20 Basic marketing terms you need to know

If you are still lost in terms of marketing, it is likely that you are stuck with your business.

I’ll explain why.

Tell me if you have been through this situation …

Do you know when you are hungry and go searching the house for food?

Open the fridge, the cabinets, even some delivery app and nothing just looks good.

You don’t feel like eating any of the options that are there. You actually have no idea what you want to eat.

You’re hungry for something specific, but you don’t know what.

You know something is missing, something that would be ideal, but you don’t know what it is.

Only five minutes later, there you are again opening all possible doors and cabinets to see if something appetizing has magically appeared.

Of course, nothing has changed, these are the same options.

The cycle is repeated over and over until you decide to eat something, even if it is not what you want, just to stop your stomach from snoring.

But even after eating, you’re still stuck in that cycle.

Because the fact is that you ate, but it didn’t kill the urge to eat. You are still dissatisfied and you may still open the fridge a few more times.

The very same thing happens in your business.

There comes a point where all the knowledge you have has already been applied. And you’re too hungry, you want to take the next step.

But if you keep opening the same refrigerator that always has the same things, you will still be hungry.

In other words, you will continue to use the same strategies you already know, doing the same things. And it will remain stuck. You will still miss something, even if you don’t know what it is.

What will really kill your hunger for results is to discover the missing piece, what is the strategy you need to apply now.

That’s why I made this list. The more you know about marketing terms, the more options of tools, strategies and metrics you have to apply to your business.

Read this article to the end to find 20 options to satisfy your hunger. You will have 20 chances to unpack and get out of this cycle that has already given what it had to give.

Marketing terms used in business

1 AIDA

This acronym means, in order:

• Heads up

• Interest

• Desire

• Action

Each letter is one of the steps in the process of winning customers.

It is self-explanatory: first you win the attention, then arouse interest, then the desire and finally the action (that is, the sale).

It is a shopping funnel , the path one takes to move from a potential customer to a real customer.

This model is based on human behavior , on how we make decisions when buying.

With AIDA, you can analyze the prospect’s behavior and direct your marketing actions to sell more.

2 API

In the English original, these three letters stand for Application Programming Interface. Or, in good Portuguese: application programming interface.

Technically, they are sets of codes that allow different systems to interact.

It may look like a seven-headed bug. But you don’t have to be a master of programming to understand. Especially because API is something of your day to day. Want to see?

A classic example is when you install an application that requires registration and it allows you to login via Facebook or Gmail .

Or when you are going to pay for your purchase on your favorite website, either by credit card or some online payment service.

All of this is API: a bridge that connects one system to the other and allows the two to communicate.

3 Automation

It is possible that you watched that drawing of the Flintstones.

Remember how they drove cars, running with their feet on the ground?

Imagine going from São Paulo to Fortaleza like that. I have no idea how long it would take.

Now think about how cars are now, more and more automated.

The steering, before “hard foot” turned electric. The gearbox, which was manual, is now automatic.

The fact is that getting from point A to point B is faster and faster.

That’s what marketing automation is for: you use specific tools to accelerate the processes of your digital marketing strategy .

Like, for example, the automatic triggering of welcome emails or confirmation of registration for those who buy your infoproduct . Another example is generating and nurturing leads .

Have you ever thought of selling your course to 5,000 people and having to manually forward an email to each one? It is a lot of time investment for little result.

Automation did not come to replace your team , but to optimize manual processes and leave your employees free to concentrate on other tasks.

4 Conversion

Conversion, for marketing, is what happens when someone fulfills the objective of a page , be it downloading an ebook , signing up for a course, subscribing to the newsletter, filling out a form, in short.

To complete these actions, the person needs to give you their contact details, usually the email. When she does that, she becomes her lead, that is, a potential customer.

And when your lead buys, you become your customer.

Conversion is when you can persuade a person to move from one condition to another. The condition of the page visitor to lead, and the condition of lead to customer, for example.

You can calculate your conversion rate to see how your marketing strategy is doing. So, you know if you have any loose screws to adjust.

Just to give an example, if your rate is 60%, it means that for every 100 visitors 60 have become leads.

5 CAC – Cost of Customer Acquisition

CAC is one of the most vital metrics for a business, be it digital or physical. If you don’t know your CAC, it’s like you’re driving blindfolded on a BR.

Think of the damage that can happen.

This is a calculation that shows how much the company has spent to get its customers. That is, how much the acquisition of each customer cost for the business.

Spending includes investments in marketing and salaries and commissions , for example.

