Top 20 Marketing Terms to Know in 2020

Last Updated: December 16, 2021

CLM, ABM, RPA, martech stack or marketing stack, and value metrics. There’s no shortage of jargon in marketing. To help you keep up with the changing marketing ecosystem, we have compiled a list of twenty marketing terms you should know in 2020 and beyond.

Marketing is full of jargon, terms, and acronyms. With the introduction of new trends, techniques, and marketing disciplines, this alphabet soup keeps on getting more and more expansive. Keeping up with these buzzwords can get a bit confusing. Therefore, to help you get acquainted with the essential marketing concepts, we have compiled a list of twenty marketing terms that will help you sail through 2020. Some of these marketing jargons have been used for a long time, whereas others are relatively new.

For the ease of comprehension, we have organized them in alphanumerical order.

1. 5G
 

5GOpens a new window stands for fifth-generation wireless, which is a digital cellular technology that promises to be at least ten times faster than 4G. As the adoption of 5G grows in the future, every emerging technology will reach its peak potential. For instance, marketers will be able to deliver stupendously amazing experiences through immersive content (AR, VR, etc.), or screenless search will become way more ubiquitous than it is now.

2. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
 

Account-based marketing (ABM)Opens a new window is a marketing approach where marketers target a few organizations, individuals, or decision-makers from the target audience and design highly personalized campaigns to engage them, one-on-one. Marketers could even create marketing material, content, or campaigns tailored to a specific organization(s). ABM is also known as key account marketing and is largely used by B2B organizations for high ticket value clients.

3. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Marketing
 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) marketingOpens a new window uses AI-based concepts such as machine learning (ML), deep learning, and natural language processing (NLP) to replicate and scale human behavior in various marketing activities. Typical applications of AI in marketing include conversational AI, recommendation engines, audience segmentation, and personalization.

4. Chatbots
 

ChatbotsOpens a new window are one of the most common forms of conversational AI. A chatbot is an AI-powered software capable of simulating a human conversation with your target audience. You can implement chatbots on your website, within your mobile app, or through messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger.

5. Closed-Loop Marketing (CLM)
 

Closed-Loop Marketing (CLM) tracks customers throughout their journey, and prominently uses customer data to measure the contribution of marketing to the overall revenue. CLM requires the participation of the sales department because sales teams need to update the marketing department on the leads received and converted so that each lead can be attributed to its right source, hence closing the loop.

6. Content Experience
 

Content experienceOpens a new window is the overall experience of accessing, consuming, engaging with, and responding to a stream of brand content across devices, platforms, and channels, through the journey from prospect to customer. Successful content experiences deliver a high degree of relevance, personalization, timeliness, consistency, and convenience; by focusing on a holistic approach that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Learn More: What Are Marketers’ Biggest Fears? Here’s How to Overcome ThemOpens a new window  

7. Immersive Technology
 

Immersive technology is any technology that attempts to converge the physical and digital worlds together. Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) are three prominent examples of immersive technology. Brands are using immersive technology in marketing to engage audiences, provide product training, virtual tours, and gamify the customer experience (CX).

8. Intent-Based Marketing
 

Intent-based marketing is a marketing approach that aims to provide an offering to the prospective buyer based on what they’re looking for. The success of intent-based marketing primarily depends on the context, behavioral data, past purchase data, and sophisticated segmentation and targeting methods.

9. Interactive Marketing
 

Interactive marketing is a one-to-one marketing approach wherein marketing activities are based on the user’s behavior and preferences. Interactive marketing is also known as trigger-based marketing, and it is deeply rooted in personalization. Marketers rely on websites, blogs, social media, and emails to run interactive marketing initiatives, and interactive content such as surveys, polls, interactive storytelling, quizzes, etc. remain at the heart of interactive marketing.

10. Internet of Things (IoT) In Marketing
 

Internet of Things (IoT) is an ecosystem of interconnected devices such as wearable technology, connected cars, smart home appliances, and so on that can transmit data through the internet without requiring any human intervention. IoT in marketing presents an array of opportunities to enable marketers to connect with their target audience through community building, personalization, and audience engagement.

