Digital definitions

A/B testing

Also known as split testing, it is one of the most effective ways to make measurable and scientific improvements to, e.g., your website. A/B testing creates at least two versions of a piece of content, such as a headline or a CTA (call-to-action) button, and shows each version to a different and similarly sized audience to explore which test has the desired response.

Account-based approach

There are several different names for an account-based approach: Account-Based Marketing (ABM), Account-Based Sales (ABS), and Account-Based Sales Development (ABSD). They all refer to a relatively similar approach: sales, marketing, service, and other relevant teams work together to close targeted, individual accounts with an approach unique to that potential or existing customers' needs.

Account-based marketing (ABM)

A growth-driven approach where marketing and sales work together to create personalised buying experiences for high-value companies and individuals.

Actionable analytics

It provides data and insights you can take action on and make fundamental, significant changes based on.

Activity-based selling

The idea is to win sales results from a cascading chain of controllable activities. Unfortunately, sales reps aren't always sure where to spend their time and get lost in day-to-day "business" rather than the activities that are truly meaningful to the sales process.

Advertising plan

Outline your approach and tasks to reach your target audience and achieve your advertising goals. In the plan, summarise the touch points, messaging, and budget—all of the elements, data, and information you need to legislate your advertising strategy.

Ad Tech

The umbrella term for the software that helps you target, deliver, and analyse your digital advertising efforts

Algorithm

It's a rule-based procedure for making calculations or solving problems. Algorithms are everywhere in computer science and are crucial for leading software. In social media, algorithms determine which content you see.​

For example, your Facebook newsfeed doesn't show every status update or photo from your friends. Instead, it displays algorithmically curated content that Facebook thinks is worth seeing.​

Similarly, "X" and Facebook use algorithms to define which topics and hashtags are trending. Like the algorithms that power search engines, social media algorithms have a massive effect on your brand's online visibility.

Alt-Text (Alternative text)

It is also known as an alt-description, alt-attribute, or alt-tag. It describes an image on a website. This text allows search engines to crawl and rank your website optimally and helps screen-reading tools relate images to visually impaired readers.​

Amazon

Amazon, the world's largest and best online retailer, provides a superior cloud service.

Anchor tag

In HTML, an anchor tag (<a>) is a markup element to create hyperlinks to webpages, email addresses, documents, images, and other resources.

API (Application Programming Interface)

An API is a series of rules and an information middleman. It allows other applications to extract information from a piece of software and use it in their application or, sometimes, for data analysis. An API is a blueprint enabling "your stuff" to work with and talk to "their stuff. "Your stuff, in this case, is called the API endpoint.

API endpoint

An API sends requests for information from a web application or server to a digital destination, where it receives a response and accesses the resources needed to carry out its function.

API payload

The payload of an API is the data you are interested in transporting to the server when you make an API request. Simply put, it is the body of your HTTP request and response message.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

A technology that performs tasks requiring human-like intelligence, such as learning, problem-solving, and decision-making.

Audience targeting

The method of separating consumers into segments based on interests or demographic data. Marketers should use audience targeting to formulate campaigns that align directly with their consumers' lifestyles.

Author

An author creates any work, such as a blog article or a content offer. Broadly defined, an author is an individual who originated anything and whose authorship determines responsibility for what was created.

Back-end developer

In web development, a back-end developer builds and maintains the back end of websites or web applications. The back end consists of all components a user doesn't interact with, including databases, APIs, servers, and application logic. Back-end developers create this infrastructure and work to ensure these components function correctly.

B2B

Short for business-to-business. Businesses and organisations exchange goods, products, solutions and services. For example, one company may contract with another firm to provide the raw materials needed to manufacture a product.

B2B marketing

Any marketing strategy, approach, or content geared towards a business or organisation. Companies that sell products, solutions or services to other businesses or organisations typically use B2B marketing.

B2B sales

The process of selling products, solutions or services from one business to another. The most common type of B2B sale occurs when a company sells a product or service to another company that will use it to help run its business. Business-to-business sales are mainly made through relationships and personal networks.

Big data

Big data is a large set of unstructured data. Traditionally, the data ​we analyse has been formatted into nice rows and columns. Think of a spreadsheet with a list of customer names and email addresses. The reason why big data is complex to analyse is that the data sets are massive and complex. For example, they might contain messy natural language in posts (tweets) and Facebook updates, so the challenge involves sorting, analysing, and processing. However, the data sets are so large and layered with information that sound analysis can reveal surprising insights.​

Best practice

Bio

A short biography. A small portion of your online profile explains who you are. All social media accounts feature a bio, which is valuable in attracting followers with similar interests.

Blockchain

Blockchain is an online ledger that uses an open, distributed record to keep track of transactions. Transactions include actions like sending cryptocurrencies or sharing medical information.​

Bounce rate

The bounce rate of a web page is the percentage of visitors who leave after viewing that web page. A web page with a high bounce rate could be performing better. Comparing your high-bounce pages to your low-bounce pages is a great way to find out what's working for your visitors and what isn't.

Brand

The perceived image of what you offer or the gut feeling.

Brand authenticity and engagement

Ensure that your brand is consistently aligned with (and responsive to) the expectations of today's employees and B2B buyers.

Brand awareness

Brand awareness usually refers to how familiar your target audience and the general public are with your brand. High brand awareness sometimes leads to brands trending or being well-known. Brand awareness is essential because customers generally appreciate purchasing from well-known and familiar brands. 

Brand equity

Reveals how much more you earn thanks to your brand. Brand equity is a blend of customer perception, familiarity, quality, consideration, and the resulting value.

Brand extension

Brand extension happens when companies extend their brand to develop new offerings in new industries and markets. Brand extensions allow companies to leverage brand awareness and equity to create more revenue streams and diversify their offerings. 

Brand health

A collection of metrics around your brand represents customers' perceptions of your brand, products, solutions, services, public image, and communication. Brand health helps determine whether people are happy with your brand, what aspects of it they highlight, and how.

Brand identity

Your brand identity is your company's personality and the promise you make to your potential and existing customers. After touching or interacting with you and your brand, the brand promise is what you want your customers to walk away with. Therefore, your brand identity comprises your values, how you communicate your offering, and what you want people to feel when they touch or interact.

Branding

A practice in which a company creates a name, symbol, or design. That is easily identifiable as belonging to the company. ​

Brand loyalty

In a qualitative definition, positive brand loyalty is customers who repeatedly purchase from your company, build trust in you and your company, and consistently choose you and your company over competitors. Brand loyalty always involves emotional attachment and an overall positive affinity. 

Brand management

Refers to the process used to create and maintain your brand. Brand management includes managing the tangible elements of your brand, e.g., style guide, packaging, colour palette, and the intangible brand elements, i.e., how your target groups and customer base perceive it. Your brand is a breathing asset and should always be managed as such.

Brand personality

Human behaviour and characteristics associated with your brand.

Brand pillars

The values and characteristics that set your company apart from your competitors.

Brand positioning

Brand positioning is setting your brand and business apart from your competitors in a way that builds preference among your desired audience. It aims to associate your company with an idea or category in the minds of potential and existing customers.

Brand positioning statement

The most important message that sets you apart.

Brand promise

Customers can expect value or experience every time they interact with your company. The more you can deliver on that promise, the stronger the value of your brand in the minds of customers and employees.

Brand recognition

Brand recognition is how well a customer can identify your brand without seeing your company name. It goes hand in hand with brand recall, the ability to think of a brand without visual or auditory identifiers.

Brand refresh

A reimagining of your brand's look and feel. A way to create a new face for the brand that is fundamentally strong but needs to be updated. While it usually centres on redesigning visual identity, a brand refresh can also affect company culture, systems, products, solutions, and services.

Brand reputation

Measuring brand reputation by numbers is challenging since it contains many aspects of your company's image. Measuring brand reputation means analysing different metrics that give you an idea of how your customers perceive your brand.

Brand story

A complete image of facts and feelings, told by you and the target groups.

Brand strategy

A tier-two version of your business strategy outlines how your company builds rapport and favorability within the target audience. Your brand strategy aims to provide the foundation for your company to be memorable and for customers to choose your company over the competition.

Brand tracking

The ongoing measurement of your brand-building efforts against critical metrics, such as brand awareness and perception. Trackers help brand owners understand brand health and make informed decisions to increase sales, deliver a more significant return on marketing investment, and win market share.

Brand trust

Refers to how strongly customers believe in your brand. Do you deliver on your promises? Would you know if your sales service meets the customer's expectations, or do they go above and beyond? Brand trust creates trust among your customers, essential in a world where few customers feel confident in large companies. 

Brand valuation

A commercial valuation of your brand is derived from customer perception, recognition, and trust. Brand valuation goes hand-in-hand with brand equity. A compelling brand can be invaluable to investors, shareholders, and potential buyers.

Brand value

The monetary worth of your brand.

Brand voice

Brand voice is the selection of words, values, and attitudes that your company brand uses when addressing the target audience or other stakeholders. It is how a brand conveys its personality to the external audience.​

Breadcrumbs

A navigational aid that allows users to track their current location on a website or interface. For example, a breadcrumb trail displays the page a user is currently on and its relation to the pages they visited before it or the hierarchy of higher-level parent pages above the current page.

Breadcrumbs navigation

It lets the online user quickly navigate to their visit's starting point or earlier pages.

Business blog.

