Tired of Marketing Jargon?
Have you ever sat down with a Marketing professional only to realize you have no idea what the words are coming out of their mouth? Have you ever wondered why they can’t just say what they mean? What are those initialisms and acronyms? What’s worse, is every time you talk to them there’s some new phase or term they’re throwing out with great vigor and confidence.
Here’s a list of the top buzzwords of 2021 and what they really mean. In English.
SEO – Search Engine Optimization
I’m sure you hear optimize all the time, in this context in simple terms, it means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines.
SEM – Search Engine Optimization
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a digital marketing strategy used to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages. Initially SEM referred to the usage of both organic and paid tactics, however it has now transitioned into almost exclusively paid search advertising.
Optimize
Quickly becoming one of the most overused terms used in every faction. A marketer should be optimizing everything they do to capitalize on the content they’ve created. Optimizing is a process.
AI
If you’ve watched any movies, you are familiar with Artificial Intelligence. Unfortunately it is used to describe anything that’s automated and that is inaccurate. AI is a method of leveraging customer data and AI concepts like machine learning to anticipate your customer’s next move and improve the customer journey.
TOFU/MOFU/BOFU or anything Funnel Related
The customer journey is an important process to understand. But can’t we just talk about the stages of your customers? Why do we have to say TOFU (Top of Funnel), MOFU (Middle of Funnel) and BOFU (Bottom of Funnel)? It’s a customer lifecycle and the tactics that work at each stage.
Disruption/Disruptor/Disruptive
Involves using experimental tactics that challenge the status quo instead of following conventional marketing tactics.
Remarketing
Remarketing is the process of reconnecting with previous visitors of your website.
CTA: Call-to-Action
This one is quite simple to explain. It is an element used in marketing that is specifically meant to invoke the customer to take action.
As marketers, rather than bombarding customers with gimmicky sales tactics, let’s nurture customer relationships. That is the message we should be sending to all our customers and using for their customers. The reality is, we’re all just people and purchasing comes down to want or need. Our job should be educating on the options.
What’s your most hated buzzword?
I can tell you, after all we’ve gone through in the last two years, I would erase the phrase “It is what it is” if I had any power in the world!