The Marketers Forum - UK Marketing Courses CIM, CAM, MRS Qualifications - London and South East England

4. As a Senior Examiner for the CIM, how strong are Marketers skills in the area of Digital Marketing today? What can they do to further improve them?

Advertorial
Content intended as advertising but structured like news or an article.

Affiliate
In general any external 3rd party with whom an organisation has a mutually beneficial sales or marketing relationship, e.g. a contract sales person or other business partner. On the Internet, an e-commerce affiliate is typically a third party e-commerce site accessible by a link from the main website such as Amazon.com. When a visitor clicks on an affiliate link, they are connected to this third party site. If a purchase is made the 2 websites will share a small payment (usually a percentage of the money the customer spends).

Affiliate Marketing
A system of advertising on the web in which site A agrees to feature links from site B. Site A gets a commission on any traffic, leads or sales generated for site B as a result. These links may be reciprocal. There are many ‘link brokers’ – companies that act as intermediaries, arranging these link exchanges and taking a commission.

Banner
A web banner or ‘banner ad’ is a form of advertising on the web which entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract a web surfer to the website of the advertiser. When the web surfer clicks on the banner, the viewer is directed to the website advertised in the banner. This is known as a ‘click through’. Banners may be ‘fixed price’ or charged according to the ‘click through rate’ achieved.

Bidding
Pay per click search offers are designed around a very simple concept – the more you are willing to pay for key words that users may search on, the higher up the search engine results your site will appear.
It works on a real-time auction system between competitors for the top few positions which receive the vast majority of the clicks on search results pages.
For example; if company A is bidding £3.50 for the term “marketing consultants” and is in the top spot, a bid of £3.51 will put company B into No. 1 and push company A down to No. 2.

Black Hat
Black Hat is the term used to describe techniques used by some search marketers to promote websites. These techniques are those that go against guidelines published by search engines, and in many cases their use can result in a site being penalised or removed from search engine listings. Black Hat is the opposite of White Hat. It is unethical and search engines are constantly improving their ability to track and ‘punish’ Black Hat activities.

Blogging
Content published using blog software (eg WordPress, Blogger) that organises pages chronologically and/or by category. Blogs also provide an RSS feed so readers can subscribe without visiting the blog website.

Bounce Rate
In search marketing terms, ‘bounce rate’ is the percentage of web site visitors who arrive at a landing page, then leave without getting any deeper into the site.
This term is also frequently used to describe the return of a piece of e-mail due to an error in the addressing or distribution process.

Cloaking
Cloaking is a technique used to show content to a search engine and different content to a user. The content shown to the engine is usually designed to help a page rank very well for a certain phrase or word, and the content shown to the user is usually designed to maximise the conversions from that page. Search engines forbid this technique and many sites are punished for using it by removal from search listings. It is a Black Hat technique and seen as unethical.

CMS
Stands for Content Management System. A CMS is a tool that enables a variety of staff to create, edit, manage and finally publish (in a number of formats) a variety of content (such as text, graphics, video, documents etc), whilst being constrained by a centralised set of rules, process and workflows that ensure coherent, electronic content. A CMS can be used to store content, documents and records as in an Enterprise Content Management Systems  (ECMS) or to publish content for websites, Web Content Management System (WCMS).

Cost per Click
In a ‘Cost Per Click’ model, payment is made each time the ad is clicked. An alternative is buying internet advertising on a ‘cost per impression’ model where payment is made when an ad is simply viewed.

Co-branding
A strategy in which two or more organisations join together in promotional activities to associate the two brands. Co-branding allows the partners to benefit from combining their complementary strengths. e.g. Dell PC’s with ‘Intel inside’.

Conversion
A conversion is when a website user completes a specific marketing or sales goal. Examples include; downloading a coupon, making a sale, signing up for a newsletter or making an enquiry.

Cookie
A cookie is a small text file stored on a website user’s computer. It identifies a repeat visitor to a site, often with a unique code, allowing people to shop online and removing the need to log in to sites repeatedly. It can also be used to direct a returning user to a particular page within a site, based on their previous site usage or preferences.

CPM
CPM stands for ‘Cost-Per-Mille, and is a form of advertising system. An advertiser pays a specific amount for every thousand times his advert is seen on a site, regardless of how many of the users who see the advert actually click on it and visit the advertiser’s site. It is seen as an effective advertising model to achieve brand awareness.

CTR
CTR stands for “Click-through Rate”. It is an indicator of the percentage of people who see an advert who actually click on it. For example, if one out of every hundred people who view an advert click on it, the advert with have a CTR of 1%. It is seen as an effective model to achieve brand usage, e-zine An electronic magazine: newsletter, or other electronic media communication that is distributed either over the web or via email.

