Marketing Glossary
Marketing Glossary
20 Marketing and sales terms terms
- ABC
- "Always Be Closing." An antiquated sales strategy that basically says everything a sales rep does throughout the sales process is in pursuit toward the singular goal of closing a deal. The implication is that, if a sales rep doesn't close the deal, then everything they did regarding that opportunity was a failure.
- Ad Copy
- The words in your advertising messages to customers. Ad copy can be the headline of a display ad, the subject line of a marketing email, the call to action (CTA) of a Facebook ad, or the script of a video or TV spot.
- en: Texte publicitaire
- Adoption process
- Another way of saying "the buying process." The stages a potential buyer goes through, from learning about a new product or service to either becoming a loyal customer or rejecting it. The potential buyer may or may not end up purchasing/adopting that product or service.
- Affiliate Marketing
- Marketing based on a relationship between an online advertiser and website publishers where the advertiser pays for leads or revenue that comes from the publishers’ sites. It’s a form of value sharing or commission sharing.
- en: Marketing d'affiliation
- AIDA
- An acronym used in Sales that stands for Attention/Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action. They are the four steps of the now somewhat-outdated Purchase Funnel (although most agree the funnel is much more complex than what is represented in this traditional model), wherein customers travel from awareness to purchase.
- BANT
- An acronym used in sales for lead qualification that stands for Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline. It's a famous tool for sales reps and sales leaders to help them determine whether their prospects have the budget, authority, need, and right timeline to buy what they sell.
- Bluebird Sales
- A "bluebird" is a sale that came seemingly from nowhere or with unexpected ease. A sales rep might say, "Fortunately, a bluebird flew right in at the end of the quarter, helping me reach my goal."
- Buyer Persona
- A semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. While it helps inbound marketers like you define their target audience, it can also help sales reps qualify leads.
- Data Entry/Processing
- The process of obtaining, recording, and maintaining information you can retrieve and use later. In Sales, this usually mean inputting potential buyers' information into a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool to track activity, correspondence, and progress on open opportunities.
- Forecasting
- Estimating future sales performance for a forecast period based on historical data. Forecasted performance can vary widely from actual sales results, but it helps sales reps plan their upcoming days, weeks, and months and helps high-level employees set standards for expenses, profit, and growth.
- Loss Leader
- Used in retail to refer to a product sold at a low price (either at break-even or at a loss) for the purpose of attracting customers into the store. The goal is for customers who go into the store to buy other items that are priced to make a profit.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
- A customer satisfaction metric that measures, on a scale of 0-10, the degree to which people would recommend your company to others. The NPS is derived from a simple survey designed to help you determine how loyal your customers are to your business. To calculate NPS, subtract the percentage of customers who would not recommend you (detractors, or 0-6) from the percentage of customers who would (promoters, or 9-10).
- Pain Point
- Pain points are specific problems, frustrations, or unmet needs that customers, users, or employees experience while trying to complete a task or interact with a product or service.
- Payment gateway
- A payment gateway is a technology platform that safely captures, encrypts, and transmits a customer's payment information (such as a credit card, debit card, or digital wallet) from an online checkout or point-of-sale (POS) terminal to a payment processor and bank.
- Pipeline
- The step-by-step process sales reps go through to convert a prospect into a customer. The sales pipeline is often divided into stages for each step in the sales process, and the sales rep is responsible for moving opportunities through the stages. It can also refer to a visual representation of the sales process, where the sales stage arranges every open opportunity it's in.
- Qualified Lead
- A qualified lead is a prospective customer who has been evaluated against specific criteria and confirmed to match a company's target audience and readiness to buy.
- Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- A formal contract between a service provider and a customer (or an internal department) that defines the specific services to be delivered, the expected level of performance, and the remedies if those standards are not met.
- Sound Bite
- A series of words or phrases sales reps use to respond to and overcome a customer objection.
- Value Proposition
- "Value prop" for short. A benefit of a product or company intended to make it more attractive to potential buyers and differentiate it from competitors.
- Word-of-mouth marketing
- A business strategy that encourages and facilitates organic customer recommendations and peer-to-peer conversations about a brand, product, or service.