Ad specialty: a product (i.e. letter opener, coffee mug) carrying a logo or promotional message that helps increase awareness for a company (or product).

Advertising: any paid form of non-personal communication or presentation of a product, service, idea or company.

Advocate: a company's most loyal customers who usually provide very valuable word-of-mouth about the company and its products.

Affiliate: the publisher or salesperson in an affiliate marketing relationship.

Affiliate marketing: a relationship between two parties, usually an online advertiser and an online publisher, whereby revenue is shared based on performance measures such as purchases, registrations or clicks.

Affiliate networks (Affiliate programs): networks of firms who sell complementary products and benefit from sharing customers.

Affinity: an association or relationship (e.g. church membership) that indicates a similarity in lifestyle between individuals.

Algorithm: the set of rules that a search engine uses to rank the results from a search request.

Appeal: the stated advantage of buying a product, as described in marketing communications for that product (e.g. advertising, promotions, publicity, sales literature).

Attributes: the features of a product that are thought to appeal to customers.

Audience: homes or individuals watching, reading, seeing or listening to a given media vehicle

Awareness: movement of information about your product, service or company that has moved into a prospect's conscious mind. Often the desired objective of an advertising campaign and a principal goal of public relations.

Back-end: all marketing activities designed to convert inquiries into orders, as well as promotions directed at previous buyers. See front end.

Banner ad: the most common form of online advertising, banner ads come in a variety of standard sizes, and appear on a Web page as a box containing text, images, animation or other effects. Users who click on a banner follow a hyperlink to the advertiser's Web site.

Benefit: the satisfaction or fulfillment of needs that a customer receives from your products or services. In "My factories make cosmetics, we sell hope", hope is the benefit.

Billboard: popular name for outdoor advertising signage.

Blog: from "Web log." A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger”.

Body copy: the words in a marketing message that support and amplify the headline & subhead. The purpose of the body copy is to convince someone to buy your product.

Brainstorming: an idea generating process that encourages open communication and full participation while withholding any criticism. Commonly used in new product development.

Brand: the combination of symbols, words, or designs that differentiate one company's product from another's. Brand is also used to describe a company's family of products. A brand of coffee, for instance, might include its regular variety, as well as, its decaffeinated and instant varieties.

Brand awareness: the extent to which a brand or brand name is recognized by potential buyers.

Brand equity: the intangible value of a well-known brand.

Brand extension: The application of a brand beyond its initial range of products, or outside of its category.

Brand identity: desired customer perception of a product or brand.

Brand image: a group of associations that a consumer attributes to a specific brand.

Brand name: a protected, proprietary trademark of a manufacturer or products or services.

Brand value: the value a brand holds when viewed on a company balance sheet.

Break even analysis: the analysis of a product or service to determine the sales level required to cover both fixed costs of providing the product and the marketing & sales costs behind it.

Break even Point: the specific sales level required to cover the fixed costs + marketing & sales costs of providing a product or service.

Brochure: a produced communication piece that's typically printed on heavier paper stock and features details about a company, its products or services.

Browser: a software program that allows users to read pages on the World Wide Web.

Budget: the detailed financial component of a plan that guides the allocation of resources. It should also provide a means to measure deviation of actual vs. desired results for analysis.

Bundling: offering several complimentary products together or offering services, together with a product, in a single package deal. The price of the bundle is typically lower than the sum of the prices of the individual products or services included in it.

Business cycle: the movement of a business over time from birth through growth and maturity to decline. This is especially important these days as change comes about very quickly.

Business plan: a comprehensive written document that details a business's goals and the marketing, operational and organizational directions it will take to achieve these goals over the next 3-5 years.

Business-to-business: advertising or promotion intended to influence corporate awareness and purchase

Call-to-action: a highly motivating statement that tells the reader what action they should take next and exactly how to do it (example: "Call 1-800-555-1213 now to order").

Campaign: a coordinated advertising and promotion effort intended to continue thematically over time.

Capabilities brochure: promotional brochure stating what your company does and the general capabilities you offer customers. It can include general information as well as very specific details about the company and its operations.

Category management: the management of product categories as strategic business units. The practice empowers a category manager with full responsibility for the assortment decisions, inventory levels, shelf-space allocation, promotions and buying.