E-catalogue (or e-brochure)
An electronic version of a paper or brochure in which the viewer can turn the pages online. There are many software packages that enable this some with advanced functions such as document search, active web links or embedded multimedia.

Guerrilla Marketing
A term coined by Jay Conrad Levinson that refers to unconventional marketing strategies designed to get maximum results from minimal resources. These may include ‘high-jacking’ third party events and activities (e.g. standing behind a celebrity being interviewed on film with a product poster).

Hit
When searching the web, a hit can be a result found by a search engine that matches the search criteria. In analytics, a hit is when a file is requested by a server.
In the past some used hits as a measure of website traffic. However, hits to a server include images and repeat visitors, and are a poor indicator of traffic. One thousand hits very rarely equal one thousand visits.

Keyword
A Keyword is a word or phrase – typically a phrase of two or three words – which has been identified as one which potential customers use when they are searching the internet. Once identified these key words must be correctly included into the content and coding of those web pages which are relevant. This is part of Search Engine Optimisation of a site. It is a fine art to achieve this balance, which is very much more than packing a site with high visibility occurrences of key words.

Infographic
Annotated with descriptive text and colourful graphics, infographics that are well planned and executed are high impact for social sharing.

Link
A clickable place on a web page that results in the user being directed to another web page (URL) It is good practice to highlight links in some way so that they are obvious to the user and it is apparent what will happen if clicked.

Link building
The most important factor in gaining visibility in search engine results is the number of relevant, inbound links pointing at a web page or web site. Link Building is the technique used to increase this number. This can include submitting a website to directories, creating more relevant content for a website, link exchange, and many more techniques.

Long Tail
A marketing concept, first applied to Amazon in a Wired Magazine article, This shows it is possible to make a lot of sales revenue and profit in selling a small number each, of a very long list of less popular items (e.g. from all the books listed), compared to high volume sales of a small list of items (e.g. the top 10 best sellers).

Market
A group of people or organisations that share a need for a particular product or service and have the willingness or potential willingness and ability to use/pay for it.

Market Segmentation
The process of dividing the market into smaller groups that have common wants and needs that may be satisfied by a particular Marketing Mix. It builds on the idea that not everyone is equally likely to buy everything. Segmentation bases may include lifestyle, age or income; but only to to the extent that these will differentiate users real wants and needs. There is no ‘right’ way to segment a given market.

Market Share
The proportion of the total market that is using a particular organisation’s products or services.

Marketing Information System
A system for collecting and exploiting information on existing and potential customers, competitors as well as the resources and potential of the company itself.

Marketing Mix
This usually refers to McCarthy’s ’4 P’s': Promotion, Place, Price and Product. This is the tactical definition of what will satisfy the wants and needs of a specific Market Segment. For service offerings 3 more P’s are added: People, Process and Physical evidence. The P’s are those variables that marketers can adjust to enhance the competitive position and success of their company in a given product market.

Meta Data/Meta Tag
Meta Data is information held about a page or document. It is usually held invisibly within the page, and may include a description of the page, a list of relevant keywords, or the name of the author. Correct tagging is very important for Search Engine Optimisation.

Microsites
Dedicated web sites for specific campaigns, promotions or to serve as a social hub. Microsites can provide a focus for content that doesn’t really fit on the corporate website or blog.

Mission
The key goal(s) of an organisation, usually disseminated in a Mission Statement. It is usually a long term view of what the company is in business to do.

Mobile Applications
Mobile browsing is set to overtake desktop browsing by 2014, so mobile apps that provide information and a good user experience can be very effective as part of a marketing strategy.

Newsfeeds
Newsfeeds are a means of providing users with frequently updated, often real-time content from one website to another. It is often used to provide news or market information on a given site or Blog, without the need to keep visiting the originating site. They have two benefits – they create regular, fresh, search engine friendly content on a site, as well as allowing users to subscribe and receive the news directly to their inboxes or blogs. See too RSS.

Page Title
As the name suggests it is the name for a given web page. It is usually visible in the title bar of the browser while you are viewing a page. Good practice in page titling is an extremely important aspect of website development and can have a large impact on Search Engine Optimisation.

PPC or Pay Per Click
A model where the advertiser is charged every time someone clicks on their Internet ad or link. Pay per click ads can appear in many places – they can be seen at the top or on the right hand side of the results pages in search engines. Often they are identified with the words ‘sponsored link’. Commercial sites can build or host their own pay per click ads, or they can buy them in bulk and display them on their site, from Google (Google ad words) and other companies, who will pay a commission when these ads are clicked on.