A business blog is a content area filled with knowledge content. The content should be objective, relevant, and convincing. It consists of articles and (gated) content offers, and credible authors should create them. The focus should be on the needs of the targeted personas so there are better places for advertising or bragging about having the best product in the world. Instead, you want to solve the experienced problems or answer people's questions. Do that, and they will come back searching for more.

Business flywheel

The adaptation of The Flywheel to your company.

Business requirement document (BRD)

A structured and formal description of a project. It explains why a company needs to build, e.g., software or a solution. BRDs also cover the problems projects shall solve and how much money they will bring.

Business strategy

A business strategy is a foundation for the whole company. It includes the why, the vision, the mission, the target groups, the business goals and the guiding principles.

Buyer journey (B2B)

Describes a buyer's path to a B2B purchase. Your potential buyers don't wake up and decide to buy on impulse. Instead, they go through a process to become aware of, consider, evaluate, and choose to purchase a new product, solution or service.

Buying roles

Blocker
Prevents progress in the decision-making process.

Budget Holder
Responsible for allocating financial resources for the purchase.

Champion
The passionate advocate (Ambassador).

Decision Maker
The individual with the authority to make the final buying decision.

End User
The person who will directly use the solution/service.

Executive Sponsor
A high-ranked manager who supports the decision-making process.

Influencer
Someone who can sway opinions but does not have final authority.

Legal & Compliance
Responsible for ensuring that the purchase aligns with legal and regulatory requirements.

Other
A role not fitting in any other category. It would help if you tried to avoid it.

Buzzword 

A snappier version of technical jargon and expressions. It can help anyone sound more relevant and demonstrate expert knowledge when used correctly. However, missing it leads to you losing credibility.

Campaigns

organised efforts to promote specific targets, e.g., raising awareness of a product, service, or solution, capturing feedback, or getting new subscribers. Campaigns typically aim to reach consumers in various ways and involve a combination of touch points and media, e.g., email, landing pages, pay-per-click, and social media.

Capital expenditure (CapEx)

Purchases of significant goods, solutions, or services that will be used to improve your company's future performance. CapEx includes the cost of fixed assets and the acquisition of intangible assets such as patents and other forms of technology. Capital expenditures are typically for fixed assets like property, plant and equipment (PP&E).

Channel marketing

Use indirect distribution channels and partners to market your solutions.

ChatGPT

A conversational AI model developed by OpenAI. It uses deep learning, specifically the transformer architecture, to generate human-like text responses based on the input it receives. ChatGPT is built on a large language model, most commonly from the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) series, designed to understand and produce text in a conversational context.

Chitta-bang

To get the whole picture and see how things stand and are related.  Some Zoomers claim that the term was initially coined at Zooma.

Clickbait content-rich result

Visually enhanced search results provide supplemental information to a web page's title, URL, and meta description.

Clickstream data

Refers to the data and information collected while the user navigates a website. This term is discussed in clickstream analytics, which refers to tracking, analysing, and reporting the data about which pages users visit and their on-page behaviour.

Clickstream data provides information about how users navigate a website. Your team can use that data and knowledge to make vital business decisions.

Clickthrough rate (CTR)

The percentage of your online audience clicks through from one part of your website to the next step of your campaign. As an equation, it's the total number of clicks your page or CTA receives divided by the number of opportunities people had to click (e.g., number of pageviews, emails sent, etc.

Cloud computing

Comprehensive digital capabilities delivered via the Internet allow companies to operate, innovate, and serve customers. It also eliminate the need for companies to host digital applications on their servers.

CLTV: CAC

This statistic tells you the ratio between your customer lifetime value and customer acquisition costs (see below for definitions of these terms). It isn't profitable to spend too much on acquiring new customers (for example, in a ratio of 1:1), but this doesn't mean that a higher ratio is always better. When the ratio is too high, you should spend more on sales and marketing so they grow faster since you are restraining your growth by underspending and making it too easy for your competition. To give some context, investors in growing SaaS companies tend to look for a ratio of about 3:1.

Co-branding

A strategic partnership in marketing and promotion between two brands wherein the success of one brand brings success to its partner brand, too.

Cognitive walkthrough

A usability test identifies product, solution, or service design flaws. Participants new to the product, solution, or service are asked to complete a series of actions and are then evaluated on whether or not they can complete those actions. This helps companies improve their offers and align their products with customers' needs.

Comparative advertising 

A technique for presenting a product, solution, or service from your business as superior to a similar product or service from a competitor.

Competitive advantage

A company's characteristics allow it to bring more affordable, higher-quality, or innovative products or services to market than its competitors.

Competitive market analysis

This approach involves researching significant competitors to gain insight into their products, sales, services, and marketing tactics. Conducting a competitive market analysis can help implement a more robust business strategy, ward off competitors, and capture market shares.

Contact

An identified email address in your database.​

Contact data

Information about an individual contact, e.g., name, title, company, and a timeline of interactions.

Contact management

It involves gathering, storing, organising, and administrating contact information. This data primarily originates from customers, potential clients, and other business associates.

Content

Information with a purpose for people is in a form through a channel. Examples of content forms are e.g. text, audio, images, animations, and video.

Content audit

Collecting and analysing online assets, such as landing pages or blog posts. Content audits keep an inventory of a website and provide insight into which content to create, update, repurpose, rewrite, or delete.

Content-based networking

It allows you to reverse-engineer relationships with the people you want to know.
Instead of relying on chance encounters and random in-person events, content-based networking allows you to connect with anyone at any time and from anywhere in the world.

Content creation

Build a content strategy, produce content in different formats, and provide it to your ​targeted audience.​

Content creator

A creator makes and provides content for digital channels targeting a specific end-user or audience, such as websites and social media.

Content creators can create various materials, from blogs, news reports, images, and videos to audio content, emails, and social media updates.

Content curation

Find relevant content from various sources for your target audience and share it through your communication channels.

Content governance

The framework and processes your company uses to manage its content and determine how you create, publish, and maintain it. It defines priorities, provides guidelines, and assigns ownership to people within an organisation to execute your company's content strategy.

Content intelligence

Refers to the application of software that integrates machine learning and artificial intelligence for conducting market analysis on the efficacy of various content types. This assists marketers in devising a well-informed and high-quality content strategy, ensuring its success.

Content management system (CMS)

Sometimes referred to as a web content management system (WCMS). Whether you're running a blog, website, or social media presence, a content management system (CMS) is the backbone of your content. A CMS online application allows you to draft, share, edit, schedule, and index your content. ​Some CMSs use simple editors to create and publish content without requiring coding knowledge. ​

Content manager

A content manager's tasks involve planning, researching, sourcing, writing, and editing exciting content to be published for members and readers. Content managers work with content management software (CMS). The CMS enables the CMS manager to make changes efficiently by clicking a button.

Content map ​

A plan to provide or deliver the right content to the right people when and where they want it. Content mapping considers the characteristics of the personas who will consume the content and their lifecycle stage to meet their challenges and needs with the different types of content they provide.​

Content marketing ​

Is aimed to attract and retain customers by creating and distributing relevant and valuable content, e.g. articles, videos, white papers, guides, and infographics. Created content must be helpful, answer questions, solve problems, entertain, and educate. Therefore, content marketing is a vital technique for companies of all sizes. ​

Content offer

Valuable, relevant, and consistent content for which the persona will exchange their contact information (by filling out a form ​on your website).​

Content planning

The planning process for content creation. From idea ​through production to publishing.

Content population

An expression that means adding content to a website. The content population is how your website design helps to deliver your message, both textually and visually. One of the most critical aspects of the content population is to ensure that metadata is present, relevant, and correct on every web page. Generally, there is a misconception that the content population is an easy copy-and-paste exercise. On the contrary, the content population is a separate phase that requires organisation, preparations, revisions, and reviews. As a result, it can be a considerable, labour-intensive, time-consuming, and challenging task.

Content specification

The specification of content offered for each phase of the ​persona's decision journey.​

Content strategy

A plan in which you use content (video, visuals, audio, and text) to achieve your desired business goals. The right content strategy will attract your target audience at every funnel stage and keep them engaged even after a purchase.

Conversion

It happens when your online visitor completes the goal of your page, such as clicking a CTA button or purchasing. Depending on your web page and business, conversions are defined differently. It could be anything from filling out a form, downloading a content offer, or purchasing a product, solution, or service.

Conversion path

A step-by-step series of clicks a visitor goes through on your website, from the first interaction with you to the goal you're trying to accomplish. It is called a conversion, hence the conversion path; this goal is like a form completion or a transaction.

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO)

The process of improving your website's conversion using design techniques, fundamental optimisation principles, and testing.

Cookies

According to the EU Internet Handbook, a cookie is a small piece of data that a website asks your browser to store on your computer or mobile device. The cookie allows the website to "remember" your actions or preferences over time. Most browsers support cookies, but users can set their browsers to decline them and delete them whenever they like.​

Core values

Define your strengths, show how you want to treat people, what to do to deliver your mission, and follow the vision.

CPIs

Short for customer performance indicators, CPIs are about your customers. They are a quantifiable measurements of a company's performance against the goals most important to the customer. Every customer interaction brings a purpose, problem, challenge, need, intent, or question and high expectations for how quickly or easily that outcome will be realised.

These outcomes must be measured through relevant customer performance indicators (CPIs).

