Acquisition
The process of converting potential buyers into customers, usually through the efforts of Sales and Marketing.
Learn more »
Analytics
Any metrics, statistics or key-performance indicators which measure marketing and sales effectiveness.
Learn more »
Auto-Responder
An Email message, containing pre-written content,
which is automatically sent after a triggering event has occurred.
Triggering events may include completion of a web Form, purchase of
an item or inquiry to customer support.
Learn more »
Blogs
“Web log” shortened to “blog.” An online column or journal written by an individual on a recurring basis (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.). A powerful tool to engage potential buyers and vital to establishing Thought Leadership. Blogs help increase Organic Search rankings.
Learn more »
Bluebird
An opportunity that “flies in from nowhere,” an easily-made sale.
Learn more »
Brand
A name, term, sign, symbol or any combination of these, which identifies the maker or seller of the product. Also, the totality of the attitudes and perceptions about a company and/or its products by customers, prospects and the general market.
Learn more »
Brand Loyalty
The phenomenon whereby buyers prefer to purchase from a company based on their familiarity with it and/or its products. Often, brand loyal buyers are willing to pay a premium to purchase from a trusted brand.
Learn more »
Buying Cycle
The process an individual or an organization undertakes when purchasing a service or product. Steps often involved in B-to-B purchases may include:
- Acknowledge the problem/issue
- Define need(s)
- Explore solutions
- Gather vendor information/options
- Identify finalists
- Engagement
- Circulate Request For Proposal (RFP)
- Evaluate proposals
- Purchase
See Sales Cycle.
Learn more »
Churn Rate
Churn Rate is a measure of customer attrition, defined as the number of customers who cease being customers over a specified time period divided by the average total number of customers over that same time period.
Learn more »
Click Fraud
The use of a computer program or automated script that clicks on a particular Pay-Per-Click ad, without any real interest in that ad, for the purpose of driving up the cost of the ad to an advertiser. Click Fraud is a felony in many jurisdictions.
Learn more »
Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
A measure of the success of online advertising achieved by dividing the number of clicks on a web page or Online Ad by the number of appearances of that web page/Online Ad (i.e., number of impressions). It’s important to remember that one person may click on an ad numerous times.
Learn more »
Closed Loop Marketing
Refers to the marketing process whereby data can easily be exchanged between Sales and Marketing, and customers can be tracked through the suspect-to-sale continuum. Closed Loop Marketing allows marketers to measure the ROI of marketing activities and their contribution to sales and profits.
Learn more »
Cold Calling
Unsolicited phone calls made by sales representatives or telemarketers/teleprospectors to potential customers.
Learn more »
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Often used as synonymous with SFA (Sales Force Automation), CRM refers to the complete suite of processes, methodologies, software, and Internet capabilities that help an enterprise manage customer relationships in an organized way. CRM in its broader definition includes process and systems for both Sales and Marketing organizations. In its narrower definition, CRM refers to a system—such as salesforce.com, Oracle CRM, or Microsoft Dynamic CRM—which is used by sales professionals to record, track and measure the activity of sales prospects and customers.
Learn more »
Cross Selling
Selling an additional category of products/solutions as a result of a customer’s original purchase.
Learn more »
Data Hygiene
The degree to which the data in a database is accurate and consistent according to a data model and data type.
Learn more »
Database Marketing
The use of prospect/customer information stored in an electronic database for targeted marketing activities in order to create better-tailored, better-timed offers that will maximize sales success and customer retention. The systematic collection and maintenance of data is key to efficacy.
Learn more »
De-duplication (“De-dupe”)
The identification, merging and removal of duplicate names and addresses from a database.
Learn more »
Demographics
Externally measurable characteristics of potential buyers such as age, gender, race, education and income level.
Learn more »
Digital Body Language
The electronic/online activity of prospects - such as web visits, Email opens/forwards, Form completions, document downloads, etc. - that reveal interest and intent just as a prospect’s body language reveals interest and intent in face-to-face situations.
