Digital marketing is full of business jargon, just like any other domain.
Lead, nurturing, MQL, SQL, qualification…if you are lost with these acronyms or this wording is unfamiliar, you've come to the right place.
This short dictionary will help you quickly understand all the definitions of the most essential digital marketing terms.
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Summary 1. Marketing techniques: inbound, outbound, demand generation... 2. Funnel: Lead, MQL, SQL, Opportunity... 3. Lead conversion processes: lead generation, scoring, nurturing, qualification... |
Marketing techniques
ABM - Account-Based Marketing
ABM is a B2B strategy where you focus and align your sales and marketing resources on specific target accounts.
A successful ABM strategy requires:
- An excellent alignment between sales and marketing teams.
- A clear understanding of your buyers' personas: Who are the decision makers, influencers and blockers? What are their needs and challenges? What language and channels do they use?
- Personalized messages to specifically address the exact pains of each person.
- The identification of the best channels to communicate with each account and person.
Demand generation
Demand generation aims to create awareness and demand for your product or service.
More specifically, it consists in raising brand awareness and grabbing the attention of the people who are aware of the problem, but not yet of the solution.
The goal of demand generation is to:
- Raise brand awareness
- Educate your target through inbound marketing
- Generate interest by addressing the challenges faced by your potential customers
- Create a need and convince your audience to choose your products or services vs. alternatives
Growth hacking
Growth hacking aims to deliver a strong, fast and low-cost growth. This term was primarily used to describe the marketing strategies of start-ups in digital, but traditional companies are now using it in their marketing arsenal.
Some growth hacking strategies are based on well-known traditional marketing techniques, and mostly owe their quick success to the quality of the offer rather than to the creativity of their techniques.
Growth hacking also covers techniques derived from computer hacking to obtain quick marketing results at low cost, which may even cross legal or ethical boundaries. Automation, scraping and fake social accounts are some examples.
Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing is the result of being "digitally discoverable" when customers are searching for your solutions. Inbound marketing aims to attract customers to your company and solutions by sharing helpful and relevant content all along their buyer journey.
With inbound marketing, the prospective customers build trust with the provider before they engage in person. As a result, this is a preferred method of building relationships with prospective customers.
This technique includes blogging, social media and SEO. Read our beginners' guide to inbound marketing.
Outbound marketing
As opposed to inbound marketing, outbound marketing aims to reach out to potential customers with unsolicited communications. Another way to think about outbound marketing is "interruption marketing".
Emails, banners and cold calls are typical outbound marketing actions.
SEA - Search Engine Advertising
Paying for ads that are displayed when specific keywords are being searched in search engines.
SEM - Search Engine Marketing
The combination of SEO, SEA and SMO, in order to maximize your visibility on search engines.
SEO - Search Engine Optimization
Optimize your online content to be top-listed in search engine results on specific keywords. This technique aims to maximize your organic traffic — people who proactively search for something on the internet.
SEO is usually used in combination with your inbound marketing, in order to maximize the traffic and visibility of your content.
SMA - Social Media Advertising
Paying for display ads on social media.
SMO - Social Media Optimization
Optimize your social media account and posts, and leverage all the tips and tricks to gain more followers, to get more brand exposure.
Funnel definitions
Buyer Persona
A buyer persona is a fictional character who is an example for a typical segment of persons who use your product or services in the same way.
The description includes several dimensions, including their profile, challenges and way to communicate.
The various personas you identify are build out are the foundation of all your sales and marketing strategies.
Visitor
A visitor is a person who has visited your website or seen your content online.
Lead
A lead is a visitor for which you can identify and track the content that person has consumed.
To become a lead, a visitor must share contact details using an online form, including at least their email address, and be tracked with cookies or logged into a specific interface.
Beware that many people use the word "leads" to talk about MQLs, SQLs or even opportunities. So always clarify what is meant by "lead" to make sure that you are on the same page.