It is simple to calculate: just separate a period of time, add up the total amount invested and divide by the number of customers won.

The Customer Acquisition Cost helps you to understand if your strategy is working and if your money is being well invested in the campaigns.

This way, you can contain unnecessary expenses and plan future actions.

6 CPC – Cost Per Click

I don’t know if you like ballads, or if you once liked them (to tell you the truth, I don’t even know if people still talk ballads today).

In any case, you may know how the scheme works: you need to pay to enter.

But you only pay if you want to enter. If you prefer to stay outside listening to the muffled music that comes from inside, you don’t pay anything.

It’s more or less the same with CPC.

This is a way to pay for your ads.

It works like this: you only pay when someone clicks on the ad link.

For example, imagine that you made an ad on Google for the keyword “study Spanish”.

When someone searches for that term, your ad will appear on the screen, but you only pay if the person clicks.

It is suitable for those who are starting to venture into ads .

7 CRM – Customer Relationship Management

In good Portuguese, this acronym stands for customer relationship management.

But how is it in practice?

CRM is like an x-ray that gives you the diagnosis of all the tastes of your customers. From the products he is most interested in buying, to the day of the month he has the most full wallet.

Thus, through information collected in various tools you can surprise you with personalized approaches.

Like when Netflix recommends you a movie, or Spotify opens up a new album that has everything to do with you.

It is in CRM that you can see the customers registered in your database, purchase history, preferences, contact.

8 CTA – Call to Action

It is nothing more than a command you make to encourage the person to take the next step, to take action.

This next step can be anything you want her to do.

Since click a button, link or banner on the page, enjoy, comment or share one content , subscribe to a newsletter or simply consuming content to the end.

The goal is that, with each new step, the person gets closer to becoming a customer .

At that time, you need to be persuasive (but always maintaining integrity) to make the person act according to your CTA.

9 Inbound Marketing

If you want to be irresistible to your audience, this is the way to go.

Also known as attraction marketing, this strategy makes the audience run after you and not the other way around.

Do you know why she is running after you?

First, because you are not pissing her off, as in the offline world with interrupted advertisements on television or the billboard, for example.

Here, you ask for permission to speak.

And second and most importantly, she runs after you because she wants to. Because what you offer is so engaging that it will hardly have eyes for the competition.

In Inbound Marketing, what you offer is your quality content, whether for blogs or social media .

You make content available, create a relationship, develop trust and then make the offer.

It is closely linked to SEO, which I will talk about in a little bit.

10 KPI – Key Performance Indicators

In Portuguese, it is the key performance indicator, but I would call it a compass.

Because it is a management tool used to indicate whether your strategy is paying off and being efficient.

In addition, through KPIs, you can gain an in-depth view of what is happening in the present to adjust your future actions.

You can see what kind of situation can arise for your marketing team.

That’s why I called it a compass, because it is KPIs that show you if you are going in the right direction to achieve your business goals.

Some examples of KPI are the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) that I have already talked about, the sources of traffic and the numbers of visitors to your page.

11 Landing Page

Also called a conversion page, it works like this: you offer something of value to your potential customer and he gives you the contact in return, usually the email.

That something of value can be rich material, like an ebook, or signing up for a class or course, or buying your infoproduct, for example.

The fact is that one of the biggest goals of a landing page is lead generation.

Because with the contact of your audience, you can promote more targeted approaches, educate and nurture them until they are ready to become a real customer.

12 Lead

You just saw that one of the biggest goals of a landing page is lead generation.

Therefore, a person becomes a lead when he / she gives you his / her data ( email , phone), usually through a landing page.

It is a potential customer, someone who has given you permission to contact him.

A lead is not the person who visits your website or consumes your content on social media every day. To become a lead, she needs to give you the contact details.

That is, it is someone who has not yet bought your product or service, but who has shown a certain interest in your brand.

So it is easier and more efficient to convert a lead into a customer than a visitor to your site into a customer.

But no one becomes a lead for anything. It’s an exchange: you offer something of value to her (a course, an ebook, an infographic , anyway) and that’s why she gives you the contact.

Once the visitor has become a lead, you need to educate and nurture them so that they can advance through the sales funnel and become a customer.

13 Link building

While reading this article, you may have noticed that there is a lot of content linked here.

This is a way of doing link building, that is, it is the practice of placing links in your article that lead to other content that has to do with the theme .

You can (and should) refer to other content on your own site.

First to keep the reader longer on your site, since he will be directed to other content of your…

Second to build your authority in the eyes of search engines, like Google.