Learn more »
Dynamic Content
Information in web pages, Flash movies, Email, eNewsletters, etc., that changes automatically based on database or user information. When used effectively, this content targets users' specific needs, providing what they are looking for, when they are looking for it, and in the format they are looking for.
Learn more »
Eloqua: What is Demand Generation?
All marketing and sales activities involved in contacting potential buyers, guiding them through the buying process and closing the sale. Demand Generation focuses on both Lead Generation and Lead Management (i.e., what happens to a lead after time and money have been spent to create the lead; for example, nurturing and qualifying that interest throughout the prospect’s Buying Cycle).
Learn more »
Email (Electronic Mail)
Enables the creation, sending, receiving and saving of messages via electronic communication systems. The term is also spelled “e-mail” and is used as both a noun and a verb.
Learn more »
Email Deliverability
Deliverability is the process of putting your email messages into the inboxes of your recipients.
Learn more »
Engagement
Point in Buying Cycle or Sales Cycle after potential buyer has identified potential vendors/solutions and begins a dialogue with the organization (or sales person) to circulate a Request for Proposal (RFP) or make a purchase.
Learn more »
Event Marketing
Face-to-face promotional experiences between customers and companies and the marketing activities leading up to or following the event to drive awareness, participation and/or attendance. Examples include an industry conference, Trade Show, user forum, Webinar, etc.
Learn more »
Firmographics
Externally measurable characteristics of prospect companies such as size, revenue, industry, and geographical locations.
Learn more »
Forms
An electronic Form, typically within a web page, Email or Flash movie, which is intended to be completed by a prospect or customer. During the Buying Cycle/Sales Cycle, forms are used to capture prospect information (e.g., first name, last name, Email address, company name, buying intentions, etc.) which is fed into a Marketing Database.
Learn more »
Greenfield Opportunity (also Green Field Opportunity)
HTML
Hyper Text Markup Language. Universal standard for coding web pages.
Learn more »
Hyperlinks (Also Links)
Text in an Email or web site that, when clicked on, opens a new web page/resource on the World Wide Web in the user’s browser. Hyperlinks are typically underlined and may be colored.
Learn more »
Ideal Customer Profile Demographics
and Firmographics as well as buying behavior of the ideal customer of a product or service, generally as defined by Sales. The Ideal Customer Profile is the basis upon which Demand Generation programs are built.
Learn more »
Integrated Marketing
A holistic approach to ensure that all aspects of marketing communication, or a marketing campaign, are consistent across a variety of online and offline channels: i.e., Pay-Per-Click, Email, banners, print ads and direct marketing.
Learn more »
Interactive Marketing
The ability to address a prospect, remember what that prospect does/says and address the prospect throughout all interactions in a manner that lets him or her know that your organization recalls/understands what he or she has previously revealed. Interactive Marketing is enabled by Internet/database technology.
Learn more »
Keywords
Also known as keyword phrases, search terms and queries. The words or phrases used by a prospect when performing a search. Marketers can purchase Keywords on search engines — such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. — to guarantee that their advertisement or web site information is displayed prominently and/or displayed with associated content.
Learn more »
Landing Page
A customized web page to which a marketing campaign directs traffic from one or more sources in order to convert responses into leads or sales. Also referred to as a landing pad, destination page, splash page, destination URL, or target URL.
Learn more »
Lead Generation
Lead Generation is the discipline of proactively creating, nurturing, and discovering interest among prospective buyers in solutions that are offered, so that a sales team can engage with those prospective buyers in a sales conversation. The discipline of lead generation has changed significantly from one mainly based around the telephone to one that incorporates a variety of web and social media channels in a holistic approach to cultivating buying interest.
Learn more »
Lead Harvesting
Sales promotions/incentives designed to convert leads into buyers.
Learn more »
Lead Management
Lead management is a term used to describe the overall process by which potential buyers are identified, educated, engaged with, qualified, and passed to sales. It is a term that is very similar in meaning to
demand generation, which also focuses on this overall process.