Cause related marketing: a partnership between a company and a charity in which the charity financially benefits when the company sells specific products.

Channel: a group of retailers or distributors through whom a product is distributed. A company may have several channels, each of which is used to reach different end-users or categories of customers.

Channel distribution: the network of institutions and agencies that performs all the functions required to bring together producers and end customers.

Channel marketing: a way of organizing marketing functions in a company that puts individuals in charge of selling to specific classes of trade.

Classified advertising: a type of print advertising with special insertion rates and usually exhibiting uniform type sizes and fonts. Includes help wanted ads and offers to sell lower priced products.

Cloaking: the act of getting a search engine to record content for an URL that is different than what the search results return.

Collateral: any and all printed materials designed to support a brand or company's promotional effort.

Competition: businesses competing for the same market dollars.

Competitive analysis: assessing and analyzing the comparative strengths and weaknesses of competitors; may include their current and potential product and service development and marketing strategies.

Consumer: the person who actually uses the product or service. Also called a 'customer', 'patron', 'buyer' , 'shopper' or 'end user'.

Consumer deal: usually set within a time period, this offers the consumer various products with discounts or special purchases.

Consumer segment: a group of possible future customers selected from a database, and that exhibit particular characteristics.

Content: all forms of website information including HTML pages, interactive and/or dynamic Web pages, images, animation, video and sound files.

Contingency plan: an acceptable alternative plan that can be implemented in the event a basic plan is aborted or changed for any reason.

Conversion rates: distinct measurements that determine how many of your prospects take your preferred action step. Typically, micro-conversions (for instance, reading different pages on your site, or signing up for a newsletter) lead to your main conversions (making a purchase, or contacting you for more information).

Cookie: a text file placed on a user’s hard drive when certain web pages are visited.

Co-operative advertising: an arrangement whereby a product or service is brought to the public's attention using the names of the supplier and the intermediary (e.g. a cereal manufacturer and a grocery retailer jointly promoting a cereal)

Copyright: protection to the originator of material in order to prevent use without permission or acknowledgement of the originator.

Copywriting: writing text for an ad or promotional piece.

Corporate identity: the visual expression of an organization's (or brand’s) unique identity through the systematic use of words and symbols. Includes typefaces, type sizes, colors, graphics, and logo(s). These elements typically appear in the standard positions and proportions thus reinforcing the identity.

Cost per click: system where an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each click a visitor makes on a link leading to the advertiser’s web page.

Cost Per Thousand (CPM): the advertising cost to reach 1,000 units of audience. Used to compare or evaluate the cost efficiency of different media. For publications, it is determined by dividing the specific advertisement cost by the number of readers.

CPI: cost per inquiry. Arrived at by dividing the total promotional costs by the number of inquiries (example: $2,500 promotional costs/25 inquiries=$100 CPI)

CPO: cost per order. Arrived at by dividing the total promotional costs by the number of orders (example: $2,500 promotional costs/5 orders=$500 CPO)

Crawler: part of a search engine that accumulates listings by automatically “crawling” web sites.

Creative: general description of the activity related to the development of promotional materials. Includes concepts, design, and copy.

Creative strategy: a blueprint used by advertising and marketing agencies that lines out the idea that is to be communicated, to whom it is targeted and with what tone.

Cross promotion: the promotion of one product through the use of another product’s marketing efforts. Also describes the promotion of a website using other traditional forms of advertising such as magazines, newspapers, radio, TV, billboards, etc.

CTR (Click through rate): percentage of those clicking on a link out of the total number who are exposed to the link.

Customer: loosely, any buyer of a product or service, at any trade level. Also called a consumer or patron.

Customer feedback: compliments, criticisms, or general information provided to a company by its customers about products, services or other aspects of the business.

Customer lifetime value (CLV): the profitability of a customer over the entire relationship, in contrast to profitability on just one transaction.

Customer loyalty: feelings or attitudes that encourage a customer to continue doing business with a company.

Data mining: taking a database and “mining” the data to determine specific characteristics of the entrants.

Data warehouse: an electronic system that stores data from transactions and is used to be queried against and to generate reports.

Database Marketing: the use of information that's been electronically stored and analyzed about prospects or customers behaviors. This information is then used to determine appropriate marketing activities in order to influence purchases and future sales.

