With industry buzzwords constantly shifting, we've identified terms that are here to stay. In a nutshell, it's helpful to understand the different marketing types, tools, research methods, content types, and branding components. Having this information at the ready makes it easier to collaborate with marketing teams and achieve organization-wide goals. 

Buzzwords come and go and no one likes jargon, so we tend to use plain English whenever possible. But for those times when nothing but the popular marketing phrase will do, here's how we define them.

Types of Marketing
Strategic Marketing Terminology
Marketing Tools
Digital Research Methods & Metrics
Content Types
Brand Identity Statements

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Types of Marketing

Marketing is the promotion of a company, product, or service. People from all corners of the world are constantly seeking help in this arena. An agency can tackle multiple types of marketing, although it's necessary to focus on the types that best suit your target audience.

Affiliate marketing is the publicizing of an organization's products or services in exchange for a share of commissions. It's commonly seen on blog sites, in which products are promoted by digital influencers. 

Affinity marketing involves a partnership between multiple organizations that share like-minded interests. By establishing a partnership, they can grow a large, shared audience. 

Inbound marketing is the creation of valuable content and relevant experiences to attract prospective customers. It acts as a magnet for consumers that resonate with your content. 

Integrated marketing is the collaborative use of marketing channels (think newspapers, websites, social media, billboards, and more) to share brand messaging. It ensures that your messaging is consistent across different platforms. 

Omnichannel marketing is when an organization provides its products or services on all channels. For instance, companies are expanding their help centers to social media, phone, and email. 

Outbound marketing, or interruption marketing, is the action of sending messages out to the public. This includes trade shows, email blasts, telemarketing, and advertising. 

Programmatic marketing is the use of automation to make the best real-time purchase of digital advertising space. Simply put, marketers can automatically bid on advertising space that is helpful in reaching their campaign goals. 

Retargeting, or remarketing, is the practice of reaching out to users who have previously interacted with your brand or website. You can thank cookies for that one. 

Search engine marketing (SEM) is the purchase of advertisements on search engine results pages (SERPs). This targets users who are searching for specific keywords or queries.

Strategic Marketing Terminology

As a full-service agency, we understand how marketing and communications build brands. All of our work is strategic and makes the most of client resources to deliver on objectives. When developing a strategic marketing plan, we often focus on the following "buckets":

Brand work includes logos, taglines, messaging and positioning, and graphic standards. In the event of a full rebrand, brand work will also include a rollout of the new brand.

Design includes everything from brochures to annual reports, direct mailings, exhibit displays, packaging, you name it!

Management work includes content creation, multimedia production, social media, advertising, PR, and other marketing methods that warrant assistance.

Strategic planning includes research, marketing briefs, campaign development, and marketing segmentation.

Strategy is an overarching plan to achieve a predetermined goal.

Tactics are actions that an individual or organization can take to achieve their strategies. 

Web work involves creating a responsive UX design, website development, search engine optimization (SEO), digital copywriting, content management system (CMS) training, and hosting.

Marketing Tools

There’s a whole slew of marketing tools out there, and they’re multiplying by the hour. From what we’ve seen, these digital marketing tools are some of our favorites. In fact, you’ll hear us talking about them a lot when launching digital campaigns.

Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) are brand identifiers that verify personal information in emails. BIMI are super helpful to combat today's army of email scammers; they make sure that messages from you are actually coming from, well, you. 

Geofencing is a virtual boundary that allows marketers to target a specific audience, or only provide services in a certain area. Our favorite example of this? Snapchat filters! 

Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) in which computers evaluate past experience to develop algorithms and improve performance. Essentially, it mimics how humans comprehend information. 

Marketing automation is the use of technology to automate simple, repetitive tasks in digital marketing. This includes everything from running ads to scheduling social media posts.

Marketing Technology Stack (Martech Stack) is a group of digital tools used to improve marketing efficiency across various digital channels. Martech stacks vary from business to business, depending on their size and priorities.

Digital Research Methods & Metrics

Strategic marketing requires taking a research-based approach to decision-making. Research can take many forms—surveys, case studies, observation, experiments, the list goes on. When it comes to testing and measuring marketing assets, we have a few favorites. It is worth noting, however, that platforms such as Google Analytics have their own nuanced glossary that is specific to their service.

A/B testing is a research method in which the marketer makes two versions of an ad, campaign, or asset in order to see which performs best. Each test involves changing one variable at a time to ensure clear results.

Direct traffic, or unknown source traffic, is when a user types the website URL directly into their browser. You may not know how they got the URL, but you know they visited your website!

Multivariate (MV) testing, similarly to A/B testing, allows marketers to create multiple versions of an ad to test which combination of components performs best. 

Organic search is unpaid search traffic from a search engine such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Chances of earning organic traffic can be improved with a little search engine optimization (SEO) work. 

Referral traffic is website traffic that was directed from an external site. For example, a local news source could mention your business with a hyperlink, inspiring the reader to learn more. 

Content Types

Getting started on content development can be difficult—staring at the blank page, hoping for inspiration to strike. Marketers will often say that "content is king", but how do you brainstorm content if you don't know where to begin? We've identified the most popular types of content out there to get you started.

Advertainment is, as expected, a hybrid of advertisements and entertainment. Of course, plenty of the world's advertising is entertaining, but advertainment is equal parts ad and entertainment. 

Clickbait includes content like headlines and post descriptions that encourage users to click on a link from an external source. Most clickbait headlines are, well, misleading. 

Earned media is publicity, good or bad, that is not paid for or created by your organization. Think reviews, testimonials, social media mentions, and newspaper articles.

Ephemeral content is content that is confined to a timeframe, meaning that it will vanish after a specified period of time.

Gated content includes assets that viewers can only see after providing some amount of information about themselves. Ever had to fill out a form in order to read an article? That's gated content! 

Organic content includes any content that is simply put out into the world: no budget, no bidding, no extra fluff.

Brand Identity Statements

When establishing a brand, it is necessary to keep your organization's vision in mind. Who do you serve? Why do you provide your products and/or services? How should people feel when interacting with your brand? These questions are all answered in the development of brand identity statements. 

Brand promise is the experience that customers can expect to have when interacting with a brand. 

Brand purpose is what guides an organization's mission. 

Core values are the fundamental beliefs that guide an organization's actions. 

Mission statement is an organization's reason for being, also known as its higher purpose. 

Vision statement is the impact that an organization aims to have on the future of their industry, or in other words, their ultimate goals.

Also Good to Know

Everything can't always fit tidily into a box, and that's the case with these terms! A few of these marketing buzzwords may already be in your arsenal, but in case you missed them…

Content shock is the presence of overwhelming amounts of information, making it difficult for users to find what they're looking for. 

Customer lifecycle classifies the stages in the marketing and sales funnel. The five touchpoints that we hang our hats on are awareness, consideration, conversion, delivery, and retention.

Customer journey includes the individual touchpoints that one has in the customer lifecycle. Customers may have both positive and negative experiences along the way, as everyone's experience with a brand is unique to some degree.

Freemium models have two levels: free and premium (makes sense, right?). By allowing users limited access to a product for free, they are more likely to want the premium version. 

Identity access management (IAM) is how a business collects consented first-party data from consumers and manages their individual profiles while, of course, protecting each individual's personal information. 

Micro-/Nano-influencers are individuals that are one step down from being true social media influencers. More specifically, micro-influencers are those with 10,000 to 50,000 followers.

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Well, there you have it: a glossary of the marketing buzzwords worth knowing! Of course, the world of marketing is ever-changing, but we can promise you that these definitions are correct and relevant…for now.

Feeling inspired to dive into new marketing endeavors? Contact us!