (ideal customer profile) is the outline of a company’s ideal customer—the kind of customer it wants to secure more of. An ICP can help marketers understand their primary target audience and how they want to be talked to.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is a strategy based on creating engaging, rich content that attracts potential customers to your company, therefore increasing conversions or sales.

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Infographic

Infographics are visual depictions or accompaniments to written or verbal information. We often see these in blogs or websites to help solidify important or complicated concepts for the reader. They make the info simple and easy to understand, especially when it is cumulative. Infographics are also great for keeping customers on your site because they are eye-catching and encourage engagement.

Related Reading: The Rise of Visual Content Marketing: 5 Reasons Infographics Rock

Influencer Marketing

Brands partner with influencers—social media users who have lots of engaged, interested followers within a specific niche or audience—to promote the brand’s product or service through their social channels. Depending on the extent of the campaign, that could mean posting a single image of the influencer using your product or a series of blog posts detailing their experience with your service.

Either way, the goal is the same: get your brand out in front of the influencer’s audience in a way that builds trust with that audience.

Related reading: B2B Influencer Marketing: Everything You Need to Know for 2022

ISP (Internet Service Provider)

An ISP (Internet Service Provider) is any organization that deals in servicing internet access. Any company that wants to access or use the internet needs an ISP. There are many different kinds, covering everything from all things broadband to satellite.

Journey Map

A customer journey map visually conveys an individual or average customer journey on your business’s website. This helps companies understand how accessible and user-friendly their digital presence is and how it could affect sales. To improve the consumer journey, a business must first understand how their experience develops from their point of view.

Related Reading: What is the Customer Buying Journey?

Keyword Research

Keyword research is the process of analyzing, comparing, and prioritizing words and phrases most commonly used by your target audience when using search engines. Including keywords in a blog post, for example, can help rank higher on Google’s search results.

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Keywords

Keywords are one of the most important components of an effective marketing strategy. They are popular words or phrases commonly searched that should be included on your website to boost clicks. The more keywords used in a blog post or product description, the higher the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) output, leading to increased visibility and engagement.

Related Reading: SEO and Keywords: How to Optimize Your Content Using Keywords

KPI

KPI (key performance indicators) is a defined, quantifiable metric for marketers to measure the performance of a campaign over a specific time period.

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Landing Page

A landing page is a standalone web page a consumer lands on after clicking the link from an email, ad, social media, or other digital location.

Lead Gen

Lead gen (or lead generation) is the process of gaining prospective customers’ interest in your products. First, your company needs to identify your target audience and their challenges. Then, it is all about creating engaging content that sparks your prospects’ interest. Finally, your marketing strategies will hopefully increase traffic across your channels and convert casual viewers into leads.

Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing is the process of purposefully developing and maintaining relationships with your target audience at every stage of their purchase journey. This is done through marketing communications by offering relevant information, engaging the consumer in unique ways, or otherwise finding ways to support them throughout their journey. This can be automated by using software to automatically send messages or emails triggered by consumer behaviors or set schedules.

Related reading: Lead Nurturing For B2Bs: Best Practices for the Digital World

LOE (Level of Effort)

The LOE (Level of Effort) is a term used for support projects that are supplemental to a larger task or goal. These do not yield deliverables or add time to the project at large but rather assist in the job’s quality (for example, general maintenance and cleaning of machinery used to produce materials that are sold).

Loss Aversion

Loss aversion is the idea that people are twice as likely to be upset about losing something they own than the pleasure they experience from getting something new. In the B2B world, this often occurs towards the end of a product or service trial period, when a customer has reaped the product’s benefits and is willing to spend money on the service to prevent losing it altogether.

Related reading: Loss Aversion: How to Strengthen Your B2B Marketing Strategy

Low-Hanging Fruit

In the marketing world, “low-hanging fruit” refers to those individuals or actionables that are easily attainable and lead to quicker results. In this theory, a company should market to consumers who are already interested in its products or services instead of trying to convert a disinterested customer. This increases the likelihood of sales because your company offers something they know the target is already interested in.