Deadline: a concrete time limit. Can be used for projects, subprojects, offers and a variety of other marketing uses.

Deal: a promotional sale that enables a customer to save money on the purchase of a product or service.

Deceptive advertising: advertising that makes incorrect claims and/or statements, or creates a false impression.

Demographics: statistics about the socioeconomic makeup of a population including age, gender, race, occupation, income, education.

Description tag: HTML tag used by web page authors to provide a description for search engine listings.

Differentiation: establishing a distinction in the mind of a customer about products, services or a company.

Direct mail: marketing materials sent directly to a prospect or customer via the U.S. Postal Service or a private delivery company.

Direct marketing: a form of marketing where promotional messages are delivered directly to consumers, Products are then ordered by the customer and are shipped directly to their homes.

Direct response: a promotional method where consumers are directly solicited and asked to respond directly to the advertiser through mail, phone, or e-mail.

Directories: a type of search engine whose listings are gathered through human efforts, rather than by automated crawling of the web.

Directory: websites with look-up capabilities that assign other websites to categories. Directories are edited by humans, as opposed to search engines, which are edited by spiders.

Discount: a reduction in the stated rate or list price, usually offered in the form of a percentage and used as an incentive to make a purchase.

Distribution: the delivery or conveyance of a good/service to a market.

Distribution channel: the chain or intermediaries linking the producer of a good to the consumer.

Distributor: a firm or individual, particularly a wholesaler, who sells or delivers merchandise to customers (i.e. retail stores).

Distribution allowance: a price reduction offered by a manufacturer to a distributor, which allows for the cost of distributing the merchandise.

Distributor brand: a brand not owned by a manufacturer but rather by a distributor.

Diversification: to reduce the risk of relying on a narrow product range, companies increase the variety of goods and services they produce.

Domain name: the text-based URL or address of a Web site. Domain names usually consist of several different segments. The name www.emergemarketing.com, for example, includes the generic "www" and ".com" identifiers, along with the unique name "emergemarketing."

E-mail marketing: marketing electronically through the use of e-mail messages

Eighty-twenty rule: a general rule for the typical product category. Eighty percent of the products sold will be consumed by twenty percent of the customers.

Effective frequency: number of times an ad should be shown to one person in order to achieve the highest impact of the ad without wasting impressions.

E-mail: a system for electronically sending and receiving messages over a computer network.

End-user: the person who actually uses a product, not necessarily the one who purchases it.

Extranet: a website that reaches several different audiences. Usually an extranet connects directly with specific existing computer systems at a company allowing suppliers, distributors, and customers to communicate with the company.

Exit interview: an interview conducted at the end of an employee's term of employment to obtain honest employment feedback.

External analysis: analysis of those factors outside your business, which present opportunities or threats.

FAQ (frequently asked questions): a list of questions and answers related to a particular software application, Web site or issue, FAQ's can help users get answers without overburdening human support staff and they can be used strategically to attract traffic in a web site.

Feature: a characteristic or property of a product/service such as reliability, price, convenience, safety, quality, size.

Field marketing: the practice of sending representatives to retail outlets in order to build brand and support sales.

Fixed-sum-per-unit method: a method of determining an advertising budget that is based on number of units sold.

Flighting: a media schedule that allows more advertising during certain times and less advertising during other time periods.

Flyer: an inexpensive, 1-page promotional sheet (usually 8 ½ x 11") typically intended for handout or bulk mailing.

Focus group interview: a research method in which a trained interviewer assembles a small group of consumers to discuss a product and/or its advertising.

Forum: an online communication method that lets users submit and respond to messages that are categorized by subject, and remain available for all users to see for a designated period of time.

Four Ps: Stands for Product, Price, Place (i.e., distribution), and Promotion. The building blocks of modern day marketing.

Frequency: how many times a person buys from you, how many times a marketing message is exposed to a target audience or how many times a program is run.

Front-end: all marketing activities designed to generate inquiries. See back end

Gantt Chart: a planning tool and the basis for marketing timelines in this book. In simple terms, a timeline showing the temporal relationship between events.

Gatekeeper: someone within an organization who doesn't directly consume a product or service but does control access to decision makers and thus, wields considerable influence in the purchase decision making process.

Goal: individual or organizational objective to be achieved within a particular time period.

Goal congruence: continuity or compliance of actions with organizational goals.