Permission Marketing
Permission marketing or ‘opt-in marketing’ is a form of relationship building based upon obtaining customer permission to receive information from a company. Under current EU law the consumer has to give positive consent for this to happen.

Place
The channel or location where a product or service is brought to the market. Examples include a website, a call centre, a retail outlet or a salesperson.

Podcasts
iTunes provides an effective distribution and promotion platform for many popular podcasts which can be audio or video.  Like newsletters, podcasts are often published according to a schedule and provide regular, useful information.

Positioning
Deciding where a product fits in, and how it should be placed and perceived, in relation to its competitors. Positioning maps are models where a number of variables can be used to compare one company’s product to its competitors e.g. High Cost – Low Cost vs. High Quality – Low Quality

Process
In marketing services the way in which the service is delivered, consistently, to a given standard that will satisfy the customer.

Product
The totality of the ‘thing’ that the customer buys. This is not just be the physical object but all the associated service, experience, emotion, satisfaction, realised benefits and interaction that the consumer gets from the company and its brand.

Product Differentiation
Ideally makes a product different and better from the competition is ways that are of value to the customer.

Portal
A gateway to a site or sites on a single topic (deep) or area (broad).

RSS
“Really Simple Syndication” is a family of web feed formats used to publish and distribute frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.

ROI
ROI stands for ‘Return On Investment’ and is one possible measure of the success of marketing activity. E.g. a marketing campaign that cost £10,000 but made £3,000 would obviously have a low ROI. A marketing campaign that cost £10,000 but made £100,000 would have a high ROI.

SEM
‘Search Engine Marketing’ is the umbrella term for marketing on the Internet. It includes Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as well as other paid for and free online marketing, such as pay per click campaigns, banner advertising, viral marketing etc.

SEO
‘Search Engine Optimisation’, is the science and art of ensuring that the contents of a website are as visible as possible to search engines. Good SEO means that when users key in search terms, the website is shown high up in the search results.
It is a highly skilled and technical process, the realm of specialists. It will take months to implement from a low starting point and it is a never ending, ongoing process.

Search Engine
A search engine is a tool and a database of web pages that has been collated from continuous searching and indexing the content of the Internet. Once search terms are entered by a user, the search engine returns a list of pages that contain content relevant and matching the search criteria. Google is by far the largest and most popular search engine in use today. Other examples include; Yahoo, Bing.

Search Results
The pages that are returned as a result of a query that has been entered into a search engine. The results displayed on the page are of two types. ‘Paid for’ ads are typically displayed on a coloured background at the top of the results page and also as clickable links down the right hand side of the page. Companies can bid to appear in either of these positions, usually based on an auction/bidding model for the search words they want to ‘buy’, the position they want to be in and how long they want to be there. The rest of the results listed are ‘organic’ results and appear for free. The actual position of websites in the search results pages depends on what search words were actually typed in; and how well the websites where they appear are optimised, for the search engine to find, index and display them.

Search Term
A single word – or group of words – used to query a search engine. This phrase can also refer to specific keywords which need to be optimised within the website for search engines to find and index.

Spam
Spam usually refers to unwanted ‘junk’ email, sent out indiscriminately by unethical companies to millions of people at once. There is often criminal intent with the distribution of viruses or the attempted acquisition of personal information, credit card details etc.

Spider
A spider (also called a “crawler”) is a software programme created by a search engine to index pages on the web. It visits pages on the web, collects and indexes their content, and finds and follows links within the pages. Important sites can have their pages ‘crawled’ hundreds of time a day.

Splash Page
A splash page is an introduction page to a website, usually created using flash. While often colourful, they are no longer popular as they slow down entry to a website and usually provide no useful information to the user. In many cases they will irritate the users, who will quickly move on.

Strategy
Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long-term, which achieves advantage for the organisation through the configuration of resources, to meet the needs of the market and to fulfil stakeholder expectations.

SWOT
An analytical model that looks at the internal ‘Strengths and Weaknesses’ of an organisation, and the external ‘Opportunities and Threats’ in its markets. Plans can then be put in place to build on the strengths, address the weaknesses, realise the opportunities and protect against the threats. SWOT analysis should be an ongoing activity and not a once a year ritual to be completed and filed. In order to be meaningful a SWOT analysis should be done for each market segment rather than for the organisation as a whole. The latter approach results in bland generalised results.

Tactics
The means by which the strategy is carried out. This is normally a series of activities in pursuit of the overall goal.