If you want to learn more, read this post on What is a lead?
MQL - Marketing Qualified Lead
A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a lead who matches one of your buyer personas and who has demonstrated an interest in your products, services or company based on the type and amount of content that this person has consumed.
Read our simple guide to MQLs for chemical marketers to go deeper in the MQL concept.
SQL - Sales Qualified Lead
A Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) is a MQL which you qualified to determine if this person has an active project, an interest in your products and company, and is really matching your buyer persona.
You have a documented call report assessing the business potential and verifying their profile.
Read our simple guide to MQLs for chemical marketers to go deeper in the SQL concept.
Opportunity
An opportunity is a SQL for whom you have identified a business potential during the qualification, whose profile fits with one of your buyer personas, and who is ready to actively engage with your sales team.
Customer
An opportunity which has purchased from you.
Buyer's Journey
The buyer's journey is the active research process that a potential customer goes through before making a purchase. This journey is split in 3 phases:
- Awareness: The customer becomes aware of the pain or problem
- Consideration: The customer takes time to become educated about potential solutions
- Decision: The customer discovers and compares the suppliers who are potential solutions
TOFU / MOFU / BOFU
The Top, Middle and Bottom Of The Funnel (respectively TOFU, MOFU and BOFU) represent the key steps in your inbound marketing strategy.
In the TOFU, your buyer personas are aware of their problem or challenge, but they don't know how to solve it yet. They are searching for solutions. Your objective is to share educational content on possible solutions, and begin to convince them that your offer is their best option.
At the MOFU, your buyer personas self-educate on the existing solutions. Their objective is to determine which company and offer is best for them. At this stage, your content must prove your expertise.
The BOFU is the last step in their journey. Your buyer personas are now deciding between 2 or 3 providers or suppliers, and you must convince them to choose you. Your content is focused on personalized next steps and involves your sales/technical teams.
Lead conversion processes definitions
Lead Generation
Lead generation aims to feed your sales pipe with active business opportunities.
This technique aims to collect the contact details of your visitors through online forms, and convert them into opportunities for your sales team thanks to lead nurturing, qualification and follow-up for example.
When you combine contact details with online behavior, you are able to score and segment your leads by stage in the buyer journey, and provide them relevant and helpful content to demonstrate the value of your product or service.
Note that the word "lead" is frequently used generically when discussing MQL / SQL / Opportunities in many companies. You may hear "lead generation" used to mean "generate MQL / SQL / opportunities" from time to time. That's why I recommend you always clarify what people mean by "lead" as you may not be on the same page.
Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing is the process to maintain and reinforce the relationship with your leads at every stage of the conversion funnel.
The key to a successful nurturing is to share useful and relevant content aligned with your leads' questions, needs and challenges throughout their buyer's journey.
Lead Follow-up
The sales and marketing actions to convert a lead into a customer. It encompasses various processes including the lead scoring, nurturing, screening, qualification and sales follow-up.
Read my 9 Lead follow-up best practices to optimize your conversion rate.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring is the process to automatically score a lead based on their profile information and navigation history. This score helps to identify the MQLs among your leads (the leads in your target buyer personas) and easily detect the MQLs that must be qualified.
Read our short guide to build a basic lead scoring.
Lead Screening
Lead screening is the process to screen your MQLs to identify the ones that are mature enough and need to be qualified.
See how SpecialChem lead scoring works to see how a good scoring can make your screening more effective.
Lead Qualification
Lead qualification is the process to contact the MQLs that you flagged during the screening phase to determine if there is a business potential.
During the discussion, you will verify if they have a project, if their profile really matches your buyer persona and if they are willing to move forward with your sales team.
Once you have qualified a MQL, it becomes a SQL.
Read our Lead Qualification 101 Guide to structure your lead qualification and its next steps.
Sales Follow-up
Sales follow-up is the process to convert an opportunity into a customer with your sales team.