Going-concern value: value of a company as a business to another company.

Guerilla marketing: innovative, often highly targeted methods of getting a message across to a market.

Hard Goals: a goal that can be quantified and measured.

Hard Offer: as typically used in mail order marketing, requires the prospect to pay for the product in advance. The seller ships the product only after payment is received via check or credit card number. However for purposes of this book, a hard offer is expanded to include offers that result in a face-to-face or voice-to-voice.
Hard offers include:
Call (800) 555-5556 to schedule an appointment
Call (800) 555-5556 for a free phone consultation
See soft offer.

Headline: a sentence, phrase or words that appear above a body of text. The purpose of a headline is to attract attention and prod the reader to continue reading.

Hierarchy-of-effects theory: the series of steps a consumer takes in order to receive and use information in order to reach decisions about actions they will take.

Hit: a hit is the result of a file being requested and served from your web site. This can be an html document, an image file, an audio track etc. Web pages that contain a large number of elements will return high hit scores. Hits are of very little consequence when analyzing your visitor demographics.

Holding power: ability to keep an audience throughout a broadcast and prevent having them from changing channels.

Home page: the main (or first) page of a website.

Horizontal marketing: joint marketing efforts that allow two companies to produce different products yet market them together. Sometimes horizontal marketing is referred to as symbiotic marketing.

House agency: an advertising agency that is operated and owned by an advertiser which also handles the advertiser’s account.

House List: a list of names already owned by a company consisting of purchasers or buyer inquiries and that is used by the company to promote the company's products & services.

Hyperlink (or link): web developers use HTML to create hyperlinks that a user clicks on to view another Web page. Hyperlinks can appear as graphics or as areas of differently colored or underlined text.

Hypertext: generally any text on a website that contains links to other documents. Clicking on these words or phrases causes another document (usually a web page) to be retrieved and displayed.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML): Hypertext Markup Language the programming language that is the basis for the World Wide Web. HTML lets you create hypertext links, fill-in forms and clickable images (i.e., images that you click to access another area).

Image: the way a company or organization is perceived by the public and its customers.

Impressions: the total number of exposures given for a particular medium.

Inbound link: A hypertext link that points to a particular web site. Inbound links are a measure of web popularity and are used by search engines for positioning of web pages in search engines indexes.

Index: the accumulation of data a search engine has that searchers can query against.

Indexability: refers to if a site can be indexed - or recorded - by a search engine spider. If a site is not indexable, or if a site has reduced indexability, positioning will suffer.

Inserts: extra printed pages inserted loosely into printed pieces. Inserts are often advertising supplements to a newspaper or magazine.

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC): the concept under which a company carefully integrates and coordinates its many communications channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling message about the organization and its products.

Internal Analysis: analysis of the internal strengths & weaknesses of your company.

Internal marketing: the process of gaining support for a company (or its initiatives) among its own employees.

Internet: a network of networks, built upon a set of widely used software protocols that link millions of computers around the world. Services such as email and the Web use the Internet to transfer data.

Interstitial ad: a window that pops up between page loads and is displayed for a period of time, and then goes away without forcing viewers to manually close the window.

Java: developed by Sun Microsystems, Java is a programming language that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or harm to your computer or files. Using small Java programs (called "Applets"), web pages can include functions such as animations, calculators, or others.

Joint venture: where two firms combine efforts to manufacture or market a product, and thus reduce the risk of market entry.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group): one of the two most common image types used on the Web. (GIF is the other.) JPEG is used mostly for photographic reproductions. Also referred to as jpg.

Keeper: An incentive used to tempt a consumer to take some action, such as completing a survey or trying a product.

Key account management: the marketing and service functions as they relate to a company’s most important customers.

Keywords: descriptive words that are embedded in your website code. Common places to use keywords are: 1) In your web pages 2) For search engine registration 3) For directory listings

Landing page: the page a visitor reaches after clicking a search engine listing. Marketers must improve conversion rates by testing different landing page creative, which includes the entire user experience including navigation, layout, and copy.

Leapfrogging: a strategy aimed at overtaking your competition and creating the future shape of the industry.

Lead: a new and unqualified prospect or client, previously unknown to a sales person or company. Also called an inquiry.

Lead generation: marketing tactics used to solicit leads for sales follow up and including direct mailings, tradeshows, networking and others.

