common marketing acronyms, explained
As you build out your marketing strategy, there’s a good chance you’ll start hearing abbreviations being thrown around in conversation that you’ve never heard of before. GTM, SEO, CMS… There are enough to make your head spin!
To help ease you into the world of marketing shorthand, we’ve gone ahead and picked five common acronyms that will be helpful for you to understand as your team continues to build your brand.
GTM (GO-TO-MARKET STRATEGY)
Your go-to-market strategy is essentially a game plan for how you’ll get from point A to point B. What actions do you need to take in order to successfully launch your business, reach your target audience and drive the desired outcome? A GTM strategy should validate the market need, identify your audience, define your offering and outline a clear end–goal. It can apply to a new product, new business or even the lead up to a live event! Once you take the time to build out a comprehensive GTM strategy, it makes it much easier to meet your objectives for a successful launch.
KPI (KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR)
Key performance indicators are measurable factors within your business that can be used to determine the success of a campaign, department, or company as a whole. Some examples would be conversion rates, cost per acquisition, return on investment, etc. Whatever your objective is, the data you use as KPIs should be easily measured, align with your business goals, and allow you to easily pinpoint successes and areas for improvement. Establishing clear KPIs will help ensure that your team is measuring success the same way, and continuously working toward the same goals.
CMS (CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM)
A content management system allows you to build, manage, and operate your website without needing extensive (or any!) knowledge of coding. Popular options include WordPress, Squarespace and Shopify – among others. Content management systems offer a user-friendly and affordable alternative to hiring a traditional web developer, which is especially great for smaller businesses or companies just starting out. That being said, CMS’s aren’t just for non-coders! Even highly skilled web developers will often use a CMS to manage their sites, since they allow for flexibility and customization with back-end coding.
SEO (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION)
Search engine optimization is a way of making sure that you’re maximizing your site’s organic ranking and visibility on search engines like Google. The better your rank on Google, the more visitors you’ll get to your site – and who doesn’t want that? The trick is finding a way to take advantage of Google’s algorithm so that it recognizes your page as relevant and valuable. That way, when people search terms related to your product or service, Google will put your page near the top of the list. A few ways to improve your SEO include:
- Optimizing web copy with relevant search terms
- Reinforcing key terms in the backend of your site with title tags, keywords and meta descriptions
- Consistently adding new content to your site
- Avoiding repeat content across your site
Check out our other blog post to learn how you can improve your site’s SEO.
SEM (SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING)
While SEO is based on organic rankings, search engine marketing is a paid approach that is designed to drive traffic to your page through search engines. Like SEO, SEM makes use of targeted keywords so that when someone searches a topic related to your product or service, your site appears at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). The difference is, this paid approach makes it much easier for you to appear at the top of the list because you’re essentially paying to cut ahead of the competitors who are ranking organically through SEO. If you do explore SEM in your marketing strategy, you’ll likely be introduced to yet another acronym, PPC (pay-per-click), which means you’re charged every time someone clicks on the link leading them to your page. When used in conjunction with SEO, SEM can be a very effective way to edge out your competitors in ranking and reach a broader audience.
While these terms barely skim the surface of marketing speak, familiarizing yourself with their meanings will help you more easily understand the strategies and options being presented to you. And when in doubt, speak up! Your marketing team should be more than happy to slow down and explain what they mean – especially if those phrases are part of YOUR business’s marketing strategy.
