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If you're trying to get into the world of B2B marketing, you may be feeling overwhelmed by all the industry terminology. Don't worry - we've got you covered! In this blog post, we'll provide you with a cheat sheet of all the must-know terminology so you can become a B2B marketing pro in no time. Read on to learn more!
Introduction to B2B Marketing Terminology
B2B marketing terminology is an important part of understanding and navigating the world of business-to-business marketing. It's important to understand the various terms and acronyms used in the industry so you can effectively communicate with your customers and partners. Mobile optimisation is one of the most important terms in the B2b glossary, as mobile devices are becoming more and more popular for business transactions. Being mobile-friendly is essential for any business, so understanding mobile optimisation is key to achieving success in B2b marketing. By having an optimised mobile experience, businesses can reach more customers and better engage with them. Ultimately, mobile optimisation is essential for any business that wants to stay competitive in today's market.
To help you get up to speed, here are some of the most common B2B marketing terms and their definitions:
Lead Generation - The process of acquiring new leads for a business through various methods such as direct contact, online campaigns, content creation, or other forms of advertising; Prospecting – The process of identifying potential customers who may be interested in your product or service; Lead Nurturing – The process of nurturing leads throughout the sales cycle by providing relevant information and offers that will help move them closer to making a purchase Moreover, with the introduction of Chatbot technology, lead nurturing has become even easier. Chatbots can be programmed to provide personalized offers to leads that have been identified and qualified as prospects, allowing businesses to engage with potential customers in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. By taking advantage of Chatbot technology, businesses are able to build relationships with prospects and increase their chances of closing a sale.
A-C: Essential Marketing Terms
A/B Testing: A/B testing is a method of comparing two versions of a webpage, email, or other digital asset to measure the performance of one against the other. This helps marketers understand which version performs better, helping them make data-driven decisions about their marketing efforts. Predictive Content and Qualified Leads are also important to understand in the context of B2B marketing. Predictive Content is a method of using trends and insights to serve relevant content to the right customers at the right time. Qualified Leads are defined as prospects who have provided contact information and indicated interest in a product or service, making them a higher value lead compared to an unqualified lead. With the help of A/B testing, Predictive Content, and Qualified Leads, effective B2B marketing strategies can be developed and improved upon.
[button link="https://funnelfuel.io/b2b-web-analytics/" type="big" color="black" newwindow="yes"] Journey by FunnelFuel is a 'central nervous system' for B2B marketing, providing enterprise-class analytics, 24/7 media optimisation and conversion rate optimisation tools, including A/B testing, heat-maps and session recordings. Click here to learn more (opens in a new tab/window to not interrupt your reading of this glossary article)[/button]
Account Based Marketing is a B2B marketing approach which addresses pre-defined accounts and tailors the marketing message to the stage of the funnel that the client is in, including post purchase. Learn more here in our 'in a nutshell' series - what is ABM?
Go deeper: 5 pro tips to win at Account Based Marketing in 2023
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO): Conversion rate optimisation is the process of improving the performance of webpages or emails so that more visitors take desired actions such as making a purchase or subscribing to an email list. By understanding user behavior and improving conversion rates, marketers can grow their business. Predictive Content, the presentation of content to users based on their interests, can dramatically increase the effectiveness of CRO. Similarly, Qualified Lead generation strategies allow marketers to create meaningful leads which can be converted into customers more quickly. In this way, CRO helps to improve overall ROI and make marketing activities more efficient.
Call-To-Action (CTA): A call-to-action (CTA) is any element on a website or in an email that encourages users to take an action, such as filling out a form, subscribing to an email list, downloading an asset, or making a purchase. CTAs are essential for driving conversions and achieving marketing goals Thereafter, dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) is a term used to describe the process of personalising a website or email with dynamic content based on user data. By identifying relevant CTAs for each user segment, DCO can help to drive better performance and better conversion rates. Understanding the fundamentals of call-to-action (CTA) is essential for marketing teams who want to take advantage of DCO and all its advantages.
[learn_more caption="FunnelFuel Co-Founders Insight On The Importance Of CTA Optimisation "] Insight from FunnelFuel's co-founder, Mike Harty: Talking CTA texts sounds like an almost stupidly small point in the grand scheme of B2B marketing, but we operate in a highly competitive space where winning ITDM attention is ever-harder. Marginal gains from exploring different CTA messages and text/button colour combinations DOES make a big difference. Interaction movements of 0.5% at scale add-up, meaning if you can optimise the page so 0.5% more people who read it end up clicking your button, then we're talking about 0.5% more prospects turning into MCL's and flowing through your funnel, or 0.5% more sales calls or 0.5% more free trials. Our Journey analytics products anonymously [ie without looking at specific sites, instead pulling all the data to a top level view for analysis] tracks a lot of web based actions on B2B websites, across both pure-play publishing and client sites. Anonymous exploration of this data shows that the clients who use our Journey tools to explore the impact of testing different CTA texts are the ones who are generating the most ROI from their marketing efforts, across both paid media and organic. [/learn_more]
D-F: Must-Know Concepts
“D” stands for Demand-Side Platform (DSP), which is a type of software used by advertisers to buy ads programmatically. Users of this platform can manage and track ROI, view analytics, and compare different data sources, as well as segment their audience and tailor messaging for particular segments. Audience segmentation is an important tool in the demand-side platform, allowing advertisers to reach their target audiences more effectively. With audience segmentation, they can adjust their ad placement so that their message reaches the right consumers at the right time. The demand-side platform is a powerful resource for any business trying to maximise the impact of their advertising campaigns.