Leave-behind: Documents or premiums that a salesperson leaves with prospects or customers to remind them of the product or service.

Lifetime value: the total profit or loss estimated or realized from a customer over the active life of that customer.

Lingo: a characteristic language of a particular group (as in Marketing Lingo).

Link: a function that takes a user, with just one click, from one page on the web to another.

Link exchange: exchanging hyperlinks with a quality site that is somehow related to a company's product or service. Good link exchange tactics can increase a company's Page Rank and increase the number of targeted visitors.

List broker: a person or company who prepares, rents and maintains mailing lists.

List price: the price regularly quoted to customers before applying discounts. These are usually the prices printed on dealer lists, invoices, price tags, catalogs or dealer purchase orders.

List segmentation: the use of subgroups within a list usually sharing similar demographic, target niche or buying characteristics.

Logo: a distinctive company symbol that helps create an image or brand.

Lurking: to read a message in a forum or newsgroup and not add additional comments.

Mailing list: a list of customers or prospects used to mail catalogs or sales announcements. It is not a marketing database because it does not provide for a two-way communication with customers.

Market area: geographic area from which the primary demand for a specific product or service is expected

Market follower: a firm that follows leaders into new markets, rather than leading the way. Oftentimes this results in lower marketing expenditures

Market penetration: the percentage of buyers you have as compared with the total households or businesses in the area you've selected as your market.

Market profile: a summary of market features, such as the typical purchaser and competitor as well as comprehensive information on the economy and retailing patterns of an area.

Market research: data pertaining to customers within a market segment.

Market segment: a group of actual or potential customers who can be expected to respond in approximately the same way to a given offer.

Market segmentation: the act of dividing up a market into distinct groups of buyers so as to better target your marketing efforts.

Market share: the % of total buyers for a product/service who choose to buy that offered by the company.

Marketing audit (or assessment): a analysis of the company's current marketplace, current marketing capabilities and potential opportunities.

Marketing consultant: an individual or firm who by training and experience is qualified to help a company with its marketing efforts.

Marketing firm: a business that influences the distribution and sales of goods and services from producer to consumer.

Marketing integration: the coordination of all marketing strategies so they work together to establish a maximum impact in the market.

Marketing metrics: measurements, such as market share and response rates, that help quantify marketing performance.

Marketing mix: the combination of all elements used to market a product or service. These include product, price, place (distribution) and promotion.

Marketing plan: the annual planning document that sets the marketing direction for a product, service or company. It spells out the strategies, tactics, timelines and budgetary details for accomplishing the marketing objectives.

Marketing research: the orderly gathering, recording, analyzing, and use of data concerning the transfer and sale of goods and services from producer to consumer.

Marketing strategy(ies): the broad directional thrusts a business uses to achieve its marketing goals. Characterized by broad decisions concerning price, product, distribution and/or promotional issues.

Marketing tactics: the executable elements or actual steps the marketers will take to achieve the objectives and strategies.

Mass marketing: a marketing strategy in which a seller develops one product offering for all buyers in the market.

Medium (pl. media): a type of publication or communications method that conveys news, entertainment and advertising to an audience. Examples include newspapers, television, magazines, radio, billboards and the Internet.

Meta Tags: hidden descriptions of your web pages that describe the page's content and help point search engines to the right places.

Mission Statement: a formal statement of the reason your company or organization exists. It may include a series of goals or objectives that the organization wishes to achieve.

Mnemonic device: any device designed to enhance the recognition or memorability of a brand.

Multimedia: information that combines different types of content, such as text, images, animation, video and audio.

Narrow casting: the use of a broadcast medium to address an audience with a special interest.

Networking: the continuous prospecting method of making and utilizing contacts.

Niche marketing: a way of finding a special product that appeals to only one group, and selling that product very profitably only to that group, ignored by others.

Nonprofit marketing: the marketing of a product or service that is not meant to make a monetary profit for the marketer.

Objectives: medium-term goals which are: · Specific · Measurable · Realistic

OEM (original equipment manufacturer): a company that produces equipment bearing another company's label.

Offer: what you offer, as an inducement to buy, in your direct mail (e.g. buy one, get one free)

One-On-One Marketing: when marketing efforts are specifically designed to communicate with individual users.