Related Reading: What Elon Buying Twitter ACTUALLY Means For You! | It’s Not Magic. It’s Marketing

Marketing

Marketing is the process of promoting a company’s products or services to meet the wants and needs of a target audience. While this is a simple definition, think of marketing as a more extensive umbrella term where various promotional strategies live. These include PR, social media, search engine optimization, PPC (or paid advertising), branding, and more. There are also many types of marketing, including content marketing, influencer marketing, and digital marketing. These more specific strategies use different resources to achieve the same goal: to engage prospective buyers and turn them into loyal customers.

Marketing Tech Stack (MarTech)

A marketing tech (martech) stack is a business’s set of software tools that marketers use to organize and execute marketing processes. The stack can include some or all of the following: CRM, analytics, email marketing, social media management, web design tools, and more. A company’s marketing tech stack is as unique as its customers and goals.

Messy Middle

The messy middle is where shared, paid, earned, and owned media of a specific company meet to interact with the consumer. It is where most of the potential buyer’s purchase journey takes place and includes each touchpoint that occurs until the lead is converted. This space includes the company’s branding, social media presence, as well as other factors that they cannot control. Consumer research, dark social interactions, and product reviews are also included in the messy middle. It is a combination of owned media and untrackable data that can affect the consumer’s journey through the sales funnel.

Related reading: What Is The Messy Middle? Here’s What Google Has To Say

Metaverse

The Metaverse is a virtual reality where users can engage with one another, brands, or other aspects of the computer-generated environment.

Related reading: Metaverse Marketing: A Brave New (Virtual) World

Mixed Marketing Model

Here at Zen, we live and breathe our Mixed Marketing Model. This digital marketing strategy combines paid, shared, earned, and owned media to optimize a brand’s growth. Each category includes its own platforms and communicates with different segments of the brand’s audience. Because each category is connected, each type of media benefits the rest:

  • Paid Media includes sponsored content, PPC ads, and paid advertisements. The goal of paid media is to extend a brand’s reach to new audiences. It cuts through the noise and allows companies to target their buyer personas more precisely.
  • Shared Media includes social media platforms, streaming sessions, and original content generated by brands. Through comment sections and interactive live streams, shared media is meant to be engaged with and shared by users.
  • Earned Media includes any and all press hits a company receives. Interviews, features, and mentions in blogs, newspapers, podcasts, radio, and television are all examples of earned media. A brand gets these hits with the help of a successful PR campaign, which can boost brand awareness and credibility.
  • Owned Media is all pieces of content that a brand owns and creates itself. Assets like website blogs and videos can help companies share who they are and what they do on their own channels. It is essential that this media is high-quality and aligns with the brand’s messaging for the best results.

Related reading: Why the Mixed Marketing Model works.

MOF or MoFu

MoFu (middle-of-funnel) refers to the middle of the consumer funnel, and MoFu is where consumers are considering a purchase. Marketers work to create and present content that helps consumers evaluate the product or service with educational resources, discounts, and special events or offers.

Move the Needle

The phrase “move the needle” is a reminder not only for your business to keep improving but also to keep your potential customers engaged and interested in what your company has to offer. If a customer is unsure, hesitant to commit, or debating between going with the competition, it is crucial to “move the needle” to secure their business and get the ball rolling again.

Related Reading: Customers Stuck in the Evaluation/Consideration Phase? How B2B PR Moves the Needle

MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)

MQLs are what all marketers want: these are leads, or prospective customers, who have shown interest in buying a product after seeing or intentionally engaging with a brand’s marketing strategies. These leads are more promising than others because they have made some type of contact with your company. Whether that means signing up for a monthly newsletter or downloading digital resources, MQLs are more likely to start a conversation with your sales team to begin the buyer’s journey.

Niche

A specialized market segment for a particular kind of product or service.

Related reading: Niche Marketing: How Niche Is Too Niche?

NPS

NPS (net promoter score) is a KPI used to measure overall customer satisfaction and loyalty, including how likely a current customer is to recommend a company to a peer. NPS scores are calculated with a single-question survey (think “How likely are you to recommend this product or service on a scale of one to 10?”), and they are reported between -100 and +100, with a higher score being more positive.