CRM (customer relationship management)

A system or software tracking information and interactions between your company and your potential and existing customers. Numerous people usually access and edit this software or system to improve and optimise the customer experience, automate parts of the sales cycle, and improve communication and interaction.

CRM manager

Responsible for the CRM implementation and advancement of strategies, plans, and systems or software to take your relationships with potential and existing customers to desired heights. They put the bits in place that help you gain new customers and retain your existing ones.

Cross-channel marketing

A method companies are using to connect with customers across multiple channels (i.e. SoMe, email, ads, SMS) creates a logical progression for your target audience to move from one stage to the next. These channels work together and provide context for the messages your persona receives as they go from one channel or touchpoint to the next.

Cross-selling

When you encourage an additional purchase of anything with the primary product, e.g., a mobile phone retailer suggests a customer buy a new case for their new phone.

CSS position property

It is used to specify where an element is displayed on the page. When paired with the top, right, bottom, and left CSS properties, the position property determines the final location of the element.

CSS viewport

The area of a webpage that's visible to the users is fundamental to web development since its dimensions control how page elements appear.

CTA (Call-to-action)

A button you can use on your content to drive potential and existing customers to convert on a form and be added to your contact database. CTAs should always be attractive, action-oriented, and easily located on your pages and emails.

Customer

Your actual, paying customer.​

Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC)

Your CAC is the average amount you spend bringing in one new customer. This is calculated by adding up all your costs for marketing and sales. Make sure to include everything, from salaries and the cost of external agencies to ad spending and software expenses, within a given period. You now have your total marketing and sales costs. The number of new customers you've acquired in that period should also be known. Now, divide your total costs by the number of new customers you got in that period; your cost per acquisition is what you're left with.

Customer advocacy

A type of customer service where the team is focused on what's best for the customers. Essentially, it's a company's culture shifting from company-centric to customer-centric.

Customer case study

Case studies can be in-depth and describe the customer's challenge, the mutual approach, and the outcome.

Customer centricity

A framework and a mindset that fosters positive customer experiences through their customer journeys. The goal of a customer-centric company is to create customer loyalty and advocacy. Anytime a customer-centric company makes a decision, it considers the effect the outcome will have on customers.

Customer-centric marketing

Customer-centric marketing involves including the customer in the company's messaging. User-generated content, customer feedback, and reviews can be used in customer-centric marketing. This approach aims to convert customers into promoters and generate new customers through referrals from word-of-mouth.

Customer-centric selling

An approach tailored to prospects' needs and desires. The process aims to solve problems for the prospect rather than sell a one-size-fits-all package. Customer-centric sales reps will proactively share helpful content through emails, LinkedIn, text, and in-person or virtual events rather than cold-calling prospects.

Customer churn rate

A straightforward metric that shows the percentage of customers who leave your business within a given period. It's a baseline retention metric that provides insight into your company's churn rate. The customer churn rate formula is simple: (Churned customers / Total customers at the start of the period) x 100

Customer effort score (CES)

Measures the amount of effort a customer must expend to complete a specific interaction with your company. The formula is: (Total sum of responses) / (Number of responses) = your CES score.

Customer journey

The process of nurturing existing customers to retain their business.

Customer lifetime value (CLTV)

Your CLTV is the total value a customer brings to your company. Here, you must consider more than just the initial amount a customer spends but also the value they bring to the relationship.

Customer satisfaction

It measures how well a company's products, solutions and services meet or surpass customers' expectations. Customer satisfaction is defined as the number of customers, or the percentage of total customers, whose reported experience with a company, its products, or its services exceeded specified satisfaction goals.​

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

An essential metric used to assess how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction, product, or service offered by a company. The formula is: (Total number of Top 2 responses) / (Total responses) × 100 = Percentage of satisfied customers.

Customer service

The support you offer your customers — before and after they buy and use your products, solutions, or services—helps them have an easy and enjoyable experience with you.

Customer stickiness

Customer stickiness is a robust measure that goes beyond just retention and loyalty. It assesses the probability of a customer selecting your product or service over the competitors.

Customer story

A customer story is an engaging article that integrates testimonial quotes from a happy client or customer praising the work completed.

Customer success

Ensuring your customers achieve desired outcomes when using your products or solutions is less likely to churn.

Customer support

Solving any customer challenge and pain point immediately and effectively via phone, email, live chat, tickets, and social media.

CX (Customer experience)

Your potential and existing customers' impression of your brand throughout all aspects of the buyer's journey. It results in their view and gut feeling of your brand and impacts factors related to your bottom line, including revenue.

Daily data nurturing

To enrich your CRM's contact and company cards, add as much relevant public data as possible about your contacts and companies. 

Data literacy

The essential ability to comprehend the importance of data and how to turn it into insights and value. In a business and commercial context, you'll need to be able to access and work with relevant data, find meaning in the numbers, communicate insights to others, and question the data when required.

Data management

Effective practice of collecting, storing, protecting, delivering, and processing data. In B2B companies, the data is often associated with customers, prospects, employees, deals, competitors, and finances. When B2B companies effectively manage data, they gain insights that drive business decisions.

Data privacy/data governance

GDPR, PECR, and all other aspects of best practices around customer data.

Data synchronisation

Consolidating your data across different devices, sources, and applications while maintaining consistency is an ongoing process for both new and historical data.

Data visualisation

Compiling and organising your data into accessible charts and graphs to communicate trends, outliers, and patterns.

Decision maker

The individual who makes the final decision about a purchase. They are usually guarded by at least one gatekeeper. 

Decision tree

A flowchart starts with one main idea—or a question — and branches out with the potential outcomes of each decision. You can identify the best possible course of action using a decision tree.

Digital

A digitalised format or a process. It describes electronic technology that generates, stores, and processes data. Digital can thus be both online and offline—for example, a digital audio file can be streamed online and stored on a disc or hard drive. ​

Digital asset management (DAM)

DAM is software and systems for organising, storing, and retrieving digital media files such as images and videos, allowing efficient access and distribution.

Digital creator

Someone who creates content across all digital platforms. The content can be videos, photos, graphics, blog posts, or other forms of media, and the platforms can be YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, "X", a website, or any additional digital space. Digital creators produce content meant to engage an audience. Engaging content can include formats like TV show reviews, tutorials, or day-in-the-life vlogs. But no matter their content, a digital creator must produce high-quality, engaging material.

Digital design

Any design that appears in a digital format (e.g., on an app or website) rather than in print (on a physical page) is considered digital.​

Digital events

Conferences, forums, exhibitions, and all other event formats held exclusively via digital platforms.

Digitalisation

Digitalisation is the reimagination of business models, industries, and societies. Based on the capabilities that digital technology makes available to us. Digitalisation is fertile ground for innovation and growth, the impact of which can be disruptive. Examples of companies at the forefront of digitalisation are Amazon, Facebook, Alibaba, Google, and more.​

Digital literacy

Covering the digital skills needed to work, learn, and navigate our everyday lives in the increasingly digital world. With digital literacy skills, you can interact quickly and confidently with technology.

Digital literacy includes skills like:
● Keeping on top of emerging new technologies
● Understanding what technology is available and how you should use it
● Using digital devices, applications, and software – at work, in education, and in your everyday life
● Using digital tools when communicating, collaborating, and sharing information with other people
● Staying secure and safe in a digital environment​

Digital nomads

Remote workers work from different locations. They often work in coffee shops and co-working spaces.

Digital sales

A catch-all term that covers any aspects of your sales process conducted digitally. That can include elements like outreach, sales enablement, or any other key sales activities supported by digital mediums like email, social media, and online reviews and testimonials.

Digital strategy

Focuses on using technology to improve your company's performance, whether by creating new offerings or reimagining processes. The digital strategy is a tier-two version of your business strategy. It specifies the direction the organisation will take to develop and complete competitive advantages with technology and its tactics to achieve these changes.

Digital transformation

Digital transformation is building the capability to explore, experiment, and exploit new opportunities made available by advancements in digital technology. Many companies have started digital transformation programmes, helping them adopt digital practices, processes, technologies, culture, and business models. These programmes are typically spurred on by the ambition to increase efficiencies and profit by digitising their existing businesses. And additionally, to identify new opportunities for growth and competitive advantage through digitalisation.

Digitisation

Digitisation means converting existing products, services, processes, or any other analogue format into a digital format. ​The benefits of digitisation are significant: efficiency, operational excellence, predictability and cost-cutting. Digitisation doesn't affect the underlying business model; it creates a near-perfect copy of its analogue counterpart that can be stored, processed, and transmitted at near-zero marginal costs.​

Direct marketing

A form of advertising where companies communicate directly to their customers through various mediums, including text messages, email, websites, online ads, and flyers. This approach bypasses intermediaries, such as retailers or television commercials, and instead goes straight to the consumer.

Discovery call

The initial call that a sales rep makes to an identified prospect asks them some essential questions to qualify them for the relevant next step.

DRI

DRI stands for directly responsible individual. It's a title given to the person ultimately accountable for a decision or ensuring a project or task is completed.

Drip campaign

A series of messages are sent based on time delays. A typical example is downloading a whitepaper, and a week later, you receive an email asking you to sign up for a webinar. A week later, you receive an email asking you to read a case study, and a week later, an email asking if you want to download a brochure.

Dynamic content

Dynamic content is also referred to as smart content or adaptive content.

A term used for aspects of a website, ad, or email body that change based on the user's historical behaviour and preferences. It creates an experience explicitly customised for the visitor or reader at that moment. Amazon's recommendation engine is one of the best-known examples.

