Marketing Acronyms - Cutting Through The Jargon
Every industry has its own set of acronyms. One such set of acronyms I find hard to digest are those that schools use – there are just too many!
However, they’re not alone. The marketing industry has its own exclusive range, and there are many terms you may often have heard, without realising their meaning.
We’re going to bypass the cat to get to the cream, to provide you with a greater understanding of what the heck it is that we’re talking about!
SEO: Search Engine Optimisation
Processes and techniques for ranking your website higher in the natural (organic) search results listings, for people who are looking for your products or services. The main search engines a website should be optimised for are Google, Bing and Yahoo.
SEO incorporates many factors to improve your website’s ranking, including website navigation, menu structure, links to internal and external pages, title tags and alt tags, metadata, keywords — the list goes on. Other ranking signals also include social network activity (Twitter, Facebook etc), visitor behaviour, and other off page factors.
The key reason behind all these checks is to establish relevancy in the results pages. Relevancy is the cornerstone on which search engines’ reputations are based.
PPC: Pay Per Click (our specialism)
The amount you pay for each click for an online advertisement. Advertisers pay a publisher (ie. Google, Bing, Facebook, business directory) an agreed or pre-capped amount each time someone clicks on your website link. Potential customers are drawn to your website link based on a list of keywords
When someone types in a keyword that matches one on your keyword list, your company will appear in the results. Only when they click on your link will you then pay.
CTR: Click Through Rate
In a PPC campaign, this describes how many people saw your advert (impressions) and decided to click on your website link. In mathematical terms, this is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions, to reach a percentage. Industry standard is currently around 3%.
It also reflects how many people clicked through to the next part of your marketing campaign, whether on your website, a newsletter or other means.
ROI: Return On Investment
A calculation of the profitability from an investment. For example, companies look at how much they are spending on marketing campaigns, versus the financial returns they experience directly from them.
SERPs: Search Engine Results Pages
A list of results that are returned once you have inputted a query into a search engine.
CRO: Conversion Rate Optimisation
Creating a website experience with the aim of converting an increased percentage of website visitors into customers. This can be done by using analysis and customer feedback, which combined, will enhance the performance of your website. The better your conversion rate, the higher your return on investment.
SMM: Social Media Marketing
The use of social media accounts such as Twitter, Google+, Pinterest etc., for the purposes of marketing a business, product, or service. The ultimate aim of SMM is to create engaging content that users will share across the social networks, leading to brand exposure and attracting new customers, as well as building a loyal following.
RT: Retweet
Using Twitter, you repost another user’s tweet. This can be done in two ways; 1) click on the retweet button or 2) copy / paste the tweet into a new tweet, add your own hash tags, and use the @ to mention who the tweet came from. This helps if you want to extend your reach to different audiences.
Regular users of Twitter will be familiar with the “Please RT” request. This is where your followers are asking you to retweet to help spread awareness of their brand, message, or information.
FB: Facebook
A social networking platform where users get to share information on any topic. It is increasingly being used for business purposes, and is a good way to build and maintain a loyal customer base.
CMS: Content Management System
Software that allows non-technical users to manage their website. Users can create sales campaigns, update newsletters, add and delete products, adjust product prices, edit information, make content searchable, change menus, and more.
CTA: Call To Action
Buttons, text links, and pictures are the most commonly used call to action features, which stimulate a web visitor to take action to either make contact, sign up to a newsletter, download a white paper, or make a purchase.
UI: User Interface
The method by which a user can control a hardware device or software application. It can include, but not limited to, windows, buttons, menu bars, and toolbars.
UX: User Experience
Describes the overall experience a visitor has on any website. This begins with how easily they have found your products and services, through to how easy your website is to navigate, how they interact, and whether they make contact or a purchase. The responsiveness of your website can play a huge part in this, as the BBC has recently recognised.
ROR: Return On Relationship
A term coined by Ted Rubin on Twitter, this describes the return a company receives through customer interaction — whether it be loyalty, customer satisfaction, or financial.
GA: Google Analytics A service provided by Google, which measures in intricate detail, how a website is performing. It identifies user locations, demography, engagement, behaviour, and traffic sources. Marketers use it to understand their audience, and study their paths through the website, in order to learn how best to engage further with potential customers.
BR: Bounce Rate
The percentage of web traffic leaving your site within seconds of arrival, without engaging with Call to Action links, or other pages. A higher bounce rate leads to poorer conversions, and diminished relevancy in search engines.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator A reference to a unique website address, displayed in the address bar at the top of any web browser.
SaaS: Software as a Service Instead of buying and installing software to your own PCs, (or a network), this is a cloud based software solution that allows you to effectively rent the service. To many businesses, this provides many benefits, such as 1) no huge upfront costs 2) greater ability to customise it to the needs of your business 3) any software issues are dealt with by the hosting company – no need for your IT support team to get involved if issues arise
All these marketing acronyms only really scratch the surface of the overall terminology marketers use. For all potential and existing clients, Engage First Page believes it’s important to be transparent and clear about what we do and how we approach your marketing strategy. This includes empowering you with a more rounded understanding of marketing techniques.
For a fully customised Digital Marketing campaign, take advantage of our free consultation that will identify keywords you should be targeting, full analysis of your website’s current performance, and which type of paid advertising (if any) would best suit your business.
We’ll also talk about SEO, SMM and UX, now that you know what I’m talking about …..right?!