Op-Ed

An op-ed (or “opposite the editorial page”) is an article typically written to express a strong opinion of the author’s. Publishing a well-developed op-ed on your website can establish you as a leading source in the conversation and increase your (and your company’s) credibility in the industry. It also gives customers a more intimate glance into who you are as a person, which may humanize your company, build trust, and in turn, increase sales.

Related Reading: The Best Ways to Use B2B PR to Support Your Branding

Outbound Marketing

Outbound marketing is a traditional marketing strategy focused on pushing messages to an audience without prioritizing the consumer’s ability to respond to the messaging. (Think radio, television, or print ads.)

Owned Media

Owned media is the marketing content that a company entirely creates on its own. In contrast to earned and paid media, it can be executed for free and completely controlled by the company itself. Owned media aims to create content that reaches the desired audience organically, without paid search or social media ads.

Paid Media

Paid media is marketing content that a company cannot create for free. This includes advertisements and paid promotions on social media, search engine pages, and websites. Paid media allows companies to use their marketing dollars to target their desired audiences. Paired with owned media, it is an effective way to increase brand visibility and sales.

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Paid Search

Paid search is the opposite of organic search. Paid search is a digital marketing technique that allows advertisers to show ads on their company’s search engine results pages, and paid search works on a PPC model.

Persona

Personas in marketing go hand-in-hand with demographics. These are fictional characters that allow you to access your company through the customer’s eyes. Personas are created to represent a sect of your customer base and help you design effective marketing outreach campaigns. They help you determine how to reach your target audience on a personal level and present them with the right messaging at exactly the right time.

Related Reading: The Ultimate Guide to Buyer Personas

Personal Brand

A personal brand is much like a traditional brand except that it represents an individual rather than an organization. A personal brand is built on expertise, credentials, achievements, and other notable public attributes. Building a strong personal brand should be a priority for entrepreneurs, business leaders, freelancers, and even employees in close-knit industries.

Related reading: Here’s Why Consistency Is Key When It Comes To Your Brand

PLA (Product Listing Ad)

PLAs (Product Listing Ads) are advertisements that provide customers with more detailed information on a specific product than what is available in a generic ad. These are often displayed upon a web search for that particular product or a similar one. One of the more popular avenues for this is Google because it is the most highly-trafficked search engine available to consumers.

Related Reading: Understanding the Basics of Paid Advertising Online

PPC

PPC (pay per click) is a type of digital advertising where companies only pay if an ad is clicked on, and then there is a set rate per click.

Related reading: How Paid Advertising Can Help Your B2B Brand

Product Marketing

Product marketing is the process of bringing a product or service to the market, including branding, messaging, and strategic positioning.

Related reading: 18 Strategies to Boost your Product Launch Marketing Strategy

Product Market Fit

Product market fit is the way in which a product or service does (or does not) fill a need or generate demand in the marketplace.

Public Relations

Public relations (PR) is a strategic communications process that focuses on maintaining a favorable image in the public eye and building mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and its public.

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Q1 (2,3,4)

Q1 (or 2, 3, or 4) refers to different segments of the calendar year that have been divided to compare company profits and expenses. Each quarter typically includes about three months worth of data. This is a great way for businesses to see how their metrics compare to those before a new marketing campaign was initiated and measure its efficacy.

Related Reading: B2B Marketing Trends 2023: What to Try in Q1 and Beyond

Responsive Design

Responsive design describes how a web page is built so that it conforms to the size of the screen it is being displayed on–a cell phone versus a tablet versus a desktop screen, for example.

Retail Media Network

A retail media network is like a virtual billboard. Using this, retailers can establish a means of advertising on their platform that allows other brands to promote their products and services. This is typically done on websites that draw a similar consumer profile to the host; for example, a store selling sports equipment might want to advertise on ESPN’s website.

Related Reading: How Brands Are Using Self-Serve Ad Platforms to Adapt to Data Developments

Retainer Client

A retainer client is an extended contractual relationship between a client and a marketing agency. These agreements are typically billed at a set monthly rate (or at another chosen interval) and include all company services. These clients are not billed per each individual service. These are beneficial relationships because it extends an effective campaign for both parties, and the agency gets to know their client more intimately and has a broader understanding of their company’s goals and outreach efforts.