Dynamic pricing

It is also referred to as demand, surge, or time-based.

A price strategy where companies adjust the prices of their offerings to account for changing demand. For instance, an airline will shift seat prices based on seat type, number of remaining seats, and time until the flight.

Earned growth

Revenue growth that is driven by returning customers and customer referrals. It encompasses retained business, upsell opportunities, and revenue generated through customer recommendations.

eCommerce

To buy and sell products, solutions, or services online.

Editorial calendar

A visual workflow that helps your content creators schedule daily, weekly, or monthly work. Editorial calendars can help you track content types, promotional channels, authors, and, most importantly, publish dates.

Embedded media

Digital media that is displayed within another piece of content outside its native setting. ​

Emotional engagement

Content-led engagement and campaign execution, regardless of channel.

Engagement

Engagement refers to messaging, interacting with, or talking to others, mainly on social media. This term encompasses different types of actions on social media, from commenting on posts to participating in chats. At its simplest, online and digital engagement is any interaction with other accounts and users. ​Engagement is a core part of online and digital; your followers expect you to interact with them. ​

Engagement rate

Engagement rate is the percentage of people actively engaging with your content or functionality, e.g., clicking the link, replying, liking, favouriting, and sharing. ​Engagement rate can be a valuable metric to help determine the quality and success of your social media messaging, as it indicates how exciting or useful people found the message.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP)

ERP software integrates and automates core business processes, such as finance, HR, supply chain, accounting, and more, to improve efficiency and decision-making.

Evergreen content

Content that remains relevant and applicable for longer periods. Evergreen content is SEO-optimised to drive website or blog traffic, and the content seldom changes.

Eye tracking

Technology that tracks an individual's eye movements. This technology helps you gain comprehensive insights into where a person is looking, what exactly they're looking at, and for how long.

Feature

A function that can solve a potential buyer's need, challenge, or pain point. Usually, a distinguishing characteristic that helps boost appeal.​

First response time

A measurement of how long it takes for a company to give the first response to a customer's comment or inquiry. Measuring this can be a KPI for customer service because, even if the issue is not resolved immediately, a quick first response demonstrates that the company is listening and willing to help. ​

Flywheel

How you should conceptualise the buying process and the sales process. The flywheel shows awareness, engagement, and delight during customer buying process. The most effective way to achieve growth is by applying force and removing friction in each phase. ​

Form

A place where your online visitors can supply their data and information in exchange for your offer. This is how those visitors may convert into contacts and leads. As a best practice, only ask for the necessary information to follow up with them effectively.

Forum

An online message board where people can hold discussions.​

GA4

This is a shortening of Google Analytics 4. It is an analytics service that lets your company measure website traffic and engagement across your websites and apps.

Gamification

In marketing, gamification incorporates common game elements—scoring points, levelling up, or earning virtual currency—into marketing campaigns to boost user engagement and drive conversions.

Gatekeeper

A role or a person enabling or preventing information from getting to another person(s) in a company.

Generative AI

A type of artificial intelligence that uses algorithms to produce original and realistic content, including text, images, and audio, based on patterns and knowledge extracted from its training data.

Generative research

Research deep into your customers' lives to help you understand their behaviours, experiences, attitudes, and perceptions. This information and input can shape your products, solutions, and services.

Geolocation, geotagging

Tag content with a specific location. GPS-enabled smartphones have made geotagging a core aspect of online communication.​

Geotargeting

This online feature allows users to share their content with geographically defined audiences. Instead of sending generic messages and content, you can refine the messaging and language of your content to be more relevant to people in specific countries, regions, and cities. You can also filter your audience by language.​

Get onlinified!

It's one of the most potent taglines in the world.

Ghostwriting

Writing copy or creating content under someone else's name.

GitHub

An online software development platform that allows developers to upload their code files to store, develop, track, network, and collaborate on software projects. 

Graceful degradation

The practice of creating a website that is feature-rich and compatible with older versions of browsers or browsers that are not compatible. It's best to use this to help create good-looking websites accessible to as many visitors as possible without sacrificing quality.

Grok

A generative AI chatbot developed by xAI, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup. Grok is integrated into the X platform (formerly Twitter).

The term grok was initially coined by author Robert A. Heinlein in his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. It means to understand something in a way that transcends intellectual comprehension deeply.

To "grok" is to grasp the essence of a concept, system, or idea so thoroughly that it becomes a part of you—an intuitive and holistic understanding that combines emotional, intellectual, and experiential insight.

Growth hacking

It is an umbrella term for initiatives focused solely on growth. It is used mainly within early-stage startups that need massive growth in a short time on small budgets.

Growth hacking aims to acquire as many customers as possible while spending as few resources as possible. The term growth hacking was coined in 2010 by Sean Ellis.

Growth marketing

Approach and positioning of marketing as the engine room of business growth. Growth marketing is creating and conducting experiments to optimise and improve the desired results of a target area. For example, if you want to increase a particular metric, growth marketing is a method you can utilise to achieve that.

GUI (A graphical user interface)

A digital interface in which the user interacts with graphical components such as icons, buttons, and menus. In a GUI, the visuals displayed in the user interface convey information relevant to the user and actions they can take.

Hashtag

An octothorpe. The hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the #-sign. Hashtags are a simple way to mark social media content topics and make them discoverable to people with shared interests.​

On most social networks, clicking a hashtag will reveal all the recently published public messages containing that hashtag. Hashtags first emerged on Twitter as a user-created phenomenon and are now used on almost every social media platform.​​

HubSpot

HubSpot is an American company that develops the best software products for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service. It provides software and tools for CRM, social media marketing, sales outreach, content management, web analytics, landing pages, customer support, and search engine optimisation. In addition, HubSpot provides integration features with, e.g., Salesforce, SugarCRM, NetSuite, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

HubSpot also offers third-party services such as templates and extensions. It also provides consulting services and an academy for learning marketing, sales, service, and operational tactics. HubSpot also hosts conferences and certification programmes.

HubSpot CRM

The core of HubSpot is a CRM platform that allows you to track leads and customers at different stages in their journey. HubSpot's CRM is free and comes with various tools, including live chat, dynamic lists, forms for lead capture, and email marketing.

HubSpot CMS Hub

A content management system designed to make website updates, hosting, and infrastructure easy. This easy-to-use platform helps marketers create, update, and optimise website pages independently and allows developers to code sophisticated solutions using their preferred tools. CMS Hub is rooted in our CRM platform, allowing you to build websites with the customer experience in mind.

The CMS Hub is available in three editions: Starter, Professional, and Enterprise. Each plan fits a different budget and includes tools to solve specific customer problems. This means you can find a plan to suit your needs, whether you work for a small business or a booming enterprise.

HubSpot Operational Hub

An operations software designed to help teams connect apps, sync and clean customer data, and automate business processes.

The Operations Hub is available in three editions: Free, Starter, and Professional. Each plan fits a different budget and includes tools to solve specific customer problems. This means you can find a plan to suit your needs, whether you work for a small business or a booming enterprise.

HubSpot Marketing Hub

A marketing automation software designed to help you attract the right audience, convert more visitors into customers, and run complete inbound campaigns at scale. It offers the tools to save time, stay organised, and efficiently engage with your potential and existing customers—all on one powerful, easy-to-use platform.

The Marketing Hub is available in three editions: Starter, Professional, and Enterprise. Each edition is designed to fit a different budget and includes tools to solve specific customer problems. This means you can find a plan to suit your needs, whether you work for a small business or a booming enterprise.

HubSpot Sales Hub

A powerful sales CRM software designed to help you close more deals, deepen relationships, and manage your pipeline more effectively. It offers the tools to boost productivity, shorten deal cycles, and make the sales process more human — all on one easy-to-use platform.

The Sales Hub is available in three editions: Starter, Professional, and Enterprise. Each plan fits a different budget and includes tools to solve specific customer problems. This means you can find a plan to suit your needs, whether you work for a small business or a booming enterprise.

HubSpot Service Hub

Customer service management software enables you to scale your customer support, unite front-office teams, and provide proactive customer service that delights and retains customers. It gives your company one unified view of each customer interaction – all on one powerful, easy-to-use platform.

Service Hub is available in three editions: Starter, Professional, and Enterprise. Each plan fits a different budget and includes tools to solve specific customer problems. This means you can find a plan to suit your needs, whether you work for a small business or a booming enterprise.

Hybrid events

A hybrid event is a conference, seminar, tradeshow, workshop or other meeting that combines a "live" in-person event with a "virtual" online component.

Hyperindividualism

People tend to understand themselves as disparate entities rather than primarily as members of collectives or groups.

Ideal customer profile (ICP).

An ideal buyer profile that identifies the perfect customer for the challenges your company addresses. It represents a hypothetical company that embodies all the qualities that make it an ideal fit for your solutions.

Impressions.

The number of times an ad, sponsored update, or promoted post is displayed.​

Inbound.

At its most basic level, Inbound is a methodology that forces you to only look from the outside. A philosophical way of thinking about people and how to show respect for who they are, their expectations, needs, and challenges.

Inbound marketing.

This business-driven methodology attracts potential and existing customers by providing valuable content and experiences tailored to them. Inbound marketing forms the connections you are looking for and provides answers to their problems and challenges.

Inbound sales.

