B2B Marketing: terms & concepts

A/B Testing

A/B testing is a method of comparing two versions of something, a page, an email, an ad, by showing each to a randomly split audience and measuring which performs better against a chosen goal. It replaces opinion with evidence.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a B2B marketing strategy that targets a defined set of high-value accounts as markets of one, concentrating effort on those specific companies with tailored campaigns, rather than casting a wide net to attract individual leads.

Attention Interest Desire Action (AIDA) Model

The AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) is a classic marketing and sales framework describing the four stages a person moves through on the way to a purchase: capture attention, build interest, create desire, and prompt action.

BOFU (Bottom of Funnel)

BOFU, or bottom of funnel, is the final, decision stage of the buyer's journey, where a prospect has defined their problem and evaluated options and is choosing what to buy. BOFU efforts aim to convert that decision into a purchase.

Buyer Journey

The buyer journey is the process a buyer goes through from first realizing they have a problem to choosing and purchasing a solution, seen from the buyer's perspective, the path of awareness, consideration, and decision.

Buyer Journey Mapping

Buyer journey mapping is the practice of documenting the stages a buyer goes through on the way to a purchase, capturing what they think, feel, need, and do at each step, and the friction they encounter, so a company can align its marketing and sales to that journey.

Call To Action (CTA)

A call to action (CTA) is a prompt that tells the audience exactly what to do next, such as book a demo or start a trial. It is the explicit ask that turns attention into a measurable action.

Campaign

A campaign is a coordinated set of marketing or outreach activities, run across one or more channels over a defined period, aimed at a single goal such as generating leads, launching a product, or driving pipeline. It is the unit of planned, measurable effort.

Chat Widget

A chat widget is the embedded chat window in the corner of a website that lets visitors start a conversation without leaving the page. In sales it is a direct line to a high-intent visitor and a tool for capturing and qualifying leads.

Direct Competition

Direct competition refers to companies offering essentially the same product or service to the same target market, solving the same problem for the same buyers, so a prospect chooses between them on a like-for-like basis.

Firmographic Data

Firmographic data is the set of company-level attributes used to describe and segment businesses, such as industry, company size, revenue, location, and structure. It is to organizations what demographic data is to individuals.

Funnel Optimization

Funnel optimization is the practice of improving the rate at which prospects move from one stage of the sales or marketing funnel to the next, finding where people drop off and fixing those points to convert more of the traffic and leads you already have.

Lead Funnel

A lead funnel is the staged path a potential customer travels from first awareness to becoming a qualified opportunity, narrowing in volume at each stage from top of funnel through middle to bottom of funnel.

Market Development

Market development is a growth strategy that takes an existing product into new markets, new geographies, industries, or customer segments, rather than building something new. The product stays the same; the audience changes.

Market Fragmentation

Market fragmentation is a condition in which a market is divided among many small competitors or split into many distinct customer segments, with no single player or product dominating.

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)

A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a lead that marketing has judged ready to pass to sales, based on fit and engagement, but who is not yet ready to buy. It sits earlier in the journey than a sales qualified lead.

Multi-Touch Attribution

Multi-touch attribution is a model for crediting revenue across all the marketing and sales touchpoints a buyer interacted with, rather than just the first or last, to fairly assess which efforts contributed to the win.

Referral Marketing

Referral marketing is the practice of deliberately encouraging existing customers to recommend you to others, making word-of-mouth systematic by giving happy customers a reason and an easy way to refer, often with a reward.

Website Personalization

Website personalization is the practice of adapting what a visitor sees, headlines, offers, content, and calls to action, based on who they are and how they behave, so each visitor gets a more relevant experience than a one-size-fits-all page.