Marketing jargon changes almost as regularly as marketing campaigns. The following is a list of some of the key terms you’ve heard this year.
Keeping up with trends, techniques, and marketing disciplines can make the field challenging at times. The industry language can be confusing at times. So to help you keep up with essential marketing concepts and terms, we have compiled a list of 20 key marketing terms you need to know in 2020. While some of these terms you will have heard of before, others might be new.
5G
5G is the fifth-generation technology standard for wireless networks, and it promises to be at least ten times faster than 4G. 5G adoption will mean that every emerging technology can reach its peak potential. Marketers will be able to deliver content experiences through immersive means like augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) content.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
Account-based marketing (ABM), or key account marketing, is a strategy that targets a few organizations, individuals, or decision-makers with highly personalized campaigns to engage them, one-on-one. Material and content is created to reach the individual or organisation in a way that answers clients specific pain points and connects with potential clients in a way that invites them to be part of the brand’s community.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Marketing
Artificial intelligence (AI) marketing uses AI-based concepts such as machine learning (ML), deep learning, and natural language processing (NLP) to improve the customer journey. Typical applications of AI in marketing include conversational AI, recommendation engines, audience segmentation, and personalization.
Chatbots
Chatbots are one of the most common forms of conversational AI. A chatbot is an AI-powered software capable of simulating a human conversation with your target audience. You can enable chatbots on your website, within your mobile app, or through messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger as a first response or basic customer service advisor, making your customers feel heard and securing their custom.
Closed-Loop Marketing (CLM)
Closed-Loop Marketing (CLM) tracks customers throughout their buyer journey and uses customer data to measure the contribution of marketing to the overall revenue. The sales teams report to the marketing team about the leads that they received, which helps marketers understand their lead sources.
Content Experience
Content experience is the overall experience of accessing, consuming, engaging with, and responding to a stream of brand content across devices, platforms, and channels, through the journey from prospect to customer.
Immersive Technology
Immersive technology is any technology that ties the digital world with the physical world through emulation. AR, VR and MR are three examples of immersive technology. Immersive technology is being used in marketing to engage audiences, provide product training, virtual tours, and gamify the customer experience (CX).
Intent-Based Marketing
Intent-based marketing gives prospective buyers a sample of a solution based on what they’re looking for. The success of intent-based marketing primarily depends on the context, behavioral data, past purchase data, and segmentation methods used.
Interactive Marketing
Interactive marketing is a one-to-one marketing approach that focuses on responding to the user’s behavior and preferences. Interactive marketing, or trigger-based marketing, is deeply rooted in personalization. Websites, blogs, social media, and emails are forms of interactive marketing initiatives. Surveys, polls, videos, quizzes and other forms of content that engage the potential customer in novel ways are interactive marketing.
Internet of Things (IoT) In Marketing
Internet of Things (IoT) is an ecosystem of interconnected devices such as wearable technology, connected cars, and smart home appliances that can transmit data through the internet without human intervention. The IoT presents many opportunities for marketers to personalise content and reach audiences in new ways.
Martech Stack
Martech stack, or marketing stack, is a suite of applications an organization uses to manage its marketing activities. Organizations choose either different vendors for various requirements to build a customized stack or choose a software platform that can provide a consolidated set of tools under one umbrella.
Micro-Moments
A micro-moment is defined as a moment when a person turns to a device to act on a need-to-know, go, do, or buy. The rise of smartphone usage and voice search means people are making decisions faster and using devices to help. In these micro-moments, users seek the brands that deliver what they’re looking for. Here are the four key micro-moments:
- I want to know
- I want to go
- I want to do
- I want to buy
Mobile-First Experience
A mobile-first experience focuses on the design process from mobile devices and expands to larger screens, converse to the traditional web-first approach. Websites, emails, and other content pieces should be designed from a mobile-first perspective to follow trends that see people using phones first and other devices second.
Omnichannel Marketing
Omnichannel marketing is a hybrid of cross-channel and multi-channel marketing strategized from the buyer’s perspective. Omnichannel marketing provides a cohesive experience at various touchpoints during the buyer’s journey, such as sending potential customers reminder emails and initiating a remarketing campaign to close sales.
Personalization
Personalization is customizing CX through content, offers, discounts, etc. depending on individual preferences. The success of personalization relies on segmentation criteria and AI-based features used to customize and automate various marketing processes such as drip email or customer retention campaigns.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that uses AI/ML to configure software that can imitate human behavior to automate business processes at scale. Software robots are helping revolutionize marketing by automating several functions of marketing operations, customer service, and CX.
Smart Content
Smart content, or dynamic content, is personalized content that is delivered to users according to their viewing preferences. Smart content, as opposed to static content, is tailored according to the demographic, behavioral, and contextual information of the visitor.
Social Commerce
Social commerce relies on social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest to facilitate the sales of products and services. The user doesn’t have to leave the social media site they’re currently on to complete the purchase. They can buy the product within the app or through a native chatbot.
Value Metric
A value metric (also called a pricing dimension) is the criteria you use to charge for your offerings. It’s the value perceived by your paying customers in your product or service. For instance, if you are an email marketing software application, your value metrics could be the size of the subscriber list and the number of emails per month. Based on these two metrics, you can divide the pricing into different tiers.
Voice Search
Voice search allows users to use voice commands rather than typing in their search queries in the search engine. The growth in the adoption of smartphones, digital assistants, along with the shift towards creating conversational content, has paved the way for the growth of voice search.
Final Words
This is by no means a comprehensive list of marketing terms. Marketing terms sometimes can get too jargony, but we hope this list of twenty terms will help you understand the key marketing concepts and stay on top of trends in 2020.
