14 English Marketing Words You Need to Know

So you want to work in marketing? Or maybe you already work in marketing, but you accepted a job in an English-speaking country, and you don’t know the lingo.

First off, congratulations! Marketing is an exciting career. You’ll solve problems and use words to your advantage, and you’ll never have a boring day.

But before you start work, you have to get a grasp of English marketing vocabulary. Learning these words and phrases will help you feel more comfortable working with your English-speaking colleagues and help you feel confident from day one.

Fear not, we’ve assembled a list of important marketing vocabulary words! Study this list and you’ll be a pro in no time!

Basic Vocabulary

Brand

“Brand” means what makes a company unique. So, when you think of McDonald’s, you probably think of the colors red and yellow, greasy cheeseburgers, and cheap food. This is a word you’ll probably use every day, because marketers are usually on the board that develops and rolls out the organization’s branding.

Demographic

This kind of research helps you put people into categories. Demographics may be based on

• Age
• Geographic area
• Race

Target Audience

Imagine the group of people that might buy something. A handbag will probably be bought predominantly by women. A toy car will probably be bought by parents for their children. This is your target audience. This is who you’re selling to.

Remember to be culturally sensitive when you figure out your target audience. It can be easy to accidentally be racist or sexist.

Keyword

These are words that people might search online when they’re finding your product. If you can figure out what the keywords are, you can include them on your webpage to help your target audience discover your brand. You can learn more about that later when we talk about search engine optimization (SEO)!

Analytics

These are statistics and measurements that you analyze over days, months, or years. You can analyze pretty much anything as long as you have data. You might analyze how many people visit your website or how many people liked your Facebook page.

Social Media

You probably already know this one, because you’re on social media as your read this! Social media includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit, SnapChat, and Pinterest. Even YouTube can be considered social media.

You might not know that you can see how people interact with social media. Each platform provides analytics for businesses. There are also apps that will combine all of these social media analytics into a single report.

Additional Core Concepts

These are broader ideas based on the vocab words above.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This is a way of choosing what key words and sentences to highlight on a website so that when people use a search engine, such as Google, your web pages come up. It’s often shortened to SEO. It’s a fine art that takes lots of practice and that evolves over time, so make sure you’re always up to date!

SEO techniques include:

• Putting keywords in the titles and descriptions within your website
• Simplifying URLs.
• Using headings and subheadings.
• Making language understandable.

Forecasting

This is another type of analytics. Forecasting helps you predict future trends. Over time, for example, you might use sales data to see how successful a product is. Forecasting isn’t precise, but it helps you stay one step ahead and can be a great way to make decisions.

CAN-SPAM (United States) and CASL (Canada)

These two pieces of legislation regulate how companies can message people.

CAN-SPAM is a United States law that requires marketing emails to have an ‘unsubscribe’ button at the bottom.

CASL is a Canadian law that covers everything CAN-SPAM covers, and then goes further. It regulates marketing emails, texts, instant messages, and automated phone messages. CASL requires you to get consent from someone before you can send them marketing materials, and it requires you to volunteer your identity and contact information.

Other countries may have similar laws of their own.

Word-of-Mouth

If you like a restaurant, you might tell your friend, who then goes and posts about it on Facebook. When people tell other people about a product or business, it’s called “word-of-mouth.”

Word-of-mouth is one of the best marketing tools you have, but remember that it goes both ways. If someone hates something, they’ll tell their friends, and that word-of-mouth carries just as much weight as the positive things people say.

Clickbait

Clickbait refers to an article title that is written so you click the link. It’s often misleading or evokes a strong emotion (think all those posts that start “and you’ll never believe what happened next”). Be careful to avoid creating clickbait-worthy titles. Clickbait can make people feel cheated, putting a negative image on your brand.

Native Advertising

Native advertising blends seamlessly into a person’s everyday life. Facebook does this in your newsfeed, showcasing brands and products it thinks you’ll like alongside your friends’ posts. Blogs are another place you might implement native advertising.

Engagement

One way engagement happens is when two people decide to get married, but in a marketing context, engagement is how much people interact with your online content, especially on social media. Different forms of engagement include commenting, “liking” a Facebook post, and sharing content.

Call-To-Action

A call-to-action invites people to take an action on your page, such as checking out a website or signing up for a free trial. Providing people with a call-to-action is important because people may not know how to get involved. A call-to-action helps create a long-term relationship between business and customer, which is a wonderful thing.

Now You’re a Pro!

Knowing these 14 words will put you well on your way to feeling comfortable talking about marketing in English. Soon you’ll be crafting excellent marketing campaigns, social media posts, and analytic research! What really takes you from being good at marketing to being great at marketing is using language to your advantage, and you’ve made a wise choice by coming to ABA to start or continue your journey.

Unlike other language-learning programs, ABA English doesn’t force you to slog through exercises before learning to speak. You start practicing your English vocabulary, grammar, and accent right away, so you’ll be ready to conduct business even sooner! We provide you with 144 short movies that will help you learn everyday English and teach you about life in Britain and North America.

Best of all, getting started is free! We know you’ve got big dreams, and at ABA English, we’re excited to help you make them come true. Sign up today!