The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Automation Terminology Part 2 I-P
A glossary of terms to demystify marketing automation I-P.
It’s Time to Get ‘In the Know’
For businesses involved in digital marketing, marketing automation has quickly become a game-changer. Customisable and scalable platforms are available to businesses of just about any size. We’re here to help you get familiar with some basic automated marketing and sales concepts. As with many industries, this niche may seem buried under its own confusing jargon. The good news is that the basic ideas really aren’t that complicated. Breeze through this guide to learn the terms you need to know.
Marketing Automation Glossary Automation is for everyone — from the sole entrepreneur to the CMO, and everyone in between. Here are some basic marketing automation terms with which you should be familiar before getting started.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a strategy marketers use to pull potential customers into a company’s marketing funnel. It uses social media, SEO, content marketing, events, blogs, events and more to create brand awareness and attract new business. Typically, inbound marketing includes the use of a marketing automation platform to carry out these initiatives.
IP Address
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is the unique string of numbers separated by periods that identifies each computer, printer, or other device using Internet Protocol to communicate over a network. Certain business intelligence can be gleaned from an IP address – e.g. the type of device a visitor is using, where the visitor is located generally, how often the visitor has visited a given site and how long they have stayed on a site in general or on specific pages. Reverse IP lookup is a key marketing automation feature that allows users to determine the domain name associated with an IP address.
Landing Page
A landing page is a specific web page that a visitor can visit or “land” on from a link or an ad. It is built to engage a visitor with information that is specific to the ad, to the clicked link or to a certain keyword. Its purpose is to convert. Typically, the visitor to the landing page provides information via a form in exchange for a marketing offer, such as an eBook or webinar.
Landing Page Funnel
Also referred to as a “conversion funnel,” landing page funnels are pre-determined pathways composed of different webpages, established by marketers and tracked by analytics. These funnels are tailored for conversion, and contacts are expected to complete the steps in a specific order.
Lead
A lead is a contact that has the potential to become a customer.
Lead Generation
Identifying contacts that may have interest in your product or service and attempting to pull them into your sales funnel.
Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing is the process of managing relationships with leads that are not necessarily ready to purchase. The purpose is to win their business when they are ready to buy. A lead nurturing workflow includes automatically following up with leads, guiding them through the buyer’s journey, and finally, converting the leads into customers. Also called: Drip Marketing
Lead Score
Lead score is a key feature of a lead management system. Contacts and leads are scored based upon their actions, behaviors, engagement level over time, profile, demographics and more. Each action or behavior has an assigned point value designated by the owner of the lead management system. These point values automatically accrue as the contact progresses through the buyer’s journey. When the lead score hits an established threshold, the lead converts into a qualified lead that can be passed to sales. Also called: Score, Lead Grade
Life of the Lead
A timeline of all of the interactions between a lead and a business, including website activity, marketing communications, event attendance, and more. Also called: Lead Interaction Timeline, Activity Log
Marketing Automation Platform
Software-as-a-service that enables marketers to automate many repetitive tasks such as emailing, maintaining social media and various website interactions. It is designed to drive more leads, convert those leads to sales and prove the ROI of marketing campaigns. A marketing automation platform should also have the ability to integrate with other marketing tools (CMS, CRM, meeting software, social media, etc.) to provide a single platform for centralized management and analysis.
MarTech
The collective software tools and platforms used by marketers to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing and to show return on a marketing investment. This includes, but is not limited to, marketing automation, customer relationship management (CRM) and social media measurement platforms.
Media Center
A repository that allows you to create trackable media such as videos, podcasts and sound clips that can be used in emails, automation tasks/ workflows and notifications. When leads view these media items, an event will appear on their lead interaction record (i.e. Life of a Lead), enabling you to track your leads’ interactions with important content and follow up with them in a meaningful way. Also called: Content Files, File Manager, Media Library, File Storage
Metrics
The term “metrics” refers to general statistics and performance measurements. Metrics allow firms to track lead behavior over time and create greater precision in the execution of marketing activities. They help marketers identify, target, and effectively reach leads by studying their preferences, behavior, and more.
Mobile CRM
Sometime called mCRM, Mobile Customer Relationship Management refers to the capacity to use handheld devices to access a CRM. No longer limited to a stationary desktop computer, mobile CRM allows remote staff to manage their lead-generation efforts, sales pipelines and marketing campaigns from just about anywhere.
Mobile Optimisation
Mobile optimisation refers to the calibration of the pages displayed on a website so as to accommodate the device used to view it. Sometimes referred to as “responsive design,” all site pages will appear to automatically arrange themselves or simplify for optimal viewing based on a given user’s screen size and orientation.
Multiple Device Tracking
Multiple device tracking offers a continuity of visibility into the various devices used by the same lead. For example, if a user first visits the site with a desktop and then subsequently on a smartphone, the different interactions are still identified as being with that one user. In the past, these visits would have been reported as involving two different users. Since offline and online engagement are both ubiquitous and valuable, a marketing automation platform must provide this feature to be effective.
Page Tracking
Page tracking measures the number of views for each particular page on. It is one of a number of interactions that are measured with analytics.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
A type of internet advertising where a company places an advertisement on a website and pays a sum of money to the host website when a user clicks on to the advertisement. The most common example of PPC advertising is Google AdWords. A marketing automation platform will measure your PPC advertising as part of campaign analytics.
Point-and-Click Editor
A point-and-click editor is another alternative to backend coding. It works by placing the cursor on a “hot spot” or link, and clicking to activate that function. Point-and-click permits the user to install elements of code into a page without actually programming. Unlike a drag-and-drop editor, which enables users to move elements around when customizing an interface, point-and-click is a more common way to create and edit content and functionality. Most marketing automation platforms offer this technology.
Professional Services
Generally, professional services are by-the-hour services available to marketing automation users for an additional cost. These services offer help with technical tasks such as import and sync services, HTML and CSS services, automation services, development services and data restoration.
Progressive Profiling
Rather than discouraging visitor engagement by requesting too much information, progressive profiling boosts lead generation by gathering user data over time. Ideally, this is accomplished through a series of less demanding touch-points that advance the lead through the sales funnel. An alternative to progressive profiling is autocompleting forms, which gives leads the freedom to update information as their situation changes, while also relieving them of the burden of filling out forms.
We can help you with Marketing Automation for your business. Get in touch with us now to find out how you could use our SharpSpring platform.
