Content · Marketing · SEO · StoryBrand · They Ask, You Answer · Website
Marketing Lingo Cheat Sheet
We’ve all been in a meeting where we feel like the only one who doesn’t know all the jargon and acronyms being tossed around. Right? RIGHT?
Well, no friend of Heights should be left to drown in a sea of ABMs and CACs and CRMs. 😝
You deserve to be well-informed as you tackle your marketing plan this year.
That’s why we’ve put together this marketing lingo cheat sheet to help you decode some of the industry vocab you might not be familiar with:
Analytics and Metrics 📊
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): How much money a customer brings in during their time with your business.
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): What it costs to get a new customer—just divide your marketing spend by the number of customers you gain.
- GA4: Google’s latest tool for tracking website visitors and their behavior (your go-to for understanding what’s working).
- Lead Scoring: A way to rank potential customers based on how likely they are to buy.
- ROI: How much you get back compared to what you spent. Example: Spend $1,000 on an ad, make $3,000, and your ROI is 200%.
Strategy and Frameworks ♟️
- Account-Based Marketing (ABM): Focusing your efforts on specific big-name customers you really want to win.
- Demand Generation: Creating interest and excitement about what you offer.
- Endless Customers: (Previously known as They Ask, You Answer) A strategy that earns trust by answering customer questions honestly and clearly. Read more here.
- Inbound Marketing: Attracting customers by giving them helpful content they actually want, through three steps: Attract, Engage, and Delight.
- RACE Framework: A plan for guiding customers from discovery to loyalty in 4 steps: Reach, Act, Convert, and Engage.
- StoryBrand Framework: A way to use storytelling to make your brand message clear and relatable for your audience. Want to know more? Check out this blog post.
- Thought Leadership: Sharing your expertise to become a trusted authority in your field.
- Value Proposition: A simple explanation of how your product solves a problem and makes life better for your customers.
Tools and Technology 👩💻
- CMS (Content Management System): The behind-the-scenes engine of your website.
- CRM (Customer Relationship Management): Software to track and nurture leads and manage customer relationships.
- Marketing Automation: Software that handles repetitive tasks like sending emails or scheduling posts for you.
- Tech Stack: All the tech tools and platforms your business uses to get things done.
- UTM Parameters: Tags added to your website links to track where visitors are coming from and how your campaigns are performing.
Content and Messaging 📖
- Buyer Persona: A detailed description of your ideal customer, based on research and data.
- Content Pillars: The main topics your brand focuses on to guide all your content.
- Messaging Guide: A roadmap for how your brand communicates, covering tone, key messages, and style.
- Style Guide vs. Brand Standards: Rulebooks for your brand’s look and voice. Style guides cover visuals (fonts, colors, logo), while brand standards also define your personality and tone. (The image to the right is one page of Heights’ Brand Standards.)
Sales and Funnel Terms 💲
- Funnel: Your customer’s journey from learning about you to making a purchase. Example: Read your blog (top of the funnel), download a guide (middle), and book a call (bottom).
- Lead Generator: Something free, like a pdf, guide, or webinar, that helps you collect contact info from potential customers.
- MQL (Marketing-Qualified Lead): Someone who’s interested in your product but isn’t quite ready to buy yet.
- Sales Enablement: Giving your sales team the tools and resources they need to succeed.
- SQL (Sales-Qualified Lead): A lead who’s ready for a salesperson to reach out.
Search and Optimization 🔎
- Domain Authority: A score that shows how trustworthy your website is and how likely it is to rank highly on Google.
- Keyword Search: Finding out what words people type into Google so you can write content they’ll find.
- Predictive Search (AI): When search engines guess what you’re typing and suggest results as you go.
- SEM (Search Engine Marketing): Paying for ads to show up when people search on Google or Bing.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Tricks and tactics to make your website show up higher on Google, like using the right keywords.
What terms did we miss? Let us know.
(And for the record, we’re firm believers that there is no such thing as a stupid question, so if you’ve heard a term you need some help decoding, let us know. We’d love to talk.)