11. Martech Stack
 

Martech stack (also known as marketing stack) is a suite of applications an organization uses to manage its marketing activities. Organizations can either choose different vendors for various requirements to build a customized stack or choose a software platform that can provide a consolidated set of tools under one umbrella.

12. Micro-Moments
 

Google defines a micro-momentOpens a new window as an intent-rich moment when a person turns to a device to act on a need to- know, go, do, or buy. The rise of smartphone usage and voice search has made it easy for customers to make a decision on the go. In micro-moments, the user is most likely to connect with the brand that delivers what they’re looking for. Here are the four key micro-moments:

  1. I want to know
  2. I want to go
  3. I want to do
  4. I want to buy

 

Learn more: The Ideal Path to a MarTech CareerOpens a new window  

13. Mobile-First Experience
 

A mobile-first experience is an approach that focuses on the design process from mobile devices and gradually expands to larger screens as opposed to the traditional web-first approach. Considering the shift in the recent content consumption patterns, it makes sense to design your website, emails, and other content pieces from a mobile-first perspective so that the overall content experience is coherent and seamless across devices.

14. Omnichannel Marketing
 

Omnichannel marketingOpens a new window is a hybrid of cross-channel and multi-channel marketing strategized from the buyer’s perspective. While the above two approaches strive to communicate the same message to users across campaigns, channels, and devices, omnichannel marketing provides a cohesive experience at various touchpoints during the buyer’s journey. An example could be an e-commerce store sending you a reminder email and initiating a remarketing campaign to nudge you to buy the products in your cart or wish list on the app.

15. Personalization
 

Personalization is a widely used marketing technique to customize CX through content, offers, discounts, etc. depending on individual preferences. The success of personalization lies in your segmentation criteria and the way you utilize the AI-based features to customize and automate various marketing processes such as drip email or customer retention campaigns.

16. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
 

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technology that uses AI/ML to configure software that can imitate human behavior to automate business processes at scale. Software robots are helping marketing revolutionize by automating several functions of marketing operations, customer service, and customer experience (CX).

17. Smart Content
 

Smart content (or dynamic content) is personalized content that is delivered to users according to their viewing preferences. Smart content, as opposed to static content, is tailored according to the demographic, behavioral, and contextual information of the visitor.

18. Social Commerce
 

Social commerce relies on social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest to facilitate the sales of products and services. The user doesn’t have to leave the social media site they’re currently on to complete the purchase. They can buy the product within the app or through a native chatbot.

Learn more: Perpetual Evolution: Marketing Towards a Digitally-Driven FutureOpens a new window  

19. Value Metric
 

A value metric (also called a pricing dimension) is the criteria you use to charge for your offerings. It’s the value perceived by your paying customers in your product or service. For instance, if you are an email marketing software application, your value metrics could be the size of the subscriber list and the number of emails per month. Based on these two metrics, you can divide the pricing into different tiers.

20. Voice Search
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Voice search allows users to use voice commands rather than typing in their search queries in the search engine. The growth in the adoption of smartphones, digital assistants, along with the shift towards creating conversational content, has paved the way for the growth of voice search.

Closing Thoughts

This is by no means a comprehensive list of marketing terms. Marketing terms sometimes can get too jargony, but we hope this list of twenty terms will help you understand the key marketing concepts and stay on top of trends in 2020.

Would you like us to cover marketing terms on a specific topic such as content marketing, email marketing, or AI marketing? Tell us on Twitter,Opens a new window LinkedInOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window .

Indrajeet Deshpande
Indrajeet Deshpande

Contributor, Ziff Davis B2B

Indrajeet is a Marketing professional with 6+ years of experience in managing different facets of Digital Marketing. After working with SpiderG - a Pune based SaaS startup, he is now ready to work as a freelance marketer with different SaaS startups helping them with marketing strategy, plan and execution. His love for old-school hard rock and metal music culminated in taking up guitar and starting www.guitargabble.com. He’s studying Stoic philosophy, experimenting with productive habits and documenting the progress. Get in touch if you’re keen to know how you can implement pro-wrestling tactics in your marketing, community building and storytelling.
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