Retargeting

While you may know this term as remarketing, retargeting is the process of aiming advertising at consumers who have previously interacted with your brand and expressed interest in a product, application, or service. Through direct and personalized messaging, both new and returning customers can be used to maximize conversions and increase sales.

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Sales-enabled PR

Sales-enabled PR is Zen Media’s unique approach to public relations. Focusing on driving sales, first and foremost, our sales-enabled PR strategy involves locking in press opportunities and amplifying them to their full potential. As these media hits increase brand visibility, our team at Zen continues to reach out for more press. We have found that press begets press, and your company will continue to rise with each PR win.

Related reading: What is Sales-Enabled PR?

Sales Funnel

The sales funnel represents the buyer’s journey from its early stages to the point of purchase. A company’s sales funnel reveals data about how its customers are being discovered, customer behaviors, and conversion rates.

Related reading: How PR Impacts the Sales Funnel

Segmentation

Segmentation is the step between obtaining demographic information and creating buyer personas. This process sorts through consumer information and categorizes each individual into a group with shared interests or characteristics. This is an important step before creating a persona to represent a large body of your clientele because it informs you what makes them unique and appeals to them. Segmentation tools are on the rise in AI and can transform your marketing strategy and efforts.

Related Reading: 7 Types of AI Tools to Add to Your Marketing Tech Stack

Self-Service Advertising

Self-service advertising permits those wishing to publish an advertisement to design and purchase their own ad campaign inventory without needing a sales representative. This gives the customer full creative control over every aspect of the ad. Some of the most noteworthy names in the game are Google Ads and social network ads, including Facebook and LinkedIn.

Related Reading: How Brands Are Using Self-Serve Ad Platforms to Adapt to Data Developments

SEM

SEM (search engine marketing) is the process of increasing your website’s search engine visibility through the use of paid promotion and advertising tactics.

Related reading: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Search Engine Marketing Strategy

SEO

SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of tailoring your website to help it rank higher on search engines.

Related reading: 6 SEO Trends to Keep in Mind in 2022

SERPs

SERPs (search engine results pages) are the results a user receives after searching a keyword in a search engine like Google or Bing.

Share of Voice (SOV)

Share of voice refers to the percentage of your market that your brand owns. Pre-digital era, this meant the share of advertising in a market that your brand owned compared to your competitors. In the digital age, share of voice has expanded to include everything from digital PR and advertising to social media mentions and website traffic. Essentially, every form of measurable brand awareness in your particular market counts towards your share of voice.

Related reading: What is Share of Voice and Why Is It Important?

Shared Media

Shared media includes all social media content created about a company. This includes posts on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Shared media can be created by brands, individual users, and press outlets.

SLA (Service Level Agreement)

An SLA (Service Level Agreement) is a contract that serves as a kind of rulebook. It defines clear expectations for all members and outlines each team’s responsibilities. This may be useful between your company and a new client or when multiple departments within your company are joining forces to develop a marketing campaign. These documents may also make note of any shared goals, questions for the client, or any other issues that arise.

Social Listening

Social listening is exactly what it sounds like: marketers and businesses listening to the trends in the industry and integrating them into their practices. This doesn’t just mean monitoring the changes of your own company, but rather how things are developing for the kinds of companies you work with and the consumers of their products and services.

Related Reading: What Is “Relevant Content” in B2B Content Marketing?

Social Media

Social media refers to websites and applications that allow users to create content, engage with brands, and network with others virtually. From Twitter to TikTok, these interactive digital channels enable people worldwide to connect and share what they are passionate about. Social media is a vital part of today’s digital marketing strategies, focusing on targeting prospective customers through paid and organic media. Social media plays a significant role in establishing a company’s digital blueprint.

Related reading: Social and Media Are Splitting Up: What This Means for Marketers

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the process in which marketers promote their company’s products via social media channels. Social media marketers will use various tactics, including posting organic content, targeting specific audiences via paid ads, and engaging with users.

With more than half of the world using social media (approximately 4.62 billion people), social media marketing is vital for companies to tap into.