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“E” stands for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). This system helps businesses manage and integrate their many different processes into one central system with the goal of increasing efficiency and decreasing costs. An ERP system provides the structure that business needs to better track and manage data, streamline operations, and improve customer relationships. This powerful tool can be used to track inventory, manage supply chain, and optimise accounting functions, and the best ones integrate back into your marketing stack to ensure that marketing matches the current capabilities of the business. With an ERP system in place, businesses can make quicker decisions based on up-to-date data in order to maximise efficiency and profitability. As such, this tool is invaluable for any business looking to increase their operational efficiency.
“F” stands for forecasting, which is the process of predicting future market trends based on past performance and other factors. To accurately forecast future market trends, businesses must have a solid understanding of their industry landscape as well as customer needs and preferences Thereafter, TOFU and MOFU are important acronyms to keep in mind when applying your forecast future market trends to your current new business led marketing tactics. TOFU stands for "top of funnel", which is the beginning stage of the customer journey when they are just exploring options and getting familiar with their needs. MOFU stands for "middle of funnel" and refers to the customer's attempt to elucidate what they need and determine their buying criteria. TOFU helps with identifying potential customers or prospects, while MOFU focuses on providing targeted information that helps customers make decisions. Forecasting future market trends requires a thorough understanding of TOFU and MOFU, so businesses must have a solid understanding of their industry landscape as well as customer needs and preferences.
G-I: Critical Strategies
G-I critical strategies involve making decisions that are designed to result in long-term success and sustainability by evaluating the risks and rewards of each potential move. Blocklisted IPs are a prime example of such a risk assessment. Blocklisted IPs refer to IP addresses that have been identified as either malicious or suspicious by ISPs or other authorities, or if you're doing named account targeting / ABM using IP targeting, this can indicate that IP data isn't available in a particular environment. As businesses operate in a globally connected environment, it is important for organisations to understand the risks of Blocklisted IPs and put into place strategies to mitigate them. These strategies may include regularly monitoring Blocklisted IPs and enforcing security protocols, such as two-factor authentication, to ensure the safety of data and information.
For example, organisations can use G-I strategies to determine what changes should be made to their business operations, marketing tactics, and technology implementations in order to stay competitive over time Next, TOFU (Top of the Funnel) and MOFU (Middle of the Funnel) are two important acronyms that organisations should keep in mind when creating their G-I strategies. As we stated above, TOFU is the initial step in the buying process, while MOFU is where companies can get more specific with their offers and start to build relationships with potential customers. By understanding TOFU/MOFU and how it fits into their G-I strategies, organisations can set themselves up for success in staying competitive over time.
J-L: Crucial Mechanics and Processes
J Curve: A graph that illustrates the relationship between the total cost of a project and its timeline. The ‘J’ shape of the graph is due to the fact that many projects begin with a large investment upfront followed by lower costs as the project develops, before increasing again in its final stages. Not always associated with marketing, but it does have a strong crossover, especially in B2B. It is invaluable to businesses when approaching their marketing efforts, as it can be used to pursue dynamic creative optimisation (requires a full top of funnel to begin segmentation) and for businesses who are launching a new product or service, whereby fast and significant early exposure is key, followed by a strong push to bring nurtured accounts to a close. By plotting out the project timeline and cost, businesses can make informed decisions about their budget and adjust accordingly. The J Curve is a major part of any B2b glossary and essential for successful marketing management.
Kanban: A scheduling system developed by Toyota whereby work is organised and tracked through visual cues such as cards or boards. Kanban helps teams manage their workflow efficiently by providing them with an easy way to track progress, organise tasks, and identify potential bottlenecks in production processes. smart B2B marketers are taking Kanban approaches and applying them to their marketing funnels, using them to apply lead scoring and to drive creative decisioning to make their messages clearer.
M-Z: The Nitty Gritty of B2B Marketing
Using Marketing Automation to Streamline Messaging: By using marketing automation, you can easily create targeted messages for specific groups and individuals, which increases the effectiveness of your B2B marketing efforts. Marketing automation platforms such as HubSpot, Marketo and Oracle Marketing Cloud enable you to streamline your B2B communication process, allowing you to plan and execute campaigns more efficiently. Marketing automation can also be used to send automated email messages, track website activity and activity on social networks - all of which helps to create a comprehensive view of customer interactions. By automating your marketing outreach, you can quickly segment leads, craft targeted messages and track the success of each message in real-time. This type of targeted messaging helps you build relationships with prospects and better understand the impact of your B2B marketing strategies.
Nurturing Relationships with Prospects: Through the use of well-crafted emails, webinars, and content campaigns, you can nurture relationships with prospects and build trust between your business and potential customers Besides building relationships and trust, utilising a b2B glossary in your email, webinars, and content campaigns can help to ensure that you communicate the correct terminology and accurately portray your message. A b2b glossary of terms allows companies to provide prospects with further details that convey the intent behind their messages. Having a defined vocabulary that is regularly used helps create an understanding between both parties fostering stronger relationships. Employing a b2b glossary is a great tool for nurturing and maintaining relationships with prospects in order to grow your business.
Wrapping up
In conclusion, this B2B marketing glossary cheat-sheet is here to help anyone who’s new to the world of B2B marketing. It’s important to understand the terminology, definitions, and meanings in order to keep up with the industry’s trends and changes. With this cheat-sheet, you’re sure to be a pro in the field of B2B marketing and stay up-to-date with the latest industry terms.
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