Opt-in vehicles: any marketing vehicle (but usually Internet-based vehicles) that allow all recipients to first agree to receive the vehicle. With opt-in vehicles, the recipient tells you it's okay to send him or her future editions of the vehicle. These vehicles generally generate better response because the recipients have indicated an interest from the outset.

Order(s): the point where a customer agrees to exchange money for goods or services provided by a company. Can also be called a purchase order.

Outbound links: links on certain web page that lead to other web pages regardless of whether they are within the same web site or other web sites.

Packaging: the material that protects goods and used to present the brand and its identity.

Page view: a page view is registered each time a page from your website is loaded or reloaded onto someone's browser. It is not a good indicator of how many different people are visiting your web site. Yet, it can be a good way to judge the "stickiness" (ability to retain visitors' interest) of your site.

Paid placement: a method of advertising where pages are guaranteed to be included in a search engine’s index and also guaranteed placement by paying more than other advertisers.

Patent: an exclusive ownership interest in an invention for a designated period of years, granted by the government.

Pay-per-click: a type of search engine marketing where advertisers pay a set amount every time their ad is clicked by a prospect.

Penetrated market: the set of users actually consuming a service or product.

Permission marketing: Obtaining customer consent to receive information from the company. Permission marketing in the online world takes the form of email promotions and newsletters.

Personal sales: the sales tactic where direct contact between the customer and the company representative takes place for the purpose of gaining a sale.

Personalization: the means of adding personal information such as the individual's name to a mailing piece.

Planning: the process of pre-determining a course or courses of action based on assumptions about future conditions or trends

Portal site: a website that becomes a user’s internet start page or is often used in the beginning of Internet exploration by providing valuable services and information.

Position: the perception that a marketer attempts to convey about a brand and its benefits vis-à-vis the competition.

Positioning: a marketing strategy that attempts to positively influence the perception of a company, product or service relative to its competitors & competitive products & services.

Positioning statement: The succinct statement of the positioning the company hopes to achieve in the minds of its target customers.

Potential market: a unit of consumers who claim some level of interest in a designed market proposition.

Pre-test: the testing of a research survey (or, for that matter, any marketing program) before launching it in order to fine tune the survey administration.

Press kit: a collection of publicity materials, including press releases and general company information, that is packaged and sent to media outlets.

Press release: a document that communicates information to the press. Press releases can publicize good news such as positive earnings and new product launches, or they can help control the damage caused by bad news.

Price: the amount of money asked for in the transfer of products and services from the provider(s) to the consumer(s).

Pricing strategy: pricing for long-term advantage rather than short-term profits.

Privacy policy: a written policy that states your company’s position on exactly how it will use information provided by visitors of a website.

Product: a manufactured good that possesses objective and subjective characteristics that are manipulated to maximize the item's appeal to con). In general, appeals are directed at satisfying people's basic needs for things such as health, security, wealth, love or accomplishment.

Product differentiation: the process of creating unique product differences in an attempt to influence demand.

Product life cycle: the pattern of growth and decline in sales revenue of a product over time.

Product positioning: the consumer perception of a product or service as compared to its competition.

Promotion: all forms of communication other than advertising that call attention to products and services, typically by adding extra value to the purchase. Includes temporary discounts, allowances, premium offers, coupons, contests and rebates.

Promotional mix: the use of several types of mediums to support marketing goals such as advertising, personal selling, publicity, and sales promotions.

Prospect: identified consumers, be they individuals or companies, who show good potential for buying a company's products or services and have made contact with a company. See suspect.

Psychographics: shared attitudes or behaviors of population groups.

Public domain information: the tremendous wealth of information that is open and available to anyone who seeks it.

Public relations: communication with various sectors of the public-including media relations, employee relations and community relations-and designed to influence their attitudes and opinions in the interest of promoting a person, product or idea.

Publicity: information with news value used to promote a product, service or idea in the media.

Pull promotion: a promotional method that focuses on creating demand among customers, which then “pulls” the product through the distribution chain.

Push promotion: a promotional method that focuses on distribution representatives to “push” the product to the customer.

Qualitative: in research, verbatim or verbal feedback achieved through a non-scientific and non-projectable research.

Quantitative: in research, measurable, projectable data used to help determine needs or wants.

