Does it feel like a new marketing buzzword is created every day? Marketing trends change quickly, and with it comes new words, acronyms, and catchphrases. To help you stay in the know, here’s a list of the most common content marketing buzzwords and their meanings.
Advertainment: The combination of “advertisement” and “entertainment” in one piece of content.
AI: Also known as “artificial intelligence,” AI platforms like ChatGPT are helping marketers with everyday tasks like brainstorming ideas and writing text snippets.
Big data: A glut of numbers that are so large normal computers can’t handle them.
Brand awareness: Making people aware of your brand and helping them remember it.
Brand identity: The visual pieces representing your brand, like a logo or brand colors.
CLV: Also known as “customer lifetime value,” it’s a metric that explores how much money a company can make from one long-term customer.
Content strategy: The high-level plan for your content efforts, which should include goals, KPIs, target audience, and drill into content types and cadence.
Conversion: When a customer completes your desired action, like purchasing a product or downloading an eBook.
CTA: Stands for “call to action,” which is the desired action you want customers to take, like buying a product.
Customer journey: The path a consumer takes to go from being aware of your brand to becoming a paying customer.
Deliverables: Pieces of content created and “delivered” to the proper person or channel.
Disruptor: A marketing team changing the rules and trying something new in marketing.
Earned media: When others write about your brand or product through no prompt or payment from you.
Ephemeral content: Content that disappears within a certain time period.
Experiential marketing: A marketing tactic that gives your audience experiences, like product launch parties or webinars, as a way to promote a product.
Freemium: Basic features are free, but costs increase to unlock premium features.
Flywheel: The efforts needed to keep customers engaged and retained.
Gamification: A marketing tactic that introduces games to attract or retain customers.
Gated content: Content that requires consumers to provide information or payment before “opening the gate” to receive the content.
Geofencing: Using technology to pinpoint a particular area, like people within 500 feet of a specific store, and marketing to them.
Growth hacking: Usually used by startups with shoe-string budgets, growth hacking leverages free marketing efforts to attract attention.
Hyperlocal: The act of targeting a small geographical group.
Ideation: Brainstorming new ideas.
IGC: Also known as “influencer generated content,” this type of marketing material is produced by an influencer and shared on his or her social channels. It usually promotes a brand’s product or service.
Influencer: A person who builds a niche audience on social and can “influence” followers to take action.
Influencer marketing: A collaboration between an influencer and a brand that authentically promotes a brand’s products.
KPI: Also known as a “key performance indicator,” these are metrics that marketers identify as barometers of success.
Long-form content: Content that’s 1000 words+.
Low-hanging fruit: This refers to easy wins that a marketing team could achieve without much effort.
Martech: The word combines “marketing” and “tech” and refers to tools teams use to aid in marketing efforts.
Micro-influencer: An influencer with an audience on social media between 10K and 50K followers.
Nano-influencer: The smallest tier of influencers, a nano-influencer, has 1K-10K followers on social media.
Netiquette: It’s a combination of “internet” and “etiquette” to reference how to behave online.
Newsjacking: The practice of piggybacking on headlines as a marketing effort, like crafting a blog post that differs from headlines in industry news.
Organic marketing: The number of people who see your marketing efforts without investing money.
Pain points: Marketers identify challenges that customers face, known as “pain points,” and suggest solutions, usually by way of trying a product.
Performance marketing: With this type of marketing, your budget is based on your success.
Prospect: A lead aware of your brand but hasn’t made a purchase.
Repurpose content: To reuse content in different forms on different channels to maximize its use.
ROI: Also known as “return on investment,” this is a common metric that marketers measure to see if a campaign is a worthy investment.
Second-screen: Consumers tend to watch two screens, a TV and a “second screen,” which is usually a smartphone.
Short-form content: Content that’s 300-600 words.
Snackable content: Bite-sized pieces of content that are easy for people to digest.
SoLoMo: An acronym for “social, local, mobile,” that’s meant to show the importance of all three aspects.
Target audience: A well-defined group of people who are interested in a specific product.
TL;DR: Stands for “too long, didn’t read,” and can sometimes be used by consumers to describe marketing content.
Thought leader: An expert in a certain field.
UGC: Also known as “user-generated content,” customers or fans usually create this type of content at the request of a company. It’s often used as part of a social media contest.
Viral: When a piece of content gains traction and becomes extremely popular on social.
X-post: Short for cross-posting to multiple channels.
