Proposals and pitches are peppered with them. Marketing blogs and business publications throw them out like confetti. Yet often these words are heard and not understood. Since knowledge is power, we wanted to share seven marketing terms commonly used, and what they really mean in today’s marketing industry.
1. Content marketing
Akin to the soft-sell approach, content marketing includes the development of blogs, videos, social media posts and other materials to spark a customer’s interest. This content then optimizes a brand’s presence by meeting customers wherever they may be online and in the sales funnel. At its heart, content marketing allows customers to shape or further the conversation through proactive engagement with content, which leads to results that are a far cry from customers passively viewing a commercial.
2. Native advertising
For years, you’ve seen low-grade native advertising in magazines with small print at the bottom reading, “This is an advertisement.” Today, native advertising manifests when a brand writes and develops an article, a blog or video content for an outside publication with a similar target audience. The content created by the brand performs best when it fits seamlessly into the publication while remaining clearly identified as an outside post. However, native advertising quickly falls shorts if the brand voice is off-base from the publication’s in-house content, or if it is too promotional in nature. One of our favorite examples of exceptional native advertising is The Onion’s article that was done is partnership with Starbucks.
3. Data-driven content
All content developed for marketing is inspired by data, and is disseminated using data. Relevant data can be collected from customer reviews, surveys, email lists and social media analytics. Once collected, content is then developed to answer the spoken and unspoken needs of the customer. The second part of data-driven content is personalization, which positions the content in front of the customer at an optimal time. Customer-relationship management services do this frequently by sending emails specifically tailored to where a person is in the sales funnel.
4. Influencer marketing
Your brand’s influence is less powerful than the influence of a few key individuals in your target audience, aka “influencers.” Turning these influencers into authentic brand advocates through sponsored blog posts and other content concentrates your brand’s marketing dollars by capitalizing on the trust those influencers have built with their audiences. Influencer marketing is one of the best ways to grow your audience and increase overall brand awareness by meeting your customers where they are and utilizing the people who are already influencing them.
5. Culture of content
To succeed in today’s marketing industry, businesses must create an environment that embraces the importance of content across all branches of its infrastructure. This means that while the bottom line is priority, even that goal is reached through the creation and dissemination of content. Content creation becomes the umbrella to all other sales and marketing goals.
6. Growth hacking
Most frequently utilized by startups, growth hacking is the process and discovery of how to grow a business quickly and efficiently. Growth hacking typically utilizes alternatives to traditional advertising like content marketing, SEO, A/B testing and social media advertising. Often the goal is to decrease the cost of a customer acquisition and skyrocket a brand’s user base.
7. Value-Added Content
Is your content useful, enjoyable and relatable to a client? Everything your business creates should enhance the value of your customers’ lives. This could be as simple as creating content that answers a frequent customer question or it may be more complex to address a deeper, unspoken desire of your customer.
You’ve heard the definitions, but what do these 7 buzzwords look like in the day-to-day workings of your business? Move beyond the definitions, and we will help you conquer these buzzwords. Contact us today.