Query: the words or phrases a searcher enters into a search engine’s search box.

Rank: the numerical order that a particular web site is listed after a search query.

Rationale: a logical reasoning for choosing a strategy.

Reach: the total number of individuals or companies that are exposed to a marketing vehicle.

Recency: a term for how recent a person has bought from your company. It is well established that people who have bought most recently are more likely to buy from you again on your next promotion.

Relationship marketing: understanding the customer so well that their needs are met to a consistent standard of excellence which turns customers into very loyal customers.

Sales forecast: educated guesstimates of future revenues segmented into individual SBU or product sales.

Sales incentive: a reward, usually in the form of cash or product, for members of the sales staff who achieve a specific goal or an annual quota.

Sales Message: the ideas, concepts and points a company conveys via various selling methods.

Sales plan: the definable steps a company takes to secure sales.

Search engine: online software that helps users locate information and other sites on the Internet.

Search engine: an online database that enables Internet users to locate other websites, containing information they need. Every search engine has its own strategy for collecting data so, one search usually turns up different results on different search engines. Public search engines such as Lycos, AltaVista and Excite constantly index Web sites and add information about these sites to their databases. Many individual Web sites also use their own built-in search engines. Directories such as Yahoo are not search engines -- they use human researchers to categorize Web sites.

Search engine marketing: the marketing of a website through search engines either by improving search engine optimization techniques, purchasing paid listings, or a combination of both.

Search engine optimization: The act of altering a web site so that it does well in the crawler-based listings of search engines.

Segment: a portion of a list or file selected on the basis of a special set of characteristics.

Self-mailer: A direct mail piece, such as a postcard or tabbed newsletter, which does not require an envelope or wrapper for mailing.

Service: any activity provided by a person or company to another person or company that is intangible. Services can be provided separate from products or they can be bundled together with a product.

Signature (or sig) file: a distinctive address at the bottom of an e-mail message that often includes contact information and a short promotional message.

Slogan: a short, memorable advertising phrase: Examples include "Coke Is It," "Just Do It," and "Don’t Leave Home Without It." Slogans are different from taglines in that slogans change with campaigns while taglines remain static.

Soft Offer: as typically used in mail order marketing, is an option which allows the prospect to review the goods first and then pay for them afterwards. However for purposes of this book, a soft offer is expanded to include offers that don't require a face-to-face or voice-to-voice follow up on the company's. Soft offers include:
Call (800) 555-5556 for a brochure.
Visit our website at www.anycompany.com for more information.
See hard offer.

Spam: slang term for unsolicited commercial email. "Spamming" people with unwanted commercial email solicitations is considered unethical and it is now illegal in several U.S. states. Most ISPs will terminate a users account if they use it to send spam.

Spiders: an automated program that indexes web documents, titles and/or a portion of each document. These documents are acquired by the spider as it automatically traverses across the Internet (kinda scary, huh?).

Spin: an attempt to manipulate the facts represented in mass media in order to create desired public relations.

Stickiness: a website metric that measures the actual retention rate for a website.

Strategic alliance: the sharing of information, methods, marketing and finance between complimentary businesses.

Strategic Business Unit (SBU): a company division, product line or single brand that can be marketed independently from the rest of the company.

Strategic market planning: the planning process that produces a decision about how a business can best compete in its chosen market.

Strategic window: the precise period between certain events during which there is a chance to capitalize on a marketing situation.

Strategy(ies): any broad plan for achieving goals or objectives.

Strength: an asset, capability or intangible of a company that potentially could provide it with a competitive advantage.

Submission: the act of submitting to a search engine’s URL for inclusion. Note this does not guarantee a listing.

Supply chain: the channels of suppliers, manufacturers and distributors involved in the production and delivery of goods.

Suspects: identified consumers, be they individuals or companies, who show good potential for buying a company's products or services but have not yet made contact with a company. See prospect.

SWOT analysis: an analysis that depicts the company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Tactics: the actual programs and techniques used to accomplish a strategy.

Tagline: a phrase that communicates the most essential product attributes or benefits that the marketer wants to convey.

Target market: the defined group of consumers that a marketer considers to be prime prospects (i.e. most likely to purchase).

Target market identification: the process of using income, demographic, and life style characteristics of a market to locate the most favorable locations.