Target Market
A group of consumers on whom a company focuses its resources. They are usually chosen because they have unique wants and needs that can be satisfied by the Marketing Mix, they offer good profit and the company is well placed vs. its competition.

Viral Marketing
A ‘guerrilla marketing’ tactic, where topical, catchy and often irreverent marketing messages are communicated and spread without coordination, particularly on the Internet. Dispersal relies on word of mouth and being passed on from viewer to viewer, because the message is fun or relevant in some way. This compares to more traditional paid advertising where media consumption is pre-planned and budgeted. However, due to its success more and more established brands are paying for the creation of viral campaigns

Webinar
Live audio combined with presentation slides. Q & A and chat provide a content experience that can also be replayed by the user when stored in an online archive.

White Hat
White Hat is the term used to describe techniques used by ethical search marketers to perform Search Engine Optimisation to promote websites. These follow the accepted guidelines published by search engines. White Hat is the opposite of Black Hat.

White Papers
Often used as ‘sticky’ content to populate a website and available to download. They are usually on a specific topic and can be very effective for educating and persuading consumers. Reports co-authored with marketing partners or industry analysts can boost credibility and reach.

Wikis
Community content creation, curation and maintenance. They give a community of interest, the opportunity to contribute and be recognised for developing a resource, often on a niche topic.

The Marketers’ Forum crew left the office this morning to visit the Marketing Week Live exhibition at Kensington, Olympia. Hats off to Marketing Week, they put on a good show! The number of big brands present, the quality of the speakers and variation of the lectures scheduled, combined with the volume of visitors was truly astounding. The fact that the event was entirely free added further to the appeal! Olympia’s Grand Hall was an ideal venue for all the exhibitors and lectures and the space was very clearly sectioned according to each specific area of marketing. There was The In-Store Show, dedicated to retail marketing and increasing sales, The Data Marketing Show, The Online Marketing Show (no need to expand on either!), The Insight Show – understanding customer behaviour, and also The Marketing Week Live Village, helping to improve campaign performance. Each section had a good number of exhibitors and also a lecture area.

TMF ventured straight to the Online Marketing Show area to sit in on the New Media Ages panel discussion of ‘Key Trends in Online Marketing’. We say sit, however the room was packed to the rafters so we propped ourselves against a pillar and listened with interest as the panel of experts (representatives from Google, ASOS, NMA) discussed a number of topics from customer engagement and how to use data, to how to build a mobile strategy. Whilst furiously jotting notes, a few gems came out of the discussion;

• "Customers want to feel like they’re editors. They want to take control of your content and help shape it."
• Generation Y (teens and young twenties) are more interested in nurturing themselves online as a brand and companies have to help facilitate this in order to engage with them.
• There has to be a clear value exchange for customers to merit leaving their data with you. Companies have to offer consumer benefits and then ensure transparency with the data collected and always offer an opt out clause.
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• The Internet is like a playground – people gravitate to the cool kids and those that offer value.
• Social Media should not be a numbers game, it should be about establishing a passionate and emotive connection with the customer and offering them genuine and interesting content / value.
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• The Middle East in particular is moving away from digital kiosks which are too expensive to maintain and the rise in mobile marketing is increasing at a very fast rate.
• Optimise your mobile site before thinking about developing an app. And also have a good look at your objectives before spending money on designing an app.
• Mobile phones are changing customer purchase behaviour, with people comparing prices instore with prices online. Mobile is guiding the decision process along the buying journey.

Typically many of the lectures we wanted to attend clashed… we would have liked to hear Innocent’s talk on ‘Putting customers at the heart of everything we do’ and the Head of Marketing at Man Utd wax lyrical about ‘The Power of Football’, as it was we moved onto a talk about SEO for mobile before gravitating towards T-Mobiles presentation on the success of their ‘Life’s for Sharing’ campaign. T-Mobile’s Brand Director, Spencer McHugh, finished his engaging talk with a series of tips for creating dynamite campaigns.

• Start with the fans. Generate buzz and excitement by getting customers involved.
• Use staff to spread the word – gives them a sense of ownership
• Launch with a bang
• Get talked about. PR is critical to the success of a campaign. Turn advertising into front page news
• Make it easy to share by making digital the centrepiece of your campaign. Create a You Tube page and make that the hub of your activity
• Integration. Provide a clear customer journey
• Get involved in the conversation. Listen to what people like and provide more of it.

In our eyes the Marketing Week Live 2011 show offered real value. We’re kicking ourselves that we didn’t make it for the first day too, however we now know for next year! See you there in 2012!

You can see our tweets on our MarketingLondon Twitter page or at #marketingweeklive / #MWL2011