Marketing & sales

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategy commonly used in B2B marketing. Using this approach, sales and marketing work together to engage high-value businesses or prospects.

A baseline number is a point of reference used to evaluate the performance of a marketing (or other) initiative. The exact number is up to your discretion; its main purpose is to help you track whether you’re making a positive impact or not.

Bottom of the funnel (BOFU) refers to the last stage of the buyer’s journey in which the prospect is close to making a purchase decision.

A brand ambassador (aka brand advocate or evangelist) is someone who is hired to represent and promote a company to generate more interest in the company’s products and/or services.

Brand awareness is a measure of how many people can recognize your brand by its name. It represents the impact of your branding and marketing.

Brand positioning refers to how your consumers perceive your brand, especially as it relates to other products and services like yours. Marketing helps to shape this positioning.

Business intelligence (BI) refers to all the tech and processes used to mine, visualize, and interpret raw data for a company. The core purpose of BI is to uncover new business opportunities and guide decision-making.

A buyer persona is a detailed profile of your target customer(s). Buyer personas typically factor in things like demographics, job titles, interest, and behaviors to help you get into the head of your customer.

The buyer’s journey refers to the various steps that a person takes when researching, discovering, and making a decision about your product or service.

Click-through rate (CTR) is often used in advertising to show how many people actually take the time to click your ad. The formula for CTR is total clicks divided by the total impressions that your ad received.

Closed lost refers to a sales opportunity that has rejected a contract and/or has been marked as such in your sales pipeline tool. Reasons can vary as to why an account ends in a closed lost.

Closed won refers to a sales opportunity that has signed a contract and is officially a customer. It is the final (and ideal) stage of the sales pipeline.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of improving your website or landing page to drive more signups or any other desired action.

Cost per lead (CPL)—not to be confused with customer acquisition cost—is the amount of money spent to acquire a new contact, which can then be nurtured or passed on to your sales team.

A creative brief is a short document outlining the goals, requirements, and other essential details of a creative project. This could include projects like a video, ad, or webpage that involves the magic touch of a designer.

Customer acquisition is the process of attracting new buyers. An acquisition strategy usually involves a mix of organic and paid marketing campaigns and/or offline and online tactics.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) refers to the amount of money spent to convert a new buyer. A basic formula for CAC is total marketing expenses divided by total number of customers gained from that effort over the same period.

Customer expansion is a term often used by SaaS companies that are looking to upsell their current users. As an example, companies may promote features or add-ons that require users to purchase a higher plan.

The customer lifecycle involves all the stages of a person’s relationship with your business. This includes the point at which they become aware of your product to when they become an advocate of your brand.

Customer lifetime value represents the total revenue that a business can expect to earn over the course of its relationship with a customer.

Customer retention refers to the process of earning repeat shoppers or (for SaaS companies) avoiding churn. Customer retention strategies focus on delighting, engaging, and supporting existing buyers.

Demand generation is the process of building interest around your brand. It is an umbrella term that refers to various marketing and sales activities, like content marketing or emailing.

Demographics are the distinct characteristics of a certain group of people. Demographics can include age, race, income, occupation, hobbies, and more.

Direct response is a type of marketing strategy in which you seek to immediately move a person to act. For example, you may send an abandoned cart email to get customers to complete their purchases.

A drip campaign (aka drip marketing) refers to a series of automated emails that’s intended to drive a certain action and keep your target audience engaged.

Experiential marketing entails campaigns in which you engage directly with prospects, either virtually or in person. For example, a business may choose to host a pop-up shop where people can test their products.

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is meant to ensure the successful launch of a new product. It should describe the ideal customer, competitive positioning, and other factors that keep your entire team aligned.

Gross margin represents how much a business has profited, once the cost of goods (COGS) is factored in. Gross margin is calculated by subtracting COGS from net sales, then dividing that number by net sales.

Guerilla marketing is a strategy that involves unconventional, out-of-the-box tactics to get people to pay attention to your brand. It is often relatively inexpensive and viewed as a publicity stunt.

An ideal customer profile (ICP) describes the type of company that your business aims to serve. Your ICP is the company that would benefit the most from your product or service.

Inbound marketing is an approach that focuses on drawing people to your brand by creating memorable content and experiences. Inbound marketing typically seeks to educate rather than simply sell.

Influencer (creator) marketing is a strategy in which you work with a well-known creator or organization in your industry (or a target industry) to increase brand awareness.

A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric used to track a company’s or an individual’s progress towards a specific goal. KPIs can be financial, business-oriented, process-oriented, or other.

Lead generation is the process of identifying, attracting, and qualifying people who could potentially lead to a sale.