Learn more »
Lead Nurturing Programs
Lead Nurturing is the marketing discipline of providing valuable, educational content to prospective buyers early in their buying process.
Learn more »
Lead Scoring
The practice of using an algorithm to assign a ranking to sales prospects based on an understanding the prospect's interests and buying intentions.
Learn more »
Lead Scoring
The predictive ranking of the value of one lead versus another to the organization. Common sources of data for Lead Scoring include explicit information—such as Demographics and BANT criteria (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline) — combined with implicit or behavioral observations of prospect activity and responses to marketing and sales campaigns.
Learn more »
List Broker
A company that acts as an intermediary between a list owner and a list buyer. List brokers sell/rent lists of names and addresses for various marketing channels, including direct mail, Email and call center.
Learn more »
Loyalty Marketing
A focus on improving customer satisfaction and lifetime value through the use of incentives.
Learn more »
Marketing Automation
Marketing Automation is the art and science of automatically managing the targeting, timing, and content of your outbound marketing messages in response to prospects inbound actions and online behaviors.
Learn more »
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
The contact and profile information for a prospect who has been developed through the efforts of the marketing group. He or she is identified as a potential buyer due to certain explicit and implicit responses/behaviors that match patterns from previous prospects who ultimately converted into customers.
Learn more »
Microsite
An individual web site or cluster of web pages that are connected to its parent site, that often are on the same server, arrived at by clicking on a link in an Email, paid search ad or Online Ad. Typically used as a Landing Page to promote a specific product or service, as well as measure the efficacy of various media through URL Tracking.
Learn more »
Multi-Channel Marketing
The ability to coordinate multiple channels of outbound/marketing communications—such as Email, direct mail, call center and web site—into a unified campaign and integrate prospect responses into single dashboard view.
Learn more »
Multi-Touch Marketing
Contacting a specific prospect multiple times over a specified period of time, whether within a single-channel (e.g., multiple emails) or multi-channel (e.g., a mix of Email, direct mail and/or call center) marketing campaign.
Learn more »
Online Ads/Banner Ads
The "display ads" of the online world. Online Ads are generally clickable, linking to a Landing Page, and may include banners, Skyscrapers, buttons and other formats that typically allow for graphic displays as well as text/content. Many search engines and web sites allow for animated formats as well.
Learn more »
Open Rate
An Email "open" is registered each time the recipient's Email program requests an image which has been embedded into an HTML Email. For the image to be requested, the recipient must stop at your message, even in the preview pane, long enough to load the embedded image. Open Rates are not registered for text messages, dial-up/offline readers, multipart messages, where there is HTML and text in the same message, firewalls that strip out HTML images or JavaScript.
Learn more »
Organic Search
Listings that search engines do not sell (unlike paid listings). Instead, links to web sites appear because the algorithms in the search engine determines that the content of the web site best matches the user’s Keyword search.
Learn more »
Pay-Per-Click
Online advertising where an advertiser pays a pre-agreed price each time a user clicks on their advertisement. The cost for the click is often negotiated via an auction, with ad placement determined by the relative size of the bid, as well as other factors.
Learn more »
Pay-Per-Inclusion
Search engine marketing programs that guarantee web site listings for specific keyword search terms for a fee.
Learn more »
Personalization
Delivery of personalized content (content which specifically targets the needs/interests of prospects) via Email, direct mail, call center, web site or other media. The optimum personalization technology can deliver dynamic content based on user implicit behavior — such as Email opens or forwards — as well as explicit behavior (Form completion).
Learn more »
Podcasts
An audio or video recording posted on a web site that can be downloaded and played later. Often syndicated to registered, interested parties via RSS. The term is derived from "iPod" and "broadcasting."
Learn more »
Profiling
To build a picture of a target customer by utilizing information from various sources including customer transactions, completed forms and demographic data.
Learn more »
Psychographics
Classifying prospects by internal psychological attitudes: e.g., wants, aspirations, attitudes, interests, opinions and lifestyles. See Demographics (age, sex, geographic location, etc.).
