Have you read our November post “10 Inbound Marketing Terms You Need to Know“? That’s where we list 10 inbound marketing terms to help you understand your marketing department’s lingo. We’re back this month, with 7 more. While that makes 17 marketing terms so far, it’s by no means an exhaustive list. We just thought it the terms would be easier to digest in groups.
Let’s begin:
1. Content vs Context
“Content” and “context” are intricately linked inbound marketing terms.
Content refers to all the information your company shares with readers, watchers, and listeners — blog posts, videos, podcasts, slideshows, social media updates, which is the basis for your inbound marketing efforts.
However, for your inbound marketing strategy to be truly successful, you need to release the right content at the right time and place using the right medium. This is where context comes in. Context ensures that content is relevant to your audience wherever they are in the buying cycle.
2. HTML
HTML, which stands for Hypertext Markup Language, is used to build almost all webpages. Most HTML elements use a pair of tags in angle brackets, a start tag and an end tag such as <strong> and </strong> for making a word bold. Other HTML elements are unpaired, such as <img>.
3. JavaScript
JavaScript is the most popular of all programing languages. It allows website designers to add interactivity, animation, and automation to webpages, which can range from simple additional features to highly complex ideas that make a website act more like software than pages of content. Marketers can also use this language to track information including visitors, clicks, and audience movement around a site.
4. On-Page/Off-Page Optimization
SEO (search engine optimization) falls into two distinct categories: on-page and off-page.
On-page refers to the optimization of the actual content on a webpage. Marketers can improve this type of SEO by focusing on content, meta tags, URLs, and image tags — by ensuring that all of these include the keyword for the page.
Off-page optimization covers the remaining SEO factors, including incoming links, social media, and linking domains, that determine how search engines index a page. Marketers are unable to influence off-page optimization to nearly such an great extent as on-page.
SEO is critical to inbound marketing.
5. Landing Page
Do you remember this term? We mentioned it in 10 Inbound Marketing Terms You Need to Know, but as it’s so important, it deserves a little extra detail.
Landing pages play a key role in turning visitors into leads. To arrive at a landing page, your audience click a hyperlink or button on another part of your website, often your homepage or at the end of a piece of content. Then, they have the chance to obtain an appealing offering in return for their contact information. Your marketing team uses these contact details to nurture leads, with the ultimate aim of converting them into customers.
6. Call-to-Action
The link or button that directs visitors to a landing page is a call-to-action (CTA). To be successful (i.e. make many conversions) you need to think carefully about language and the design of the button, if applicable. Most companies test minor tweaks until they arrive at optimal wording and design.
7. Inbound Marketing offering packets
When an interested web visitor provides a business with their contact information (ie. email address), they will receive an offering, which can be an e-book, whitepaper, webinar, free consultation, discount, free trail - something with will entice the visitor along the sales funnel to becoming a customer.
You are very likely to come across most of these terms and more. So, we’ve listed 17 in our two postings. What is your favourite inbound marketing term? Add your term and definition in Comments.
