Marketers often use abbreviations, common people are not able to understand. B2B, B2C, ATL, BTL, CTA…someone considers them as a combination of letters and numbers while experienced marketers understand these and allow them to save their time, and exchange thoughts, ideas about future strategies and plans with their colleagues fast. Most of these abbreviations are of English origin and we kept them in their original form.

To help our clients understand (when we have meetings, calls with them) all these marketing terms, we have decided to write this text to explain the meaning of some of the most frequently used terms and phrases. This text will list some of the general terms used in marketing that everyone should be familiar with, while for some specific fields (content writing, social media marketing, etc) we will write especially dedicated texts and clarify the most relevant terms in those fields.

There is one thing we would like to make clear – this special jargon is used to let the communication flow easily and faster and for the marketing people to understand themselves better. To secure clear communication between us and our clients, we are open to offering explanations for basic marketing terms.

Titan Design prioritizes clear client communication so we can learn from each other and trust each other. We can achieve great results only when all these conditions are met. For all these reasons, dear clients, please read the following text about some of the most relevant marketing terms. Learning them will better our communication. 

Marketing glossary for beginners

ATL – Above the line

Marketing activities, with the undefined target audience, target a broad audience just to increase brand awareness. Advertising campaigns we can see on TV are surely marketing activities targeting broad, undefined audiences, and they are good for home products (cleaning products, chocolate, wine). Agencies follow the ratings of different televisions and decide where to place the client’s commercial because the most important principle of the ATL companies is to be seen by as many people as possible. Besides television, there are other mass media as part of ATL, such as printed media, radio, OOH (out-of-home; billboards, etc).

Affiliate Marketing

Type of marketing, based on the connection of an online advertiser and someone who has a website publishing certain content. In short – a blogger or an influencer recommend a product or a service of a brand in their post, publish it on their social channels (all links are directed to the site of that brand) they get the percentage from sales, each time someone clicks on the link (actually use the discount code) and make a purchase in this way. This type of activity brings popularity to a brand in exchange for a bit of investment.

BTL – Below the line

Marketing activities addressed to narrowly defined target audiences based on demographic, geographic, and other characteristics. This type of activity is called one-to-one promotional activity. Promoters get into direct contact with the consumers and offer them products in an unconventional way. This could be sharing flyers, promoters give information about products in public events, telemarketing, etc.

B2B – Business to Business

This term shows the goal of a company in terms of collaboration, in this case, B2B means a company sells its services to other companies (the example could be various software solutions or apps, sold to other companies). Google is a great example for B2B.

B2C – Business to Consumer/Customer

These are companies that sell their products or services directly to their consumers. Examples: Apple, Nike, etc.

CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility

Socially responsible companies with high awareness about challenges the society is dealing with and the community. Their aim is to realize the problems and work on their solution. This way they get amazing publicity.

CTA – Call-To-Action

A word that invites you to take some action, a sentence addressed to you specifically, a picture that could motivate you, a button you should click – all these are examples of a CTA, but the most common examples are: follow us, tag three friends if you want this present, for more info, click this link, etc. all these sentences are important as they invite consumers to do something concrete in a simple way and explain in a very simple way what could they get in return if they take an action. This is also the best way to get more leads on a landing page. Some of these leads will become your buyers and this in fact represent the conversion.

If you are interested in increasing your conversions, feel free to contact us and book an appointment. Btw, this s a CTA as well!

KPI – Key Performance Indicator

KPI is a very significant number indicating how successfully we run any campaign, project, or overall business. This is a multilayered concept, gathering numbers from different segments. These indicators should be defined before starting a campaign. When it comes to marketing campaigns, then KPI is related to measuring strategy goals, so it can count interactions on social channels, strive to increase the number of comments by 30%, sharing videos by 10%, etc.

Landing Page

Specially created page the buyer could enter by clicking the link in an email, or clicking the social media ad. The goal of a landing page is to connect potential buyers with information, products, or services offering the value the buyer needs at that specific time. Of course, precise targeting is needed. In other words, a landing page is specially built for specific needs, certain campaigns, or product purchases.

Leads

Leads are people interested in your products or services. It is mostly used in B2B type of business. You can get to leads via social media, where they see a certain ad, click on it, go to a special landing page, fill in the contact form, give their personal data. Later, a marketing team brings the decision whether they have a good potential to become buyers and whether they should reach these leads via retargeting.

Organic Search

Organic search assumes search results potential buyers get when they type a specific term in the browsers. These browsers define the place and page a certain website will position on. A better position could be achieved via SEO, i.e., content optimization for browsers. It includes searching and adding keywords to website content (of course, the ones relevant for a specific niche), next, content writing in accordance with the SEO rules, text formatting in a certain way, adding alt text, etc.

Paid Search

Paid search presenting a type of online advertising, showing up in a browser when someone types particular keywords. What makes it different from organic search is the fact a company paid to position better for chosen keywords. It is clearly visible as these ads have “ad’ on the left side. A paid search works on a PPC (Pay-Per-Click) which means it takes off the money each time someone clicks on the ad.

ROI  – Return on Investment

ROI assumes calculating how much the marketing investment, advertising, campaigns, etc, will pay off and what the profit is. There is a special formula for calculating the ROI, and you can find it on the internet. Though, it is not possible to define how much money should be invested and what the profit would be, even despite the formula.

Target Group

Another essential term. Target audience is a frequently used term, and it defines a group of people we address our campaigns, and ads to. This audience could be chosen in two ways: based on gender, age, location, hobbies, interests, marital status, etc. some experts tend to think this concept is outdated and in the last few years, these experts rely more on a buyer persona. This term defines a perfectly created avatar of a buyer we address to, with clear and detailed information on our imaginary buyer.

USP –  Unique Selling Proposition

Why should consumers buy your product? The answer to this question is its explanation at the same time. Commercials should emphasize the value consumers will get with your product. This is also one of the questions addressed to our clients when we talk about collaboration for the first time because we want to understand the product and the value it offers.

WOM Marketing – Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Last but not least important, WOM term. It is also a good way to pass the information on a specific product or service, as it is the most authentic and persuading way for promotion. Though earlier it was impossible to measure it. Today it is even possible. Let’s take Influencers as an example, passing information on their social channels on specific products, experts and/or famous public figures people trust, who brings the story about a specific product, user-experience, etc, – this impact the Influencer could bring on his/her followers is so huge and brings the best type of recommendation consumers to appreciate.