A personalised, helpful, and modern sales methodology. Inbound sales organisations focus on potential and existing customers' pain points, act as trusted consultants, and adapt their sales approach to the buyer journey.

Influencer.

An influencer can reach a significant audience and drive awareness about a trend, topic, company, or product. The influencer must also be a credible and passionate brand advocate from a marketing perspective. However, influencers often try to remain impartial towards brands to maintain credibility with their audiences. Influencer strategies should involve aligning marketing, sales, customer service, and PR teams.

Influencer marketing

A strategy where companies rely on an influential leader to recommend their product, solution, or service to their target audience. These leaders usually have a large social following or captivate a market segment.

Information architecture (IA)

The way you organise and structure the content of your website.

Instagram engagement rate

Quantitative measurement of how users interact with the content on your profile. It considers your number of followers, likes, comments, and shares. Engagement rates are calculated by dividing an account's likes and comments by the follower count.

Instagram monetisation

Refers to earning money via Instagram through influencer marketing, affiliate programmes, and other practices.

Instagram reel

Video creators share creative and unique content with their audiences. These videos are up to 90 seconds long and are similar to TikTok videos.

Interactive marketing

Interactive marketing, sometimes called event-driven marketing, is a marketing strategy that uses two-way communication channels to allow consumers to connect with your company directly. It is often created with rich content such as videos, images, etc.

Internet

A system of computer networks, i.e., a network of networks in which online users at any connected device can, if they have access, get information from any other connected device.

Internship

It gives an intern (student) the possibility of career exploration and development and learning new skills. It offers the employer the chance to bring new ideas and fuel into the culture and the workplace, develop talent, and build a potential pipeline for future employees.

Java

Sun Microsystems first released a programming language and computing platform in 1995. Java has evolved from humble beginnings to power a large share of the digital world by providing a reliable platform upon which many services and applications are built.

KBIs

Short for key behaviour indicators. Tracking behavioural data on how people act and behave, e.g., the time spent at a touchpoint.​

Knowledge base

An online self-serve library of relevant information about a product, service, solution, or topic. It makes it easy for your customers to find the needed information, so your team can spend less time answering common questions and more time helping customers succeed. Typically, the contributors to your knowledge base are well-versed in the relevant subjects and add content to and expand the knowledge base.

Knowledge base (HubSpot)

The HubSpot Knowledge Base contains information about your products, solutions, or services. It helps your customers find answers and solve problems on their own. If you do this right, a good knowledge base can scale your customer support programme while improving the overall customer experience.

Knowledge content 

Knowledge content is essential in your inbound communication. Sharing the knowledge your offering is based on will make your audience rationally understand the benefits and add credibility and proof to your brand promise. Typically, it's a topic cluster, an article, or a content offer elaborating on a specific topic.

Knowledge leader

Business professionals who have advanced knowledge in a specific field. Authorities in a particular topic or area are uniquely qualified to provide guidance and advice. They are in high demand in companies requiring an approach to change and improve operations, ways of working, and culture.

Knowledge management

Involves documenting, storing, and organising company knowledge.

Knowledge management system

A software platform to maintain and communicate critical knowledge.

Knowledge manager

Responsible for overseeing and maintaining your company's knowledge base. Knowledge managers also distribute information within the company and to external stakeholders.

KPIs

Short for key performance indicators. Measurement of the progress towards achieving the objectives, e.g., 4,000 MQL.​

Landing page

A landing page is used when you want to collect a visitor's contact data in exchange for a resource, like a downloadable presentation. The contact data is collected using a lead capture form where the visitor enters details like their name, email address, and job title.​

Last touch

The last thing a contact did before converting to a new lifecycle stage, e.g., downloaded a content offer or clicked on a SoMe campaign. ​

Latency

The delay between when the browser sends a request to the server and the server processing the request on a network or Internet connection. Latency is usually measured in milliseconds. ​

Lead generation

Attracting potential customers to your company and increasing their interest through nurturing converts them into customers. Some ways to generate leads are blog articles, coupons, live events, and online content.

Lead nurturing

Develop and maintain relationships with customers at every stage of their buying journey. Automated lead nurturing uses software to send messages triggered by customer behaviour or predetermined schedules.

Lead qualification

The process to determine if potential customers have the means and motive to purchase your product, solution, or service.

Leads. 

Potential customers who may be interested in the product, solution, or service you are selling. The total aggregated number of Leads, MQLs, and SQLs in the database. ​

Lead scoring.

The method of assigning values, often numerical points, to each lead you generate for your company.

Lifecycle stages.

Contacts are based on the stage of their decision journey, e.g., Subscriber, Lead, MQL, SQL, Customer, and Evangelist.​

Lifecycle stages (Zooma's)

Lifecycle stage: Visitor
A session to a .com/.xx.

Lifecycle stage: Subscriber
Subscribing to content (e.g., blog, news, product alerts, etc.).

Lifecycle stage: Lead
Completed a lead form at least once (e.g., downloaded 1-2 content offers via landing pages, a chatbot, or completed a quiz), viewed a product or service page at least once, initiated a live chat conversation, or is an offline contact (via import, bcc) not in another lifecycle stage.

Lifecycle stage: MQL
Completed a lead form at least three times (controlled in workflow),
completed a qualified lead form at least once (e.g., event registration, webinar registration, configurator), completed a "talk to an expert" form**, or viewed the pricing or buying page at least once.

Lifecycle stage: SQL
Has requested to "talk to sales" (CTA: Request quote, I want to buy, ask about price, etc.).

Lifecycle stage: Opportunity
Qualified to buy/create an estimate in Deals (second deal stage).

Lifecycle stage: Customer
Closed won in Deals or works for a company that has been paying for the last twelve months.

Lifecycle stage: Evangelist
Has answered 9 or 10 in our NPS survey.

Lifecycle stage: Other
Is looking for a job, is an employee, is an Alumni, is working for a supplier, or is otherwise created as a contact and does not fit in other stages

Like.

To like something on social media. Along with shares, comments, and favourites, likes can be tracked as proof of engagement. Social media algorithms adjust individual content feeds based on like patterns, making for interesting results when consciously meddled with.

LinkedIn company page.

A company page allows you to describe your company to those interested in learning more about it.​

LinkedIn summary.

Often referred to as the LinkedIn bio or the LinkedIn About section. It contains a few paragraphs of text before the LinkedIn member's current and prior roles. LinkedIn has a limit of up to 2,600 words, but only the first three lines are visible on the desktop before a visitor clicks 'See More.'

Live chat.

A tool that connects your potential and existing customers with human support reps. This allows them to resolve issues in real time. Using live chat, they can get answers quickly. They'll spend less time waiting to find a solution or get help.

Local SEO

Improving local search engine visibility for companies, primarily those with brick-and-mortar locations. By following local SEO best practices, companies can improve organic traffic from searches performed by customers in nearby areas.

Lurker

An online user who is observing and not participating. Lurkers make up a large proportion of all online users.

Machine learning

Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that uses computers and software to learn without being explicitly programmed.​

Marketing

The activities a company undertakes to promote buying a solution, product, or service. Marketing includes promotion, advertising, selling, and delivering solutions, products, or services through B2B or B2C channels.

Marketing automation

A technology that enables companies to deliver personalised content to users. Marketing automation is done through various online channels, such as social media, email, and websites. It gives people the information they need and does it consistently at scale when they need it. That's why the 'automation' part is so important. In an ideal system, marketers would set up clever logic for categorising and scoring potential customers and processes for nurturing them with timely content. ​

Then, they put their feet up while the technology takes over, moving leads down the marketing funnel toward a purchase.​ It is much more complicated in practice, so focus on how social media fits into the equation. A marketing automation system always needs new leads at the top of the funnel—otherwise, there's nobody to nurture. Social media and content marketing strategies can attract new inbound leads, fueling the marketing automation engine. Marketers can also make that engine more efficient by using social media data to score their leads accurately.​

Marketing automation tools

Use software to automate repetitive marketing and sales tasks. Some platforms only offer email actions, drip sequences, and CRM updates. Others may help with lead scoring, sales lead rotation, SMS, and more.

Marketing and revenue operations

The skills and knowledge required to develop and optimise marketing technology, align with sales where appropriate, and create a unified view of revenue-related technology

Marketing myopia

A shortsighted and inward approach to marketing that focuses on your business needs rather than the customer's needs.

Martech stack

The management, development, and optimisation of the martech software and tools.

Master data

Unique information describing a company's core entities. It is usually called a golden record or the best source of truth. This also means that the master data concept aligns with the single source of truth approach to data management.

M-CAC: S-CAC

• This statistic shows the ratio between marketing investments (M-CAC) and sales investments (S-CAC) made when acquiring a new customer. Suppose you have a very complex and lengthy sales process; your ratio might be 1:9. However, if you have a self-service or a low-touch sales process, this number might get closer to 3:1. But if your goal is to have a low-touch sales process and your ratio is 1:4, you know that something is going wrong, and you might be overinvesting in sales.

Mention

The act of tagging other users' handles or account names in a social media message. Mentions trigger notifications and are a vital part of what makes social media 'social'. When properly formatted, a mention lets your audience click through to the user's bio or profile. ​

Metaverse

The VR space refers to a VR world where one can explore, meet people, and build alternate realities, appearances, or lifestyles.

Mission

Defines what a company's task or set of tasks is.

