B2B Marketing terminology

03 Apr, 2022

Above-The-Line Marketing: ATL is an advertising technique using specific channels to promote products and services. This strategy makes use of traditional media like newspapers, magazines, radio and television and a commission or fee is payable to the advertising agency on behalf of its clients.

Advertorial: It is an Editorial Advertisement which is designed in the form of a piece of editorial matter. Such advertisements must however, be clearly labelled ‘advertisement’.

Ambush Marketing (Guerilla): It is an unconventional way of doing marketing promotion on a very low budget. It could be about gaining from another’s adspend without paying a fee for it. For ex: A promotion campaign to an event such as a sporting contest sponsored by another marketer who could be a competitor.

Below-the-Line Promotions: BTL is a technique using less conventional methods than the usual mass media to promote products or services. It typically focuses on direct postal mail or email, exhibitions, demonstrations, point-of-sale material, targeted at a particular audience to maximize response rates.

Branchising: Empowering the company’s regional office to operate more like franchises. In other words decentralisation.

Cannibalization: It happens when a new product takes away the sales from an existing one of the same company. Although cannibalization is usually undesirable, the profits from the new product may make up for the costs of its development and the lost sales.

Churn rate: It is the average number of customers who leave a service or buy another product during a period of one year.

Core competence: It is defined as the singular capability among a portfolio of capabilities that can lend the company a distinctive and sustainable advantage. A core competence is something a company does especially well in comparison to its competitors.

Cold Calling: Cold Calling means uninvited call by a salesman with the intention of securing an interview leading to the placing of an order.

Concept Testing: It is about a new product idea being tested for its acceptability in the market before a prototype is made. Used as a first stage in screening a new product concept. The potential benefits are put to prospective buyers to test their reactions to an idea.

Critical Mass: It is the amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. This term is used figuratively, as a mass of users sufficient enough to allow large scale production of a product or service. (Also called Threshold Level or Tipping Point)

CRM: Customer Relationship Management is all about customisation and one-to-one marketing which involves IT-enabled tools and other database techniques to build a relationship with the customer.

Demographics: It is the science of population statistics which is essential to market research and campaign planning.

Direct Response Marketing (Bingo Card): It means selling by means of press advertisements, which invite a direct placement of orders without further negotiation or intermediate channels of distribution.

Do It Yourself (DIY): It is used as indicative sign for shops specializing in the supply of construction, repair, decorative or assembly goods mostly used by skilled artisans but made available in convenient quantities for people wishing to do it themselves.

ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning is a management information system that integrates and automates all the business operations. ERP systems typically handle manufacturing, logistics, distribution, inventory, shipping, invoicing, and accounting and can also control other activities like sales, billing, inventory and HR.

Exploded View: It is a special type of drawing in which a complex object is shown ‘opened up’ or with internal components illustrated separately and outside the main drawing.

FMCG: It is an acronym for Fast Moving Consumer Goods which is defined as fast selling, low unit value consumer products normally in universal demand. This includes categories like toiletries, cosmetics and other non-durables. Unlike FMCG, Consumer Durables such as kitchen appliances are generally replaced once a year.

Gut Feel: It means a hunch or opinion based upon intuitive grasp of a situation, arising from experience rather than logical deduction.

Hedging: It means negotiation of contractual arrangements to protect a buyer or seller against changes in price, supply or economic conditions, which may be to their disadvantage.

Iceberg Principle: It is a psychological concept suggesting human personality is similar to an iceberg, with innate desires hidden deep down under the surface. Advertisers, feel that influencing people frequently depends an appealing to less apparent desires.

Key Customer Management: It is about focussing on few sets of customers to build a long-lasting relationship. The Pareto Rule states that only 20% of your customers contribute to 80% of your revenue.

Law of Diminishing Returns: It is an economic law which states that, while extra units of input increase the output, soon the rate of return will flatten out, until more units of the same kind will have a negative effect. For ex: X amount spent on advertising may bring a return of Y in sales, but twice the amount spent (*2X), may bring only *1.5Y; the rate of return has fallen though the amount of return has increased.

Laggards: They are the last among the market segments in the social diffusion process to take up the product. They tend to resist change, are risk-averse, and cling hardest to tradition.

Learning Curve: Over time, there is a drop in the average per unit production cost. This is a result of accumulated production experience, learning and use of the cost-saving methods of production, and increased skill and competence at carrying out the task.

Mass Customization: It is the use of flexible computer-aided manufacturing systems to produce customised output. These systems combine the low unit costs of mass production processes with the flexibility of individual customization. The famous Dell ‘build-to-order’ model is a classic example.

Media Planning: It outlines how advertising time and space in various media will be booked in advance to achieve the marketing objectives of the company.

Perceived Pricing: A consumer perceives a price as high, low or fair, in relation to the perceived or experienced value of the product.

Product Life Cycle: It is a hypothesis that all products undergo six stages in their life like product development, introduction, growth, maturity, saturation, and decline.

Push & Pull Strategy: Push is a promotional strategy used to increase the sales through sales force and trade promotion that pushes the product through the distribution channel. The chain is: Producers> Wholesalers> Retailers> Consumers. Pull is a strategy used to intensify the sales by advertising heavily which leads to consumers demand, in turn the retailers give order to the wholesalers.

ROI: The Return on Investment or returns is a calculation used to determine whether a proposed investment is wise and how well it will repay the investor.

Socio-Economic Classification: SEC is the division of a total potential market into smaller groups based on sociological or cultural variables, such as social class, income, religion, nationality, beliefs, values or customs.

Search Engine Optimization: SEO is a set of methodologies aimed at improving the visibility of a website in search engine listings. The term also refers to an industry of consultants that carry out optimization projects on behalf of client sites.

SMEs: Small and Medium-sized Enterprises are companies whose headcount or turnover fall below certain limits. The current accepted definition is companies with fewer than 50 employees as ‘small’, and those with below 1000 employees as ‘medium’.

Stereotype: A stereotype is a simplified mental picture of an individual or group of people who share certain characteristic or stereotypical qualities. The term has a negative connotation and is seen as undesirable beliefs which need change.

Supply Chain Management: SCM deals with supply chain planning process, which is now automated where software takes care of components like, demand forecasting, order deadlines, production scheduling, distribution plan and logistics.

SWOT: A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats analysis is a tool for gathering, analysing, and evaluating information and identifying strategic options facing an organisation at a given time.

Television Rating Points (TRPs): The TRP Monthly Reports give data of frequency of viewing, overlapping of viewership amongst TV programmes. One TRP is equal to one per cent of TV audience which has now become the currency for buying and selling air time.

Unique Selling Proposition: USP is an advertising strategy that focuses on a product or service attribute that is distinctive to a particular brand and offers an important benefit to the customer.

Viral Marketing (Word-of-mouth): It is the personal communication about a product between target buyers and their friends, relatives, and associates. Viral marketing technique passes along the company’s marketing message to create an exponential growth.

White Paper: A document written in essay style that provides an in-depth analysis of a technology, trend, product or process. White papers are predominantly informational rather than promotional material.

Publisher: BGEdit | Business Gyan