Learn more »
Recency
Refers to how recently a prospect has been contacted, responded to a communication or made a purchase.
Learn more »
Response Attribution
The ability to attribute a prospect behavior to the media that caused the behavior. For example, if multiple versions of an Email are delivered asking recipients to click through to a Landing Page, Response Attribution allows marketers to determine precisely which Email version(s) caused click throughs, with reports on both global and individual responses.
Learn more »
Retention
Sustaining a customer relationship over a given period of time. New customer Acquisition is far more expensive than retaining and/or growing revenue from existing ones.
Learn more »
RSS
Rich Site Summary (also Really Simple Syndication). An XML-based system that allows web users to receive ongoing, constantly updated information collected from many sources through a simple reader. Marketers who provide RSS links enable prospects to stay up-to-the-minute with their offerings.
Learn more »
Sales Cycle
The process an organization undertakes when selling a service or product. Steps typically involved in B-to-B selling:
- Demand Generation/Lead Generation
- Sales Prospecting
- Lead Capture
- Lead Scoring
- Lead Burturing
- Engagement
- Proposal
- Closing
See Buying Cycle.
Learn more »
Sales Force Automation
Specific term referring to systems such a salesforce.com, Oracle CRM, or Microsoft Dynamic CRM that are used by sales professionals to record, track and measure activity of sales prospects and customers. Often used as equivalent to CRM.
Learn more »
Sales Qualified Opportunity (SQO)
The contact and profile information for a prospect who has been accepted by or developed through the efforts of the sales team. He or she is identified as a potential buyer due to certain explicit and implicit responses/behaviors that match patterns from previous prospects who ultimately turned into customers. Marketing Qualified Leads which are accepted by Sales become Sales Qualified Opportunities.
Learn more »
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Marketing is the process of marketing your web site on search engines. While it includes Search Engine Optimization, submitting your site to the search engines and directories for organic listings, it is becoming more closely associated with Pay-Per-Inclusion, Pay-Per-Click, Online Ads or any other marketing programs in which you pay for play. Popular search engines include Google, Yahoo, MSN, About, Ask, etc.
Learn more »
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The practice of designing web pages so that they rank as highly as possible in search results from search engines in order to attract traffic from prospects looking for possible vendors, solutions, products or services. This is achieved through topical page design, consistent HTML tagging, and focusing content on core Keywords.
Learn more »
Search Terms
Segmentation
Grouping a population into subsets based on common characteristics - such as vertical market, company size, sales organization, specific behavior or needs, etc. - and targeting each segment with different messaging, offers or solutions.
Learn more »
Short Message Service (SMS)
Also known as text messaging. SMS is a service for sending short messages to mobile devices (i.e., cellular phones, smart phones and PDAs).
Learn more »
Skyscraper
Term for an Online Ad format that is tall and narrow. Skyscraper ads are typically run along the right or left margin of a web page.
Learn more »
SWOT Analysis
The framework used to evaluate a company’s market position via its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors the company can affect. Opportunities and threats are external factors the company can’t control but must plan for.
Learn more »
Teleprospecting (Telemarketing)
Using outbound telephone calling to find and identify prospects.
Learn more »
Thought Leadership
Marketing strategy that positions a company as the knowledge expert in all facets of the industry it serves (not just its product within that industry). Highly effective in new/emerging markets where buyers may be unfamiliar and are looking for guidance in order to make informed decisions.
Learn more »
Trade Show
An exposition held for members of common or related industries, typically to demonstrate or promote their products. See Event Marketing.
Learn more »
Up Selling
Selling a higher function/cost service, product or solution to a customer who is actively involved in the purchase phase of the buying process.
Learn more »
URL Tracking
A technology that allows marketers to determine which media are generating responses and traffic to a Landing Page or web site.
Learn more »
Webinar (Webcast)
A seminar or event offered by a company via the Internet so that users don’t incur the expense and hassle of traveling to a physical site.
Learn more »