Modal

A lightbox, or modal window, is a web page element that displays in front of all other page content. To return to the main content, the users must engage with the modal by completing an action or closing it. Modals are mainly used to direct users' attention to a significant action or information on a website or application.

MQLs

The total number of marketing-qualified leads, i.e., potential customer contacts in our database, have downloaded one or more content offers or submitted the 'Tell me more' form.

MQL-to-SQL-rate

The share of total MQLs who become SQLs.​​

New sales

Sales to a first-time customer who has not purchased anything from you in the last five years. ​

Nofollow link

A hyperlink that includes the "nofollow" attribute (rel="nofollow").

The purpose of the nofollow attribute is to instruct search engines not to transfer link equity, also known as "link juice," through the link. In other words, the website providing the link does not intend to impart authority or credibility to the linked page.

Notification

A message or an update sharing a social media activity, e.g., if somebody likes one of your Instagram photos, you can receive a notification on your phone that lets you know. ​

NPS

Net Promoter Score is an index ranging from +100 to -100 that measures a person's willingness to recommend a company's products or services to others.

Omnichannel

A lead nurturing and user engagement approach in which a company gives access to its products, solutions, and support services to potential and existing customers on all channels, platforms, and devices.

Onboarding

A process aimed at helping new hires understand the organisational structure, culture, values, and their specific roles and responsibilities within the company. It begins from the moment an offer is accepted and can last for several months.​

Online

Someone or something connected to the internet.​

Online customer service 

Addressing customer needs through your digital presence. That can include answering questions, solving problems, or providing support. It includes interactive services – like live chat, email, or social media – and passive services, like your website, chatbot, or knowledge base.

Online ROI

A measurement of the effectiveness of an organisation's or company's investment online. Like any metric for 'return on investment', online ROI is calculated by dividing the total benefits of an investment by the sum of its costs. Therefore, it depends on the costs and benefits factored into the calculation. The metric should align with the business objectives behind an online activity to get relevant value from an ROI calculation. ​​

Online strategy

Adopted by a company to go online and use an online approach for the whole company, including sales, marketing, service and operations. See also digital strategy.

Operational expenses (OpEx)

The cost your company incurs to run its day-to-day operations. Opex must be ordinary and customary costs for the industry in which your company operates.

Organic reach

The number of people recorded as sessions who view your content without paid promotion. The distinction between paid and organic reach is that the latter is free. People come across content through searches, feeds, streams, posts, and their contacts' pages—usually friends, family, colleagues, and trusted brands. ​

Original source

The channel is marked in your database as the origin of contact, e.g., organic search, SoMe, direct traffic, or paid search.

Outbound marketing

A traditional method seeking to push out messaging and suggestions to potential and existing customers. Outbound marketing includes trade shows, seminar series, and cold-calling activities. However, it is costly, and the ROI is much lower than inbound marketing.

Outreach

Engaging with prospects or past customers who have gone cold but may become active. Usually done over the phone, via email, or embedded video in email.

Over-the-top (OTT)

These services refer to any video or streaming media that provides viewers access to movies or TV shows by sending the media directly through the internet. Examples of popular OTT providers are Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.

Paid reach

Refers to the number of individuals that viewed your published paid content, e.g., ads, sponsored stories, and promotional material. Paid reach has a much more extensive network than organic reach, so people usually consume the content outside of specific contact lists. You can target specific messages to groups based on commonalities like location and shared interests. ​

Paid search

Traffic generated from paid search based on the pay-per-click (PPC) model.

Paid social media

The use of social media for ad placements. The most common types are native advertisements such as Ads, Promoted Tweets, Sponsored Updates, and sponsored videos. ​

Permalink

The URL address of an individual piece of content. Permalinks are useful because they allow you to reference a specific tweet, update, or blog post instead of the feed or timeline in which you found it. You can quickly find an item's permalink by clicking on its timestamp. ​

Personalisation

To tailor your communications (inbound or outbound) to meet individuals' specific needs.

Personas

Realistic representations of your desired target groups, with demographics, needs, expectations, and behaviour data.​ They help you focus your time and efforts to suit them and align all work across your company (Marketing, sales and service).

Pillar page

A comprehensive page that covers one topic in depth. This page links to high-quality content for supporting subtopic keywords. A pillar page should apply on-page SEO best practices, referencing the topic in the page title, URL, and H1 tag. Content on a pillar page should also be adapted to convert visitors since all your supporting content links back here.

Pipeline value

The total combined value of every opportunity in the sales pipeline at a given time. Although this can be a useful metric, it's essential to be consistent and distinguish between qualified leads and those unlikely to become customers. Otherwise, your calculated pipeline value will be unrealistic.

Pitch (Business pitch)

Presenting an idea to a group of people who can help make the idea a reality. You can pitch to an investor who can help fund your idea or customers who will pay for your product, solution or service.

Plugin

A software extension that adds a specific feature to an existing software application. A good example is the Grammarly plugin, which checks your spelling and grammar. You can add it to your browser (Chrome and Safari) to help you write better when you are online, and it can also be installed in, for instance, Microsoft Word.​

Podcast

The name originates from iPod and broadcasts and dates back to early 2000. It was at the time known as audio blogging. Today, podcasts are audio files and videos distributed online, subscribed to, streamed or downloaded through RSS. ​

Podcast host

The person who coordinates the conversation is sometimes referred to as the middleman between the guests and the listeners of the podcast. 

Podcast listeners

The total number of listeners to your podcasts.

Positioning

The desired positioning of the brand and its uniqueness and distinctive vs competitors.

Positioning statement

The most important message about the company and its offering.

Post

A status update or an item on a blog or forum. ​

Product information management (PIM)

The technology can perform tasks requiring human-like intelligence, such as learning, problem-solving, and decision-making.

Promoter

A contact who advocates for you and gives your company a 9 or 10 score on your latest NPS.​

Prompting

Stimulating a response or encouraging an action through a question, statement, or instruction. 

Purchase intent

A potential or existing customer's readiness to buy from your company.

Purpose

A purpose statement provides the reason or reasons you exist. It is about why you exist.

QR code (quick response code)

A kind of 2D bar code is used to provide easy access to information through smartphones. Through this process, called mobile tagging, the smartphone owner points the phone at a QR code and opens a link which works in conjunction with the phone's camera.

Reach

Reach is the metric that determines the potential audience size any given message could reach. It tells you the maximum number of people your content could potentially reach. Reach is determined by a complex calculation that includes the number of followers, impressions, and shares and the net follower increase over time. Please distinguish it from Impressions or engagement. ​

Real-time marketing

Developing content on the fly for local online or offline events.

Recommendation (on LinkedIn)

Used to describe a text from another LinkedIn member that aims to reinforce the user's professional expertise or credibility.

Referral marketing

A tactic to turn your loyal customers into true brand ambassadors.

Reply

A response to someone. Unlike messaging, replies are public or semi-public. When you click the reply button next to a post (former Tweet), you're ensuring the conversation will be viewable in the public area of your profile.

Response rate

An engagement metric to assess how much you interact with your audience. To calculate the response rate, take the number of replies to mentions in a given period and divide it by the number of mentions you have received.

Responsive design

The goal of responsive (web) design is to have web pages automatically change the layout accordingly and appear in an optimised form on all devices.​

​Retargeting

Retargeting is an advertising technique targeting online visitors interested in your products or services. When visitors visit your website, you can target them by visiting other websites, including Facebook, news sites, blogs, or other online media. The rationale is that proven visitors are your best chance to do business, so instead of advertising to strangers, you use your budget on prospects who have shown interest. Other advanced uses include;

• Targeting custom audience segments (using data you've collected from other sources such as a CRM system or Facebook).
• Offering shoppers who abandoned your check-out a special deal to come back.
• Building lists of valuable prospects to target (such as visitors who viewed 25+ blog posts and visited specific product pages).

​Return on investment (ROI)

A performance measure that you shall use to evaluate the efficiency or profitability of your investments or when you want to compare the efficiency of several investments. ROI tries to directly measure the return on a particular investment relative to the investment's cost. ROI includes CapEx and Opex.

To calculate ROI, the return on investment is divided by the cost of the investment. The result is usually expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

Revenue operations (RevOps)

An operating model that has gained momentum in the last few years. At its core, revenue operations is an end-to-end management process for aligning marketing, sales, and customer service to increase revenue by providing higher customer value.

RSS feed

A group of web feed formats is used when publishing frequently updated content, such as blogs and videos, in a standardised format. Content creators can syndicate a feed when they publish, enabling users to subscribe to content and read it when they want from a location other than the website, e.g., Feedly.

RSS reader

Allowing online users to aggregate articles from multiple websites into one place using RSS feeds. The purpose of these aggregators is to allow more efficient and faster information consumption.

SaaS (Software as a Service)

A software distribution model gives customers access to online applications rather than requiring physical media and custom installation. SaaS is centrally hosted by the provider, who automatically maintains and updates the software. The customers access and use them via web browsers and mobile devices.

Sales (B2B)

A process intended to result in a transaction between two or more companies in which the buyer accepts the offering and the seller gets value in return, usually money.

Sales analysis

Analysing specific trends, parts, or components impacting your company's sales operations. Diverse analyses provide extraordinary insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your company's sales team, individual sales reps, sales management, or overall sales approach and way of working.

