WDTAM: What do they all mean?!
If you’ve had a chat to your friendly, local digital marketer of late (we do get out and about sometimes) you may have been lost in the maze of SEO, PPC, SaaS and SERP. But fear not – we are about to give you a short and sharp run through ten of the key ones you should know for your business.
To help associate each term with another, we’ll be listing them in an order where each one ties in with the one before it. Digital marketing should not have channels work in isolation, so hopefully this method helps you see how they’re all a part of each other’s journey.
See, not all heroes wear capes. Just Wolf costumes.
CX – Customer Experience: This may be the most important acronym you can learn, because a lot of people who know a lot about business are beginning to see this as the key driver behind success. The way you interact with customers – from soft leads through to brand ambassadors – defines your CX. Every touchpoint should be a positive for them, and guide them toward your end target.
EDM – Electronic Direct Mail: Part of the CX from your business perspective is engagement through a variety of means. EDM is a fancy way of saying that you’re emailing your leads and contacts. But when a marketer uses the acronym EDM, we’re normally specifically referring to a platform that makes this easy and attractive, and returns analytics about user response. One example, of which there are many, is MailChimp.
CTR – Clickthrough Rate: One of the key stats you’ll get back from your EDM service provider is CTR. In essence, what number of viewers out of every 100 are clicking on that link to buy your product or visit your website?
UX – User Experience: And when they get to your website via that link, what is that experience like for them? A more digitally-pertinent term, UX is similar to – and a part of – CX, but refers primarily to how a lead interacts with your digital touchpoints (think: website). From the landing page aesthetics, through to how easy site navigation is, UX is all about getting your leads the information they need as soon as possible, but in the most impressive way you can think of.
Saas – Software as a Service: One part of the digital marketing world that helps you hand a satisfactory UX to your leads is SaaS, which refers to any software offered on (usually) a subscription basis which is hosted centrally (by the company offering the software) and lets your company use it to lighten your workload and increase productivity. All sound a bit confusing? Well, remember MailChimp that we mentioned up there under EDM? That is a perfect example of SaaS. For more examples, check out this site.
CTA – Call to Action: One way in which SaaS has been particularly useful to small businesses and big businesses alike has been through the proliferation of CTA/Pop-up options for websites. This is particularly done through Plugins now, of which there are many examples – like OptinMonster. A CTA effectively says to your user: “this is the information we’ve been giving you; this is what we hope you do; you can do it by clicking here”. A basic example might be: Sign Up Here!
CMS – Content Management System: You may have heard of this one before, but a CMS is as close as you get to a necessity (after a product/service and staff) for all modern businesses. The easiest example is WordPress, on which you build your website and in which you might install those Plugins that help you build your CTAs we talked about above.
SEO – Search Engine Optimisation: But once you’ve got your CMS and built your website, how do you get people there? Well, this is where digital marketing comes to the fore, and we start spewing acronyms all over the place! SEO has been the dominant acronym for much of the past decade, and with good reason. We’ll assume you’ve heard of Google (because Google’s certainly heard of you!) – SEO is the practice of implementing everything from proper coding to clever content in your website and socials, and offering great CX and UX, to give your business the best chance at showing up at the top of the SERP!
SERP – Search Engine Results Page: An easy tie in, as we finished with it above. The SERP is the holy grail of SEO gurus. Get your business to the top of the first page of results on Google, and you’ve earnt your bread and some. Most studies find that not many internet users go past the first page of Google results when searching for something, which is why SEO is so important, and why the SERP is the focus of so much effort.
SEM – Search Engine Marketing: But let’s say that you’ve focussed on SEO for a while now, and you’re seeing no results at the top of the SERP for keywords. This could be any number of reasons, but the primary culprit is pure competition. If you’re selling shoes in central London, you’ll do well to show up on a Google search above established brands and magazine articles (although certain Google algorithms certainly help your case!). That’s where SEM comes in. You spend money on advertising for Google to say to users: click here, check out this website, and we’ll charge that company money for your time. Sounds like a slippery slope, right? It can be, which is why you should engage professional SEM people to help you. In this field you’ll also come across acronyms like CPC and PPC, but you’re probably sick of this list by now so we’ll leave you to it.
If all of this seems even more confusing, we’re here to help. Get in touch with Wolf for everything online and offline to help your business grow! (That’s a soft CTA right there).
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