Digital marketing is probably one of the most frequently mentioned phrases in our discussions. It should not be surprising, given how central digital marketing is to modern-day business and entrepreneurship. Sure enough, traditional marketing is still relevant, but digital marketing has grown bigger. Digital marketing is the promotion of products or services via the use of electronic media. Examples of such media are the internet and social media, as well as digital billboards, digital TV or radio channels. Look at all the buzz and chatter that keeps you hooked on social media. In one way or another, other digital marketing is involved, directly or indirectly. The survival and traction of enterprises now heavily depend on digital marketing. Since it is a vast global industry, let us discuss some fundamental digital marketing jargon.

Brand Awareness

You usually hear this term being mentioned, especially in digital marketing. It refers to the extent to which potential customers recognize your brand. In other words, it is a measure of how much consumers are aware of your brand and the products it offers. The core thrust of digital marketing is to establish that brand awareness. This is critically important, especially in the early stages of your brand’s market entry. People cannot consider buying from a brand they do not know exists.

Buyer Persona

This is a detailed description of what you consider your target or ideal customer. This is one of the bases of what makes an effective digital marketing campaign. Having a buyer persona guides you in targeting your digital marketing efforts accurately. A buyer persona is informed of your market research and relevant data. Calculated assumptions also inform it on what exactly your ideal customers would need.

Call To Action (CTA)

A CTA is a clear and deliberate invitation to a reader, listener, or viewer to take some immediate action. This concerns a promotional campaign where you advertise your products or services. It is typically in the form of a button or link that your audience has to click. The CTA can be labelled “Buy Now”, “Sign Up Now”, “Call Now”, and so on. Sometimes it can be a simple line saying, e.g. ‘WhatsApp On +263 779 935 705’. The best approach is to use links, though. A CTA is what starts off a severe show of willingness by someone looking to buy. Any digital marketing campaign without a clear CTA is pointless, a mistake most businesses and startups tend to make.

Conversion Rate

It can also be referred to as the hit rate. It is the number of actual sales (i.e. conversions) realized as a percentage of the number of visits, calls, or enquiries made. The visits, calls or enquiries constitute the interactions as a result of the marketing campaign. Let us say you post an ad, or maybe it is an organic post. Then from that ad, 500 interactions occur, and 25 conversions happen. Your conversion rate will be 25 divided by 500 multiplied by 100 – in this case. It is 5 percent.

Engagement Rate

This is the measure of how much people interact with your content online, especially on social media. Engagement denotes interactions borne out of things like likes, comments, and shares. To get your engagement rate, divide your total number of interactions by your total number of followers and multiply by 100. Let us suppose your post gets 75 interactions, and you have 1000 followers. Your engagement rate would be 7.5 percent.

Content Marketing

This is a marketing approach where you build an online audience (you intend to monetize) through the creation and sharing of relevant and engaging content. The use of blog articles, posting on social media, podcasts, vlogs, newsletters, and the like are examples of content marketing.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This refers to the process of improving traffic to a website or social media page by increasing its visibility in search engine searches and results. The process is multi-layered, involving many possible things to do. For example, improving your content and ensuring it is unique increases your SEO. Making sure your website’s pages are indexed right increases SEO. When you effectively do your SEO, your platforms will rank high in the first results returned during Google searches.

A/B Testing

A/B testing (also called split testing) is a research approach where you seek to draw conclusions on how specific tweaks affect certain variables or variations. It is a technique used in testing out digital marketing approaches and how they perform in light of any tweaks one might use. This refers to a simplified approach to testing social media campaigns and web pages. It could be making comparisons on how different types of content perform. You simply have to establish your control before you test two variable variations.

The basic goal of A/B testing is to figure out what works and what does not. For example, you can make a social media post in the form of a 30-second video. Then during a similar day and time, you post the same content in the form of a text-based post. Afterwards, you compare to see which had more engagements. That is what A/B testing is all about.

Keywords

A keyword is a main or frequently used word, usually a noun that closely or accurately describes or defines a certain topic. Keywords can also be combined to form key phrases. You deliberately include these words in your content to rank high in search engine results. We are discussing digital marketing right now. ‘Digital’ and ‘marketing’ are examples of keywords. Put them together, and you get ‘digital marketing which is a key phrase. Whether you are making a social media post, a blog, or posting any form of content, it must contain keywords.

These are some of the core digital marketing terms you must know. There is so much to cover in digital marketing, but these terms are a good foundation.