It works like this: the more your content is referenced, the more Google understands that it is relevant and quality.

Therefore, always produce quality and relevant content for search engines to see them with good eyes.

But link building also happens when other sites refer to yours.

The higher the quality of the site that you refer to, the better it is for you too because of the authority bid I mentioned above.

Use link building when it makes sense: don’t fill your article with links that have nothing to do with the topic you are talking about.

As you will see in a moment, link building is important in an SEO strategy.

14 LTV – Lifetime value

LTV is the value of a customer’s lifetime in your company.

That is, how much he will spend on your product or service for as long as you have a relationship .

If you sell a course, for example, you can calculate your LTV based on the average time customers spend with you.

Simply put, just multiply the monthly amount you receive from your customer by the number of months he stays with you.

LTV works very well for recurring purchases, such as subscription services (Netflix or Spotify, for example).

It is important to analyze the relationship between LTV and CAC (cost of acquiring customers, remember?). So, you know if what you hope to earn matches how much you are spending to get new customers.

That is, if the value of CAC is greater than LTV, you are taking a loss because you are investing more than having a return.

15 Persona

Persona is nothing more than the representation of your ideal client.

It’s a man? It’s woman? What is the age group? But more importantly, what are that person’s interests and pains?

Defining your persona is the first step before starting any business.

Without knowing who his ideal client is, what his characteristics are, what his pains and fears are, what makes him sleep at night, it is difficult to develop the best possible solution for him.

Not only in terms of knowing which product or service is ideal, but also which is the best approach, which language to use.

You can have more than one type of persona, and bringing them all together is your target audience.

Therefore, having your persona well defined is the guide for your marketing strategy to follow the right path. No use selling beef for vegetarians, right ?!

16 ROI – Return on investment

It is a calculation that you make to know if your marketing investment is returning positive for you. That is, if you are making a profit or loss with your marketing strategy.

For example, if you invested 100 reais and only 40 reais returned to the company, then your business is taking a loss.

ROI is important for you to adjust your actions and invest only in something that is paying off.

For example, if your investment in search engine ads is giving a negative return, while your investment in Facebook ads is in the green, it’s easy to know which one you have to dedicate more resources to.

17 SEM – Search Engine Marketing

Do you know that person who is super cool but not very pretty? And that person who is beautiful to hurt but who cannot sustain a 5-minute chat?

Now think of that person who is super cool and beautiful to hurt. The best of both worlds, right?

This is exactly what this series of marketing strategies called SEM does for your business: it is the combination of sponsored links with SEO (I’ll talk more about the last one already).

It is the union of organic marketing strategies with paid strategies, that is, organic traffic and paid traffic.

The goal of SEM (or search engine marketing, in Portuguese) is to achieve maximum results in less time.

This means that SEM seeks to reach and bring more selected and qualified people to your site.

18 SEO – Search Engine Optimization

SEO or search engine optimization is nothing more than a set of techniques to make your content become Google’s darling.

In other words, to improve the ranking of your content to the point of placing it on the first page of search engines.

Being on the first page is important because 95% of people do not move to the second.

Being well ranked makes you visible to the public who are looking for a certain question or solution that you can offer. With that, the trend is for more people to visit your page.

SEO is a strategy to attract organic traffic: you don’t boost your content like sponsored links do. You use components like keywords , link building and semantics .

Remember what we just talked about SEM? So, SEO is one of the SEM strategies.

To learn more: here you can see what SEO is in more detail. In this article you already know the SEO writing techniques to optimize your content and in this here are the most important SEO tools to use in your strategy.

19 A / B Test

This happens when you make two versions of the same page to test different approaches and see what converts the most, whether it’s the green or red CTA button, for example.

How it works? Half of the people who access the page, usually a landing page, see the green button. The other half sees the red button.

So, you take the test to see which is more efficient in conversion. Then you use the winning option as the final version of the page.

20 Traffic

One thing is for sure: without traffic, you are invisible on the internet, your audience doesn’t know you exist. Because traffic is the number of visitors to your page.

The higher this number means that more people are accessing your page.

There is not only one type of traffic, and the two most popular types of traffic are:

• Organic traffic

In this type, you use SEO strategies to rank content on search engines and thus attract visitors to the site. It is a long-term strategy, as there is no direct investment involved.

• Paid traffic

You invest money in ads and campaigns to get people to your page. These ads can appear on search engines, on social networks or on banners, for example. The results come almost immediately.

There are still 4 other types of traffic that I explain in this article .