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Social Media Network

A social media advertising network when a large corporate conglomerate owns multiple smaller but still self-sufficient platforms (think Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram ad platforms). These companies tend to have more traffic on their sites compared to smaller or privately owned companies and can benefit those wishing to reach a larger audience with their advertisement.

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Social Media Topic Calendar

A social media topic calendar outlines potential social media post topics, drafts, or finalized posts that are set to be published on a specific date. This helps content creators manage their campaigns more effectively, review how their plan is progressing, and develop a balanced posting schedule.

Related Reading: Ultimate Guide to B2B Social Media Marketing

Social Selling

Social selling refers to the act of leveraging social network connections to identify prospects, build relationships, and, eventually, close sales.

SOW (Scope of Work)

In any successful client relationship or interdepartmental agreement, each party must define the SOW (Scope of Work) expected. This often takes the form of an official, signed contract outlining the responsibilities and expectations of everyone involved. This ensures that no one is disappointed by the result and that there are no misunderstandings or unanswered questions.

STEM Fields

STEM fields include those businesses that work in the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Often these companies operate in a feedback loop with the marketing industry, as their work feeds marketing innovation, which can then be applied to helping these companies improve their outreach efforts.

Thought Leadership

Thought leadership is how industry professionals share their expertise with others in their particular field. By sharing valuable insights and offering guidance, thought leaders aim to empower other individuals in their industries to grow, embrace change, and become leaders themselves.

Related reading: The Ultimate Guide to Thought Leadership

TOF or ToFu

No, not that delicious-when-fried soybean block. Like MoFu and BoFu, ToFu means top-of-funnel. ToFu is where marketers cast the widest net, focusing on high-volume leads like blog and social media posts, podcasts, videos, and newsletters.

User-Generated Content (UGC)

User-Generated Content (UGC) are original pieces of media that customers—not brands, create. From testimonials to unboxing videos, users create and post organic content on the internet to show their support for specific companies or products. UGC promotes authenticity and brand trust by revealing what its products are like in real life. Think of it as the “digital grapevine”—the more customers post about how much they love your product, the more of an engaged community that you create.

Web3

Described as “the future of the internet,” Web3 is the oncoming edition of the World Wide Web that aims to decentralize data, improve user privacy, and create a more immersive experience for all users. Accessibility and security are two important characteristics of Web3, which are improved using Blockchain technology. This allows for data decentralization (a fancy phrase for keeping user data private). 

What does this mean for the world of marketing? Well, Web3 will lead to more transparent marketing tactics. Instead of relying on centralized data at their fingertips, marketers will have to get back to basics and learn about their customers through direct communications. This includes using social media and interactive tools like polls and quizzes. In addition, web3’s emphasis on the metaverse will allow for immersive digital experiences, like virtual reality events. 

Related reading: The Future of Marketing in Web3

White Labeling

White labeling is the practice of branding a product or service with your company’s logo, as opposed to that of the manufacturer or content creator. This takes several forms, from outsourcing the production of a particular good, labeling it as your own company’s product, or contracting a B2B marketing firm to design and develop a marketing campaign and publishing the content under your company’s blog.

White Paper

A white paper is a marketing technique that highlights a specific problem in the industry and provides an in-depth analysis and solution. In practice, a marketing company might create a white paper detailing the dangers of skin cancer and present sunscreen as a solution for a company such as Sun Bum. This can be extremely effective in boosting sales because it presents the customer with the solution to a problem they might not have even known they had.

Related Reading: White Papers: #1 Lead Generation Technique

White Space

White space is any area on a client’s website that is not filled with content or products. This alone is not beneficial for a company, but it is an opportunity for a marketing agency to develop engaging and lead-driving content to your business and increase your customer base. It is also an advantageous design choice.

Wireframe

A wireframe is almost like an analytic blueprint for your website. It contains a write-up of all its content, behavior, engagement, and other pertinent metrics without the frill of infographics and pictures. These are useful in rearranging a website’s layout to highlight the most critical information and increase functionality and user experience.

Related Reading: 11 B2B Web Design Trends for 2023

Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing is a strategy that relies on consumers’ positive experiences with a brand to come through in their everyday dialogue with others. WOM marketing can also include strategic tactics like product giveaways to create buzz around your brand.

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