Brittany HurlburtHow Many Marketing Buzzwords are you using?
Marketers are known for using obscure words to describe an action, activity, or a topic.
Good marketers wouldn’t be good if they didn’t use a couple buzzwords here and there in their work or in their presentations, right?
The truth is, there are marketing buzzwords that are often used in situations where they are not needed or are used but not justified.
What is a buzzword anyway? The dictionary defines it as:
buzz·word
noun ˈbəz-ˌwərd; first known use of the term buzzword was in 1946, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary:
- a word or phrase that becomes very popular for a period of time
- an important-sounding usually technical word or phrase often of little meaning used chiefly to impress laymen
- a voguish word or phrase —called also buzz phrase
Whether you are using a buzzword in a piece of content, on your website, or in a social media post; make sure that you understand what the buzzword is, which ones are useful, and which ones are not-so useful—those are the ones you need to be careful with.
In this post, I’ve put together a few which I find useful, very useful, and just plain useless. So, please excuse me if I offend you because of the marketing buzzwords I describe as useless, but don’t worry, you can share with me your thoughts in the comments at the end.
Useless marketing buzzwords
Below is a list of 6 buzzwords that you may think is useful, but are they really?
Here’s the TL;DR version:
- Customer centricity
- Deep Linking
- Disruptors
- Ideation
- Omnichannel Retailing
- SoLoMo
Customer centricity
This is the concept that you are putting your customers at the centre of your brand strategy, website strategy, social media strategy, and analysis. Technology has allowed customers to play a very important role in how our brands are perceived and talked about. The customers who won’t settle for second rate customer service, will be the first ones to share it on their newsfeeds for hundreds and even thousands of people to see. But, instead of using the marketing buzzword, customer centricity, to explain that you’re a customer first company, just stick to customer satisfaction, so that everyone understands that your mandate is to satisfy your customers.
Deep linking
Did your mind just wander off and thought of something NSFW after reading that? Okay, stop. Come back and let’s talk about this marketing buzzword, “deep linking.” Digital marketers think of “deep linking” as a website strategy that helps increase referral traffic. But, stop that nonsense and just go back to using “hyperlink”, which sounds less dirty, and makes more sense to what your end goal is: linking a specific, generally searchable or indexed, piece of content on a website rather than the home page.
Disruptors
Disruptors are mixing things up, changing the game, they are the rebels, and they are innovators who shake up the status quo. Uber is an example of a disruptor, with the way they changed the taxi landscape.
However, keep this marketing buzzword in the target audience slide of your next marketing campaign, and avoid using it on your website to describe your audience or your brand. Last thing you want is someone who doesn’t understand marketing lingo and take that term and say something bad about company on a media source.
Ideation
This term refers to the process of creating new ideas. But, is it really that necessary to name that process? Let’s not make the English language harder than it already is to learn by avoiding this unnecessary buzzword.
Omnichannel retailing
When you read that, did you think of a channel network? Because I did. So, please stop using this buzzword to describe how you are creating a fully integrated retail experience for your consumers.
SoLoMo
This refers to SOcial, LOcal, and MObile. Doesn’t this sound like slow-mo, or a part of New York city? Oh wait, that’s SoHo. Yes, thinking social, local, and mobile, is important for your marketing and website strategy, but please, for your children, stop using this buzzword.
Useful marketing buzzwords
I’ve broken this section up into two categories of useful marketing buzzwords: fun and smart. They’re all useful, but in the world of marketing there are some that make your brand sound fun and approachable, and others that make your brand sound smart and legitimate.
Here’s the TL;DR version:
- Snackable content
- Selfie
- Snap
- AMA
- Conversion Optimization
- KPI
- Mobile Optimization
- CTA
- Owned media / Owned Audience
The fun ones:
Snackable content
What this refers to is creating content that is easier to read, quicker to read, and less than 20,000 words. A good way to practice creating content that is “snackable” is on Twitter, a social network that makes you write what you mean in less than 140 characters, now that’s a snack!
Selfie
If you don’t know what a selfie is, consider yourself saved from the downfalls of society. This buzzword is still in the useful category though, because marketers everywhere are using it to create campaigns that engage with their audiences. With more and more smartphones getting higher quality cameras, selfies are not about to go away anytime soon. So take advantage of this phenomenon and use it for your next selfie marketing campaign. You’ll be surprised how many people will take part in it because of the pure joy they get from taking a selfie (which isn’t vain at all).
The Ellen Selfie that was powered by Samsung:
Snap
Remember when you first started saying, “Tweet” and people looked at you as if you were from outer space? Well, “Snap” is kind of like that, except now you sound cooler and in tune with the younger crowd. “Snap” like “Tweet,” is the action you take when you use Snapchat. With more brands taking part in Snapchat to reach their audience in a more personable level, this year you’re going to see more “snapping.”
AMA
Ask Me Anything’s are all the rage now with influencers and leaders of large companies. What first started out on Reddit, as a way to create real-time conversation with your audience, AMAs are now being done on platforms such as Meerkat and Periscope. From text, to live-stream videos, AMAs are going to blow-up this year with these new apps.
The smart ones:
Conversion optimization
Conversion optimization or conversion rate optimization (CRO) refers to creating an experience for a website or landing page visitor with the goal to increase the percentage of visitors into paying customers. This is a buzzword you have probably already heard of, but if your website strategy doesn’t include conversion optimization, then you’re missing out.
KPI
This is an oldie, but a must-include in a list that talks about marketing buzzwords. KPI, stands for Key Performance Indicators. For marketers, KPIs are the backbone to all your marketing activities. You create campaigns to reach your KPIs, and you use your KPIs to prove the worth of marketing to your business.
Mobile optimization
Mobile, mobile, mobile, is all anyone is talking about in 2015. If you want to increase referral traffic to your website, you need to make sure that your website strategy includes mobile optimization. This refers to optimizing your online assets to a mobile experience. For example, using responsive design for your website will allow your website to be optimized for mobile devices. This may not necessarily be a marketing buzzword, but it is definitely a buzzword that marketers should know.
CTA
CTA stands for Call To Action. Marketers refer to this as text that provides instruction to the audience to provoke immediate response. This buzzword has been thrown around quite a bit lately because of the importance of the CTA on a website. Marketers know that the landing pages they create or the webpage they design must have a provoking CTA in order to reach their conversion goals.
Owned Media / Owned Audience
These two terms are not very catchy but, they are important and useful. If you have a website, that is your owned media property. If you have a social media following that you didn’t pay for, they are your owned audience. With the rise of social media advertising, the wonderful thing about is you can pay to gain audience and increase the amount of people who see your content. But, is this the way you want to do marketing all the time? Yes, there are many benefits of social media advertising. But, creating content that benefits your owned audience can help you cut costs and improve your content marketing.
In summary
Don’t you just want to use these now? Or did you catch yourself saying and using too many of the useless ones? Marketing buzzwords are fun to use but it’s important to use them wisely. This lists above are just a few of the many buzzwords being used every day. But, the one thing you’re probably asking yourself is, what does TL;DR mean?
Do you know of anymore buzzwords that are useless? Let us know in the comments below.
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