Lead nurturing is the process of regularly engaging a prospect and developing a stronger relationship with him or her over time. Lead nurturing can involve a mix of emails, ads, and other touchpoints.

Market segmentation is when you split up your target audience into groups based on their interests, demographics, or other factors—with the end goal of personalizing your interactions and driving better results.

Marketing automation is when you use software to centralize, automate, and track your marketing activities across various channels. It is intended to increase efficiency and output.

The marketing funnel is a visual representation of the various stages that your prospects go through, from the moment they first hear about your business to when they purchase from you.

A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a prospect that has been evaluated by the marketing team and is deemed ready to be engaged by the sales team.

Middle of the funnel (MOFU) refers to the stage of the buyer’s journey in which the prospect is researching various products and services.

A mission statement is a short, clear description of a company’s reason for existence. It provides direction for employees and stakeholders, plus supports the company’s vision.

In web design, a mockup is a near-finished visual representation of your webpage. It includes all the colors, illustrations, and other design elements that you’re looking to build out in the finished page.

Multichannel marketing is when you promote your brand across various channels, like email, social media, direct mail, and others. Each channel may have its own strategy and purpose.

Net promoter score (NPS) is a measurement of customer satisfaction and loyalty. NPS is defined by asking your customers how likely they are to recommend your product to someone else from a scale of zero to 10.

A niche market is a segment of a larger audience that has a particular need, preferences, or other unique qualities. A business may choose to serve a niche with a specialized product or service.

Omnichannel marketing is when you promote your brand across multiple channels, but specifically focus on providing a unified customer experience across each.

Organic search refers to search results (such as Google results) that aren’t paid placements. In other words, these are results selected by the search engine’s algorithm based on a user’s query and intent.

Paid search refers to advertisements (aka paid placements) that appear at the top of search engine results. For example, businesses can pay for text-based ads that appear at the top of Google results pages.

In sales, prospecting is when you research, find, and initiate relationships with potential customers. Prospecting is specifically an outbound sales activity, whereby a salesperson actively seeks out new contacts.

SMART goals is short for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based goals. It is a framework for planning projects that are purpose-driven and measurable.

A SWOT analysis is the process of identifying your business’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It is a common framework for understanding your competitive positioning.

Sales enablement is the ongoing process of equipping your sales team with all the tools, content, strategies, and resources that they need to be successful.

The sales funnel is a part of the marketing funnel, starting from when a prospect has been qualified by the sales team to when he or she has made a purchase (or, alternatively, dropped off).

The sales pipeline is a visual representation of an organization’s sales process. It’s useful for tracking the progress of open accounts and the steps for closing a deal.

A sales qualified lead (SQL) is a prospect that has already been vetted by the marketing team, and is then confirmed by the sales team as someone worth pursuing.

Search intent is commonly used in SEO to describe the motivations behind an online search. For example, some users may be looking to find information about a brand while others are seeking to learn.

Split testing (aka A/B testing) is the process of optimizing a site, ad, or other marketing asset by launching two versions of something and seeing which one performs better.

A stakeholder is someone who has an interest and is able to impact a project, business, or decision. He or she could be an internal member or external one.

A subject matter expert (SME) is an authority within a certain field. He or she is often the go-to person for questions regarding a specific topic.

Tech stack refers to the set of tools, frameworks, hardware, programming languages, and services used to create an app or website.

A thought leader is a person or an organization that is viewed as an authoritative figure within your industry. Brands may use content to build themselves into thought leaders.

Top of the funnel (TOFU) refers to the very beginning of the buyer’s journey, in which a prospect is not yet aware of—or looking to buy—your brand’s products or services.

The total addressable market (TAM) refers to the amount of money that your company could potentially make. It is an estimation based on market research, sales data, and/or other factors.

A unique value proposition (UVP) is a statement that clearly communicates how your business benefits its customers and what makes it different from its competitors.

Upselling is when you persuade an existing customer to purchase a more expensive or upgraded version of an item or service. For example, many SaaS companies may upsell their users on premium subscriptions.

In marketing and sales, a vertical is the market or industry that a business is looking to serve. For example, a SaaS platform may target verticals like eCommerce, education, or healthcare.

A vision statement is a short sentence or paragraph that describes the ideal future state of a company. It is intended to be very aspirational and provide direction for a team.

A wireframe is a blueprint of a webpage. It is intended to show the basic layout and organization of the page, prior to filling it in with any color, typography, illustrations, and other design elements.

Word-of-mouth marketing (WOM marketing) refers to brand promotion that occurs as your consumers engage in daily conversations with other consumers.