The Alternative Marketing Glossary / Harry Lang
If you’d prefer an actual marketing glossary, I put one in the front of my book ‘Brands, Bandwagons & Bullshit’ – you can read it here:- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/brands-bandwagons-bullsht-marketing-glossary-harry-lang/
…or just buy the whole book here:-
A/B Testing | You’re weak willed, callow and too indecisive to pick a favourite lest it’s the wrong decision. So you Teflon the responsibility to the data science team. |
B2C Marketing | You think you’re cooler than those B2B SaaS folks, but you’re exactly the same, just paid less |
Churn | The sick feeling you get when presenting a third consecutive negative month to the Board |
Design | A thankless task that would be made significantly more efficient, effective and painless with the removal of clients |
Econometrics | A word you’ll likely use once, and once only, in your interview with absolutely no clue as to what it means or does |
Forecast | An absolute, unmitigated and defendable guess, deployed with confidence by anyone with something to hide |
GDPR | An ineffective and unpoliceable EU regulation designed to protect your data. TL;DR – it doesn’t |
Happiness | The moment your payoff payment lands after yet another sould-destroying redundancy (the average tenure for CMO’s is now 17 months…) |
Integrated Marketing | The other thing you drop into your interview when discussing experience. It’s code to suggest you know everything, which obviously you don’t |
JavaScript | It’s a complex coding language – executed by people who are A/ more intelligent and B/ paid less than traditional marketers |
Key Performance Indicators | Calling targets ‘KPI’s’ somehow makes it easier to divert attention when you inevitably miss them |
Lead Gen | The holy grail of B2B marketing. It used to be called ‘selling’, until several layers were added above it to make B2B marketers sound more intellectual |
Marketing Automation | What every marketer claims they dreamt about with the advent of AI (while really understanding that it’ll be the end of their sordid careers one day) |
Net Promoter Score | NPS scores are used in 2 instances:- A/ on your first day in the job when you show how steep the hill you’re climbing is and B/ on your last day in the job when you’re shown an incrementally steeper hill you’re at the bottom of |
Omnichannel Marketing | It’s just frickin’ marketing. The other word is 100% redundant, but once again, deployed to make marketers feel smarter |
Personalisation | If we could personalise campaigns to the extent we really want to, the world would be an incredibly creepy place – shortly before the rapture hits |
Quality Score | A metric to measure digital Ad relevance. Normally hidden in an impregnable box, they may only be shared within the team to demonstrate exactly how shit your ad performance is |
Reciprocal Links | Like the Stone Age for SEO’s |
Sales | The supposed end goal of all marketing. In real life, treated like a turd on the sole of the marketing department’s shoe |
TV Advertising | Let’s face it, 95% of it is utter horseshit, designed to win awards for agency creatives and fluff the ego of moist-gusseted clients. |
Unique Selling Proposition | We’re told every brand should have a USP to succeed. Most don’t, but that really doesn’t matter if their marketing team has deep pockets and loose morals |
Voice Search | Was meant to be the next big thing, ‘til people finally twigged that paying money to Google, Amazon and Apple to allow them spy on you was fucking insane |
Word of Mouth | The grail for a brand – to be recommended by its own customers. Trying to forcefully induce WoM is like trying to score a Triple 20 with a piece of cooked spaghetti |
X | Kisses – if your brand’s social team uses these when engaging with followers then it’s too late – you’re already dead |
Yes Men | We’re all this – except nowadays, thank god, we’re yes women and yes people, too |
Zag… | …while others Zig. We all say this, none of us really do it. Don’t worry. We’re all swimming in the same turgid pool of mediocrity trying to swim to the shores of retirement. It’s fine. |
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