In our industry, keeping up with the many different marketing terms and definitions can be daunting. In this blog post, we detail several different significant marketing keywords so that you can more quickly communicate like an industry professional.
AIDA: This acronym features an active and commonly accepted process for effective marketing materials. It stands for catch ATTENTION, initiate INTEREST, develop DESIRE, and request ACTION.
B2B: Business-to-business. This term denotes a kind of business that markets to other businesses. United Mail, with its unique direct mail and digital marketing services, operates on a B2B model.
B2C: Business-to-consumer. These businesses market their wares directly to consumers / customers. An example for this would type of business model would be Nintendo, which markets video games directly to customers, or Nike, which directly sells shoes.
Back end: This concept has to do with the goods and / or services that a business resells to a consumer after their initial purchase. More directly, this process refers to the potential and ongoing sales to an already existing customer base.
BMC: Bulk mail center. This location is hugely important for distribution and direct mail marketing. It basically stands for a United States Post Office that deals with mail in bulk. As a leader in direct mail marketing, United Mail conveniently features one of these in our Louisville office.
BRC: Business reply card. Sometimes when you distribute direct mail marketing materials, you’ll attach shipping information and the appropriate postage to get honest and straightforward feedback from your recipient. The business reply card will contain usually some kind of survey or reply form on one side while the other will feature your company’s address information.
BRE: Business reply envelope. When your company attaches a BRC (business reply card) to marketing materials, it’s good business practice to include a business reply envelope for your recipient to provide their feedback. The envelope will have its postage paid and will come pre-addressed with the company’s mailing information.
CTA: Call to action. One of the most important segments of your marketing materials will be its call to action, its conclusion. What are you motivating your recipient to do? Your call to action in your marketing materials will provide your potential customer with explicit and clear instructions on what they need to do next. The call to action should inspire your recipient to act within a limited amount of time, especially if your marketing materials feature a special promotion.
CPA: Cost per acquisition. This term refers to the costs an advertiser must invest to gain new, individual customers.
CPO: Cost per order. Like CPA, this term refers to the costs an advertiser must invest to gain new, individual orders.
CR: Conversion Rate / Ratio. The CR of a marketing campaign has to do with the percentage of people who respond to your company’s marketing materials by buying your product / service. The higher your CR is, the more effective your marketing campaign was.
CRE: Courtesy Reply Envelope: This is an envelope enclosed along with your marketing materials. This may appear similar to your BRE, but there’s one major distinction: while you typically pay for postage with your BREs, you leave your recipient to cover the postage on CREs.
DMA: Direct Marketing Association. One of the leading authorities for marketers, this organization is an excellent resource for industry trends and data analytics.
FAQ: Frequently asked questions. This is a list of questions that your company is commonly asked. In your FAQ, you should make sure to include clear and digestible answers to the questions customers often ask. Your FAQ should appear on your website and should be distributed to your sales and customer relations teams.
LRA: List rental agreement. When you rent a mailing list from an industry professional, you have to clearly lay out all of the conditions surrounding your agreement to borrow that mailing list.
LTV: Lifetime value. This refers to the total a customer will spend on your company’s products / services throughout their relationship with your business.
Merge-purge: When you combine two or more mailing lists using intelligent database software, duplicate names and information will be removed accordingly.
mIn: Marketing information network. While this organization is certainly a mailing list juggernaut, United Mail can couple with this information analytics company to help you get your marketing materials out to the right people at the right time.
NCOA: National Change of Address file. This is a dynamic and fluid list that monitors who has moved within the past three years to help ensure the right mail gets to the right address.
RFM: Recency, Frequency, Monetary Value. This formula calculates the potential factors that will determine the value of a customer on a mailing list. The breakdown is better explained below:
- Recency: The most recent order the potential customer made
- Frequency: The raw number of orders the potential customer has made
- Monetary Value: The raw amount of money the potential customer has spend on your company’s products / services
Balancing these three significant aspects will help inform your most strategically effective marketing campaign to target most likely prospective customers.
ROI: Return on investment. This statistic compares the amount your company invested in a marketing campaign versus the profit your company made from that campaign. United Mail works actively to ensure a strong ROI on your next direct mail and /or digital marketing campaign.
SRDS: Standard rate and data source. Another industry leader in mailing lists, this offers more refined search results from its database comprising over 100,000 mailing lists. This is a resource every company considering a marketing campaign should reference.
SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. This is a direct marketing analysis that weights the positive and negative aspects of a campaign before it begins. Every company should make a point to begin their next marketing endeavor with this necessary and helpful planning process.
USP: Unique selling position. This is what separates your service or product from your competitors. What makes your company unique? This characteristic will often drive marketing campaigns and promotions.
USPS: United States Postal Service. The governing body on postage and delivery, make sure you monitor their rate increases on their website and on our blog post!
Learning these terms and concepts will help you sound like a professional direct marketer. Request a call today, and let’s get started on planning your next successful marketing campaign.