Sales development representatives (SDRs)

Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) are inside sales representatives specialising in sales enablement through data nurturing, prospecting, and outreach. SDRs may be employed within either the marketing or sales teams. Their responsibilities should include:

• Providing segmented and enriched contact and company data, a task that is instrumental in the success of our sales and marketing efforts. Conducting initial scans, outreach, and connection efforts.
• Delivering business contacts with relevant content and functionality.
• Equipping the sales team with the resources (content, data, and leads) needed to enhance buyer relevance and close more deals significantly impacts the team's performance.
• Ensuring lead quality and alignment with sales. Their work in handing over qualified leads and reintegrating contacts into the sales enablement framework if or when they turn cold is crucial to the smooth functioning of our sales process.

Sales enablement

Sales enablement is a systematic method for providing sales teams with essential tools, content, training, and information to engage buyers at every stage of their decision journey effectively. This approach aims to boost sales productivity and performance by empowering sales representatives to have meaningful and relevant discussions with potential and existing customers. This results in increased conversion rates, more streamlined sales cycles, and greater customer satisfaction.

Sales enablement strategy

The approach your company takes to provide the sales organisation with the resources they need to sell effectively. You must tailor the sales enablement strategy to your specific sales organisation's needs so they can target your audience, become more relevant, and close more business deals. The approach should include an analysis of the resources, tools, content, data, and information you provide sales with to ensure it's helping them convert more leads and audience members into customers.

Salesforce

Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM solution that simplifies the process for companies to discover more prospects, close additional deals, and engage with customers, enabling them to deliver scalable services.

Salesforce can unify all your data, regardless of its source. It combines your sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT teams with a shared view of customer information. With artificial intelligence seamlessly integrated across all its products, Salesforce enhances productivity across your organisation and empowers you to provide the personalised experiences your customers value.

Sales funnel

Mirrors and visualises the actual path your potential customers take to become customers. It describes the stages of the customer journey, from the first touch to the closed deal.

Sales motion

A standardised and structured way of selling that aims to make the process more effective, predictable and scalable. It combines your company’s techniques and tactics to attract prospects, understand their needs, present suitable solutions or services, close deals and build profitable relationships. The better you understand and refine these activities, the more empowered and in control you’ll feel over your sales process. This understanding starts with awareness of a sales motion’s key components.

Sales presentation

A presentation, such as PowerPoint or Keynote, is mainly used to supplement a sales pitch. The sales pitch given by a sales rep to a potential or existing customer often includes an overview of the product, solution, or service, a value proposition, and examples of success stories from other clients.

Sales pitch

Signifies a thorough plan or ensemble devised to address a unique problem or meet a particular customer need. Usually, solutions are a fusion of products, services, and, at times, software or technology, all methodically put together to give a complete answer to a specific challenge. The key aim of a sales pitch is to deliver an all-encompassing resolution rather than present individual components.

Sales process

A sales team or rep takes a series of repeatable steps to move potential customers from an early-stage lead to paying customers. A robust sales process helps reps consistently close deals by giving them a framework to follow.

Sales velocity

Measure how quickly sales deals move through your pipeline and generate revenue. A sales velocity equation uses four metrics: the number of opportunities, average deal value, win rate, and length of the sales cycle. The equation determines a company's sales velocity and how much revenue it can expect to generate over a certain period.

Sandbox

A software-testing environment that isolates untested code changes and experimentation. This isolation protects live servers and their data from changes that could be damaging.​

Scheduling

Planning content updates and content ahead of time using a publishing tool. Scheduling allows practitioners to save time in their daily work by scheduling several messages simultaneously, sometimes as part of a publishing approval process. It enables them to reach audiences in different time zones and organise extended marketing campaigns.

Schema.org

A collaborative community activity with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet, web pages, email messages, and beyond.

Screenshot

When a photo is taken of screen activity. ​

​Search engine marketing (SEM)

Use paid advertising to ensure your company's products, solutions, or services are visible on search engine results pages (SERPs). When a user types in specific keywords, SEM enables your company to appear as a result of that search query.

​Services

Pertain to the non-material provisions supplied by businesses to their clientele. These may encompass a diverse range of offerings such as consultancy, upkeep, support, training, or any other professional guidance designed to accommodate the unique needs or stipulations of the client.

Sequences (HubSpot)

Using the HubSpot sequences tool, you can send a series of targeted, well-timed email templates to nurture contacts or follow up with them. When a contact replies to an email or books a meeting, they will automatically unenroll from the sequence.

Sequences automate communication with contacts and leads by using a mix of personalised, timed emails and task reminders. You will create a HubSpot sequence using email templates and tasks.

Sentiment analysis

Computationally identifying and categorising opinions expressed in a text is primarily used to determine whether the content writer's attitude towards a particular topic, product, etc., is positive, negative, or neutral.

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) increases web pages 'organic visibility in search engines like Google. Although companies can pay to promote their websites on search engine results pages (Search Engine Marketing, or SEM), SEO refers to 'free' tactics that enhance a page's search ranking. ​

SERP (Search engine results page)

A web page that search engines return with the results of their search. The major search engines display three types of listings on their SERPs: 

• Listings indexed by the search engine's spider
• Listings indexed into the search engine's directory by a human, and 
• Listings are paid to be listed by the search engine.

Sessions

A session is a measurement of visitor engagement that combines analytics activities a visitor takes to your website. It expires after thirty minutes of inactivity. ​

Share

When content is reposted on a social media site through another user's account. ​

Share of voice

Share of voice is a metric for understanding how many social media mentions a particular brand receives about its competition–usually measured as a percentage of total mentions within an industry or among a defined group of competitors. ​

Short form videos

A video under 60 seconds is considered short-form, with the optimal length between 31 and 60 seconds.

Shoulder mate

A trusted colleague with whom you can openly share ideas, discuss challenges, and think aloud to get feedback or different perspectives. This term emphasises the close, supportive relationship between two Zoomers in a professional setting, highlighting their role in providing mutual support and encouragement. A shoulder mate acts as a sounding board for ideas, offers constructive criticism, and helps brainstorm solutions to problems, contributing to a collaborative and productive work environment.

Single source of truth (SSOT)

A philosophy for collecting data across your enterprise and aggregating it into a central repository.

Slogan

An attention-grabbing statement used to promote or advertise a brand's products, solutions, and services. These phrases share the company's reason for existing and its overall mission to the public. Companies use slogans to tell customers what they want them to associate their brand with.

Snippet (HubSpot)

Snippets are reusable text blocks used in HubSpot on contact, company, deal, ticket records, email templates, chat conversations, and logging activities or notes.

Social customer service

The practice of identifying and resolving customer service issues on social media. Social customer service should be coordinated internally across departments so an organisation can respond rapidly to any customer inquiry on any channel. The most effective social customer service is proactive. Also, when fielding inbound messages, the organisation monitors social media for keywords that could indicate customer service issues. The organisation then resolves the potential problems before they escalate, creating higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.​

Social listening

Centralising conversations about your brand so that you can join them.

Social media (SoMe)

Short for social media.​

Social media audit

A hard look at the data from your social accounts and conversations about your company and competitors.

Social media listening

Finding and assessing what is said about a company, topic, brand, or person on social media channels. ​

Social media management

Business and technology processes for securely managing social media accounts, engaging audiences, and measuring the business results of social media activities. Effective social media management is vital to conducting business on social media. It enables an organisation to keep track of its social media accounts and provides various teams and individuals with the appropriate access levels to these assets. When implemented at scale across departments and regions, coordinated social media management practises allow everyone within the organisation to collaborate and achieve measurable outcomes on social media.​

Social media marketing

Social media increases brand awareness, generates leads, and builds meaningful relationships with prospects and customers. Social media marketing must be well-coordinated with customer service, management, and social selling activities to create a seamless connection with prospects and customers across their buying process. Social media is just one channel in the overall mix, but social media marketing programmes must be fully integrated into multi-channel strategies. ​

Social media monitoring

Listening and responding to brand and keyword mentions on social media. Social media monitoring is crucial to customer service, social selling, marketing, and community management. ​ ​

Social media reach

The total number of followers on your social media touchpoints.​

Social media Service Level Agreement (SLA)

The agreement a company makes to answer social media responses in a specific time frame.

Social monitoring

Measures reputation from a higher-level perspective.

Social responsibility

Companies show care and value for society and the planet in addition to, or equal to, how much care is directed to their profits and their bottom line. (Often referred to as CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility)

Social selling

When a salesperson provides value by offering thoughtful content and answering questions for potential and existing customers.

Or someone who uses social media to increase relationships, productivity, and revenue. Sellers can leverage social media to enhance their reputations, expand their interpersonal networks, and attract new prospects. They can also identify buyers by listening and engaging in online spaces where potential customers conduct research and ask for advice. ​

Solutions

Denotes a comprehensive strategy or set tailored to tackle a distinct issue or satisfy a specific client requirement. Typically, solutions are an amalgamation of products, services, and, occasionally, software or technology, all curated to deliver a holistic response to a particular obstacle. The principal objective of a solution is to provide a full-circle resolution rather than merely offering discrete elements.

SoMe-reach-to-visit-rate

The share of visitors onsite originating from SoMe.​​

SQLs

The total number of sales-qualified leads that you shall nurture to become real sales opportunities in your CRM. ​

SQL-to-customer rate

The share of total SQLs that become customers. ​

Strategy

Google will tell you that a strategy is a plan of action. For Zooma, a strategy is a set of steering principles that provide the foundation for all your decisions, actions and plans.