Target marketing: where different products, pricing, distribution methods and promotions are developed to meet consumers varying needs and preferences.

Task: an individual unit of work that is part of the total work needed to accomplish a project.

Telemarketing: using the telephone to sell, promote or solicit products and services.

Test market: trial market for a new product, service, offer or other marketing effort.

Timeline: a specific action plan, laid out in a visual way, that lines out the various tactics the company will pursue and the subsequent deadlines.

Title tag: a descriptive title that appears at the top of each page of your site. It is extremely important that every Title tag contain well-researched key phrases and is written in a way that entices a user to click through. The title tag is a crucial part of your search marketing campaign - and every page should have its own title tag.

Touchpoint: any place where a business comes into contact with its customers or prospects. Generally considered to be personal contact points (e.g. trade shows, phone calls) as opposed to non-personal ones ((e.g. brochures, websites, advertisements).

Trade sales promotion: an incentive offered to resellers to promote purchases.

Trademark: the name, phrase, logo, image or combination of images of a product/brand claimed as owned by a marketer. Often marked as ä if the mark has been applied for and © if it has been registered. The term is often used to include service marks, which apply to businesses providing services as opposed to selling products.

Trial: the initial customer use of a product/service. Either given away free or sold at a nominal price, to gain customer experience with the brand.

Trial offer: the offer to a consumer to try a product for a stated period of time before deciding whether or not to purchase.

Two-step: in direct mail, a selling process that first solicits a request for information (inquiry) then, as a second step, follows up with additional mailings to close the sale.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL): a website address.

Unique selling proposition: the key, unique benefit that differentiates your product/service from all your competitors. Made famous by Rosser Reeves, an ad giant of the 1950's.

Unique visitor: someone with a unique IP address (when you log onto the Internet, you are assigned a unique IP address) who enters a Web site for the first time, during a set period of time. Different traffic monitoring programs define this period differently, however you'll find most defining it between 2 hours and 24 hours. This measure is, by far, the most accurate way of analyzing web site performance.

Upsell: A technique to increase the value or quantity of a sale by suggesting additional options or upgrades. For example, a fast-food restaurant may upsell by suggesting that a customer buy a larger portion of a drink.

URL: Universal Resource Locator. The text address that allows users to find a particular Web site or Web page. The links on Web pages also consist of URLs, which are embedded in the HTML code on the page. URLs comprise of a domain name followed by the file path to a particular file on that domain's Web server.

Usability: the ease with which visitors can the exact information they need when they need it. Anything that makes the process slower (like Flash animation to a dial-up customer) inhibits usability. Conversely, easy, intuitive navigation and strong, informative text enhance usability.

Value-added: any promotional, product or service technique that seeks to add value to the product.

Value-added reseller: a dealer, say in the high tech industry, who specializes in "solution sales" which combine consulting, needs analysis and bundling of turnkey packages. Opposite of a retailer who, in this business, sells "shrink-wrapped boxes".

Viral marketing: any marketing effort that propagates itself. An example of a viral marketing effort: encouraging e-mail recipients to pass along messages to others in order to generate additional exposure.

Web browser: a program that allows an individual to view Web pages.

Web host: a service that operates Web servers for its clients and publishes their Web sites.

Web page: a page in a Web document. Unlike printed pages, a Web page may be just a few words long or it may include thousands of words, images and other content.

Web server: a computer that publishes a Web site on the Internet. It usually includes the Web server software, the appropriate software protocols such as TCP/IP, the Web site content and occasionally other software such as e-commerce or database applications. When the Web Server receives a request from a Web client (or browser), it delivers the appropriate page or performs the requested task.

Weakness: a shortcoming of a company that potentially could place it at a competitive disadvantage.

Wholesaler: a business that buy goods from manufacturers, then sells the goods, usually in larger quantities, to retailers, who in turn, sell them to the end user. A middleman between the manufacturer and the retailer.

Word-of-mouth advertising (or just word-of-mouth): getting satisfied customers to recommend the product or service to friends, family, co-workers or anyone else they're familiar with. This kind of advertising costs the provider nothing and very often is viewed as more credible than information provided directly by the provider or manufacturer.

World Wide Web (or the Web): an Internet service that links collections of documents, or Web sites, both internally and to other sites. In addition to formatted text, Web pages may include graphics, audio, video and other Multimedia content.