Branding and marketing terms

Brand

Your brand is the essence of your organization — what you stand for, and why you exist. It is how the public thinks and feels about you. It is not your logo or visual identity, which is commonly referred to as “branding.”

Brand Advocate

A brand advocate is someone who champions your brand to others by talking about it, sharing it, and referring people to you.

Brand Position

Your brand’s position is the place you seek to and are perceived as occupying in the market.

Brand Promise

Your brand promise is what everyone who interacts with you can expect — every time.

Brand Strategy

Your brand strategy is your plan for achieving your business objectives by successfully navigating the opportunities in the market, needs of your audience(s), and matching it with what you offer.

Channels

A channel is a specific platform, vendor, or method you use to reach your audience, such as “Instagram” or “pharmacies.”

Conversion

The action, or goal, you want your audience to complete. For example, if you send an email asking folks to “sign up” for your class, you “convert” the people who actually sign up for the class.

Copy

Copy is the words. The words in an ad, the words on a page, the words in a post. You can write them. You can hire a copywriter to write them.

Earned Media

Earned media is any media coverage, press coverage, or mentions from influencers, bloggers, journalists, reporters, and media outlets that you do not pay for. You might earn this coverage by actively pitching and building relationships with reporters and editors. They might contact you for an interview.

Ideal Target Audience(s)

When marketing your business, you don’t want to reach just anyone. You should identify the types of audiences which will be most interested in what you have to offer.

Information Architecture

The information architecture of your website is how the information is laid out. Just like a house is designed by  an architect, your website also needs thooughtful design. You can think of this as a  sitemap of all the pages.

Integrated Marketing Strategy

Marketing is anything you’re doing to promote your business. Integrated marketing is creating a unified, seamless, and coordinated strategy across all the ways you interact with your audiences.

Journey, User Journey, Audience Journey

The user journey, or audience journey, is the journey your audience goes through as they become aware of you and interact with your business or organization.

Landing Page

A web page where you send someone for a specific purpose — the page is focused on just one thing, such as capturing a lead by providing something specific.

Lead, Interested Lead, Qualified Lead

A lead is someone potentially interested in your products/services, or it can refer to capturing a way to contact that lead, such as an email address. Ideally you want interested and pre-qualified leads that you know are actually considering purchasing what you offer.

Marketing

Marketing Collateral

Anything you use to support your marketing efforts — graphics, emails, social media assets, landing pages, brochures, etc.

Messaging

The key messages you use to communicate about your organization and what you offer with your audience.

Owned Media

All the media you have complete editorial control over, such as your website, social media channels, blog, email newsletters, etc.

Outlet

A media outlet is a publication — like The Washington Post, or Brightest Young Things.

Outreach, Direct Outreach

This is when you contact someone in a direct and personal way by emailing, calling, or DMing them.

Paid Media

Advertising. Anything you pay for — whether it’s a mention from an influencer, Google search ads, social media ads, out-of-home or display advertising, sponsored content, etc.

Pipeline

The pipeline of potential incoming leads/business. Ideally, you’re always building awareness of your organization and filing the pipeline with potential leads.

Pitching

You can pitch a reporter or media outlet, an investor, or even a customer. You’re telling them what you want and trying to get them to do something.

Tactics

Specific strategic tactics you’re using to promote your organization and what you offer. For example, sharing user-generated content your audience created themselves where they say why they like your product in their own words so others can see real people who really like what you do.

Thought Leadership

Demonstrating your expertise and credibility, for example by speaking at an industry event or authoring a blog.

User experience (UX)

When creating a website — or anything else — it’s important to consider the experience of the user. How will they interact with it? Will it make sense to them? 

Visual Identity

All the visual elements that make up your brand’s visual identity — the logo, brand colors, fonts, icons, photography style, etc.

Tag Line

Short text that helps clarify your idea, like a slogan.