Subscriber

This is about contacts who have opted to subscribe to a blog or hub, a newsletter, or any other alert for which they must provide an email address.

Super app

A super app is a mobile or web application consolidating diverse services and features into one platform designed to meet most users' everyday requirements. Rather than juggling multiple apps, users can access various services—such as messaging, social networking, e-commerce, financial services, ride-hailing, and food delivery—all from a single, integrated interface.

Survey

A research method to gather information, data, and feedback from a group of people using a series of targeted questions. Most surveys intend to make assumptions about a larger population. However, surveys can be designed in several ways based on the researcher's goals and topic areas of interest.

Tag

A keyword is added to an online or social media post to categorise related content. Tags can also refer to tagging someone, which creates a link to their profile and associates them with the content.​

Tagline

A tagline is a brief phrase that relays your brand's value. Companies use taglines in campaigns to create a lasting impression on customers. Taglines tell customers about the overall company without mentioning the product, solution, or service.

Target accounts

A target account is a company you seek to attract, nurture, and convert. It can be an existing customer or a desired customer. With an account-based approach, you select a defined group of ´target companies that are an excellent fit for your company's solutions.

Target audience

A group of customers characterised by behaviour and specific demographics, e.g., extreme female athletes between the ages of 18 and 25. Target audiences are a pillar of most businesses, influencing decision-making for marketing strategy. For example, they often decide where to spend money on ads, how to appeal to customers, and what product to build next.

Target groups

The group of potential and existing customers and other stakeholders we aim for with our marketing, sales, and service efforts​

​Target customer

An individual will likely buy your product, solution, or service. A target customer is a subset of the target market. For example, if your target market is male HR managers between the ages of 25 and 45, a target customer could be male HR managers aged 25 to 30.

Target market

A group of customers for whom your products, solutions, and services aim. It represents a subset of the sector's larger market and is first defined by industry (such as telecom, healthcare, technology, etc.). It's often based on behavioural tendencies, geographic location, and demographic characteristics.

Tech stack

A group of tools that help companies to market efficiently, operate effectively, and enable sales and service teams to provide the optimal customer experience.

The Flywheel

When you align your entire business around providing a remarkable customer experience, you will gain momentum, according to a model that HubSpot has adopted. It is excellent at storing and releasing energy, and that's important when considering your business approach.

The Pareto principle (The 80/20 Rule)

80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.

Thought leader (a.k.a. Evangelist)

A thought leader is someone whose expertise in a specific area is highly respected and in demand by co-workers, colleagues, clients, customers, and competitors. Thought leadership generally pioneers new ideas or theories rather than following conventional knowledge — one of the most misused formulations in the B2B world.

Thread

Threads are essential to most online communication, e.g., social media, forums, and emails. Putting messages into context or keeping track of ongoing conversations without threads is challenging.​

Topic clusters

Clusters are groups of related web pages linking to one core pillar page. Organising your site content into clusters helps search engines distinguish your area of expertise and better understand the relationship between these pages.

Creating a topic cluster involves three main components:

• A pillar page with a content offer
• Cluster content or subtopics
• Hyperlinks 

Topical content

It is timely, relevant, and regularly updated. It pertains to events that occurred or insights, experiences, information, and data discovered recently and is an excellent way to capture user attention.

Traffic source

The actual domain (website or platform) that sends traffic to a website.

Training

Is focused and specific, concentrating on developing the skills and knowledge required to perform high-quality tasks. Training can be part of the onboarding process but also extends throughout an employee's tenure at a company as part of continuous professional development. 

Transformation

When you fundamentally change your business operations to align better with your organisation's goals.

Trend

A topic or hashtag is popular on social media at a given moment. Social networks such as "X" (former Twitter) and Facebook highlight trends to encourage user discussion and engagement. "X" first popularised the concept, which Facebook and other networks have since adopted. The "X" and Facebook trends are personalised based on your location, whom you follow, or what pages you like.

UI

UI designers are responsible for the look and feel of the product's interface. This includes the colours, fonts, spacing, and anything else you can see and interact with in an interface. UI picks up where UX leaves off by transforming its research and insight into customer needs into a functional and appealing interface.

UI (User interface) design

involves the creation of a visually appealing and interactive interface for an application. It encompasses the overall appearance of the app, including the colours, text, buttons, and animations that users interact with. It is the UI designer's responsibility to ensure that the user interface captures the essence of the product and enhances the overall user experience.

Upselling

When you encourage customers to purchase a comparable, higher-end product than the one in question.

URL

The location of a page or other resource on the internet/the World Wide Web. This acronym stands for Uniform Resource Locator.​

User-generated content (UGC)

Content created and published online by the users of a social media community or a collaboration platform, often produced in collaboration and in real time by multiple users. ​Many companies embrace and encourage user-generated content to increase brand awareness and brand loyalty. Instagram contests, video contests, and other UGC-based campaigns allow companies to tap into their prospects' and customers' creative energies and use their contributions to fuel marketing strategies. ​

UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) codes

Incorporating text snippets (UTM codes) at the end of your URLs enables you to effortlessly track the origin of your website traffic when users click on a link. Customising this text to align with your webpage is essential. These uniquely crafted URLs allow you to attribute the success of your campaign to specific pieces of content, providing invaluable insights for your marketing strategies.

UX (User experience)

Short for user experience. It is the user's experience with a company, its website, products, solutions, and services.

UX design (User experience design)

Increasing a user's satisfaction with a product, solution, or service by improving functionality, ease of use, and convenience.

UX writing

Creating customer-facing text and copy for user interfaces. UX writers plan and make the text, guiding users through a digital product, application, or website.

Video script

Contains the dialogue, plans, and action for your video. It's a crucial tool that gives you and your team colleagues cues and reminders about your video's goal, timeline, and desired results.

Virtual event platform

A digital tool that enables users to plan, promote, and host virtual events, such as webinars, conferences, and workshops.

Vision

It tells how the company will be seen in a future business context.

Visits

The total number of visits to a.com/.xx​

Visit-to-contact-rate

The share of total visitors on a website who become contacts.​

Visit-to-MQL-rate

The share of total visitors on a website who become MQLs.​

Vlog

Short for video logs or video blogs. Instead of using text and images, a video is embedded on a website or uploaded to a video platform.​

Voice search

A technology that allows the user to use a voice command to search on the Internet, a website, or an application.

VR (Virtual reality)

Software immerses a user in a three-dimensional, virtual and interactive environment — usually by a headset with special lenses — to simulate real-life experiences. Most VR experiences take place in 360 degrees.

Web3

The third generation of the internet is a vision of a more decentralised web that places the power in the hands of users instead of large tech companies. It's built on blockchains using existing infrastructure to make the internet more accessible, private, and secure for users.

Web analytics

To understand and optimise web usage and the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of web data.​

Web forms

In an HTML or web form, users enter their data and personal information, which is then sent to and processed on a server. For example, online users can share their name and email address to sign up for a subscription or place an order.

Website audit

Examine your web page performance before large-scale search engine optimisation (SEO) or a website re-design. Auditing your website determines whether or not it's optimised to achieve your traffic and conversion goals and gives you how and what you should improve to reach those goals.

Website taxonomy

The structure used for a website organises content logically so users can easily navigate the website and understand its purpose. This may look like different sections and pages within a website or categories within a blog.

Whitepaper

An authoritative, sometimes persuasive, in-depth report on a specific topic which presents a problem and provides a solution.

Wireframe

The purpose is to map out the user interface (UI) elements as you plan to display them, see how they relate according to proximity and function, and how they help users achieve their goals through using your product. The wireframe should help you focus on what's essential in your design's foundation and empower you to be flexible in moving elements around before committing to specific design elements.

Word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM)

It relies on audiences that organically share the word about brands. WOMM takes many forms. It often includes a customer mentioning a product to friends or a conversation about a brand between family members.

Workflow (HubSpot)

The HubSpot workflow tool automates your sales, service, marketing, and internal processes. Workflows are used for several processes where specific criteria are met, and HubSpot sets a specified list of actions into motion.

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) sitemap

A term for the file that lists all the URLs on your site. This file works like a map that helps search engines crawl your.com/.xx more intelligently. In addition, some plugins can help create an XML sitemap.

XR (cross-reality or extended reality)

A catchall term for some different but related technologies, rolling together similar acronyms like VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), and MR (mixed reality). Once you know that tidbit, understanding XR gets a whole lot simpler.

You

You must say 'you' and talk directly to your audience, users, and customers in your messages. The message needs to be about them.

YouTube shorts

Vertical, short-form videos that you can create or view on YouTube. You can enhance Shorts with features like video segmenting, app-based recording, and musical overlays. Shorts must be 60 seconds or less and not disappear like Instagram Reels or Snapchats.

Zooma

To zoom in Swedish! Also, the onlinification and digitalisation agency!​

Zooma packages

Something pre-defined that does not change/alter based on what you want. The scope and budget are limited, and the timeline is defined.

Zooma services

The services can be adapted, made" bespoke", and adjusted to your wants and needs. We explain how we typically do it, but there is more than one way based on your situation.

Zooma solutions

All solutions are needs- or challenge-based, making it easier for you and your company to do business.

Zoomers

The people who work in Zooma.

Want to know more?

Through our digitalisation guide: what, why, when and how to use it, you'll find much more to read!

In this PowerPoint, you can find our digital definitions. Then, you can use it to build your internal terminology for digital terms and expressions.