Content marketing buzzwords (and what they really mean)

Maybe you’re uninitiated, or perhaps just outdated, but to save you from the embarrassment of not being in the loop, we’ve put together a list of words that content marketers love to use and what they really mean.

Advertorial/Advertainment
Remember when ads were the annoying things that interrupted the entertainment on your screen? Now they are the entertainment.

Analytics/Big Data
Data is all the information, demographic or otherwise, you have on your potential audience. It’s big because there’s a lot of it. So much in fact that you need analytics to find meaningful patterns in this endless supply of data. Add the term “actionable” to either “analytics” or “data” and you’ve discovered an insight that allows you to make a well–informed marketing decision. As opposed to all those un-actionable decisions you make.

Automation
Marketing software and technologies that do away with the need for any human involvement.

B2B/B2C
Acronyms you probably recognise; B2B is business-to-business, while B2C stands for business-to-consumer. Basically it’s the audience you’re trying to reach. Supposedly B2B and B2C are overlapping but we suspect it’s just because B2B marketers are sick of writing white papers.

Blogging
What content marketers are hired for a lot — mainly because business management aren’t sure what’s interesting about their company. Looking for tips? We wrote a blog about how to write blogs.

Brand Identity/Advocate/Awareness/Ambassador
What happens when a room full of professional marketers think too hard about what the term “brand” means beyond a logo or tagline.

Clickbait
Over the top headlines that encourage people who have no interest in your product to click through to content that won’t deliver on the headline’s promise.

Content is King
The most overused catchphrase in the industry. Mainly used so unemployed journalists can justify their career pivot.

Cross Channel
No matter where you hide online, this content will find you.

Customer Centric
A smart way of saying content that customers are actually interested in.

Digital transformation
Probably a buzzword for every industry on the planet. Basically adopting digital tech for all your business processes and services. A huge hit this year thanks to COVID-19. Also responsible for all those unhelpful chatbots.

Disruption
A new tech-based product or service that totally upends an entire industry, usually at the expense of the status quo. A disruption is loved by early adopters and scorned by legacy industries.

Emotive
Using emotionally charged language to convince a consumer they have an unbreakable attachment to a product. It doesn’t matter if it’s a shovel or accounting software.

Engagement
The action your content inspires — could be a like, adding a comment, click-through, watching an entire video, completing a purchase. Some actions are worth more than others except when presenting an engagement report.

Evergreen
Content that is so good you only have to do it once (you hope).

Gamification
Consumers have been so bombarded with marketing messages that games are now the only way to grab attention.

Influencer
Someone who expects free things that they then mention to their social media followers. (Okay, it’s a little more complicated than that.)

Innovative
More of a go-to word when writing marketing copy. Vital when talking about a new product or business strategy.

Leveraging
When you’ve run out of budget and start using old content in new and amazing ways.

Low Hanging Fruit
The easiest and simplest marketing action you can take that’s guaranteed to achieve a positive result. Anything done after this requires hourly, all-hands-on-deck strategy meetings.

Listicle
Thank you Buzzfeed. (This post is a perfect example.)

Mobile Optimisation
If your content can’t be read, watched or engaged with on a mobile device, it’s a complete failure.

Native Advertising
Paid-for content that’s kind of sneaky as it matches the style and tone of the publication it’s in. Can be a little too smart when readers have no idea they’ve just seen an ad.

Organic reach
The number of people or customers who see your content without you having to pay for a boost. If you want your posts found organically, you need to develop a solid content strategy, understand the platform you’re working on, and create valuable content that connects. It takes a lot of time and effort and as a result, most people just pay to get their content seen.

Pain Points
A specific problem a business’ products and services solves for their customers. The content marketer’s job is to make content around pain points engaging, and not painful. In other words, benefit lead copy.

Personalisation
The art of making your content appear to be addressing each audience member personally. You don’t have a long time to grab your audience’s attention so if you can greet them by their first name, you’re in with a fighting chance. How personal you can get depends on your data — likes, demographics, buying history, etc. Be careful though, you don’t want to look like you’ve been spying on them (even though we know you do).

Personas
The perfect customer, according to the business and all the customer data they’ve collected over the years. Essentially, if you know your perfect customer, it’s no problem creating the perfect marketing message. Easy right?

Repurpose
Adaptation of your existing content for different channels and audiences. Have a long-form video? Take out the best and most memorable lines and drop them on your social feeds. No such thing as flogging a dead horse when it comes to content marketing.

Retargeting
Just because you can’t remember a product or service you’ve looked up doesn’t mean the internet has forgotten. Retargeting makes sure ads for these products or services follow you — everywhere. You should stop seeing the ads after a conversion but that rarely happens.

Right Person, Right Message, Right Time
Impossible. Still won’t stop anyone trying though.

Social Listening
Monitoring social media channels for any mentions of your brand, service, product, competitors, or newsworthy incidents in your industry. Considering people’s favourite thing to do online is complain, this is an entry level and exit level marketing job.

Storytelling
Content marketing isn’t advertising in the traditional sense. It’s about building an emotional narrative around your product to encourage customers to make a purchase. Okay, so it’s pretty similar.

Thought Leadership
Article with the CEO’s byline to position themselves and the business as experts in their field, that may or may not have been written by the intern. Hopefully not.

UGC
User-generated content for marketing is anything created by your customers and posted online. The positives are it’s authentic and probably doesn’t cost the marketing department too much. The negatives, users don’t really have to say anything nice about your brand.

Viral/Virality
When content goes viral (or possesses virality), it’s constantly shared across multiple platforms until there is an inevitable backlash. If you’re fortunate enough to have your content go viral, know it’s simply a fluke and it’s not because of anything you did, otherwise you’d do it again. Enjoy the moment and get on with the rest of your day.

Word of Mouth
You can try every viral, social, engagement, influencer, marketing trick in the book but nothing will beat a recommendation from a happy customer. This does not mean asking for an online review — you want them to talk to their friends about you. Basically you want an unwitting brand ambassador.

All these buzzwords still confusing you? We’re here to help. Reach out to our editorial content director Tim Colman at [email protected].

Read more from Click2View:

1. What makes content stick out in the minds of your audience?
2. Remote video recording is a breeze with these platforms.
3. Who are the winners and losers in the post-pandemic world?

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Click2View is Southeast Asia’s premiere full-service independent B2B content marketing agency servicing clients like Microsoft, Google, Visa, Prudential, and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.