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The Ultimate Smarketing Glossary: 67 Common Sales Terms Explained for Marketers

Inbound Sales (Marketing)
September 17, 2020/by
The Ultimate Smarketing Glossary: 67 Common Sales Terms Explained for Marketers Sales and marketing teams are both responsible for the growth and revenue side of the business -- and yet, many of them still tend to operate like two opposing teams. The goal of "smarketing" is to help bring sales and marketing together as one team, which involves constant, effective communication. It's pretty critical that sales and marketing teams learn how to speak each other's language. But while both teams have some shared vocabulary, there are plenty of terms salespeople throw around that, let's be honest, may as well be gibberish. So we've put together a glossary of sales terms for marketers you can reference each time you encounter sales speak you're unfamiliar with. Keep on reading to brush up on your sales knowledge. Definitions of Common Sales Terms ABC: Always Be Closing AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline Commission: The payment a sales rep gets when they successfully sell something Discovery call: The first call a sales rep makes to a prospect Quota: A sales goal; a set amount of selling a sales rep is expect to meet over a given time frame, usually a month and/or quarter Value proposition: A benefit of a product or company intended to make it more attractive to potential buyers and differentiates it from competitors 62 Definitions of Common Sales Terms ABC "Always Be Closing." An antiquated sales strategy...
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How to Make an Instagram Business Account

Instagram Marketing
September 17, 2020/by
How to Make an Instagram Business Account When I worked at a marketing agency, one of my duties was to create Instagram accounts for our clients who had never used social media before. More often than not, those clients soon realized how helpful Instagram could be for their business. With 140 million estimated monthly active businesses across Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp and over 200 million Instagram users visiting at least one business profile daily, it makes sense. In fact, 60% of people say they discover new products on Instagram and one-third of the most viewed stories are from businesses. Ultimately, it's impossible to ignore the success your business could have on Instagram. In this post, we'll review how to make an Instagram business account, how to switch to and from a business to a personal account, and the benefits of having a business account. 1. Download the Instagram app. To get started, you'll need to download the Instagram app on your phone or go to the Instagram site. 2. Sign up. Next, you'll fill out the form with your email address (make sure you choose a business email address), company name, username, and password. You could also sign up with Facebook. If you have a business Facebook account, this could be a good option. It's important to note that your username should most likely be your company name and your password should follow all recommended guidelines (include a number, special characters, etc.). 3. Switch to a business account....
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How to Add a Link to Your Instagram Bio

Instagram Marketing
September 17, 2020/by
How to Add a Link to Your Instagram Bio Every social network makes it clear how to put a link in your bio on their platform -- except Instagram. Twitter lets you tag other handles in your bio. LinkedIn gives you the ability to link yourself to your employer's official page. Facebook allows you to tag a number of different businesses, interest pages, and people in your "About" section, so you can let friends know who you work for, what brands you like, your alma mater, your relationship status, and so on. What about Instagram? Until recently, Instagram didn't give you a ton of space to brand your profile with hashtags and profile handles -- you could only link to their respective pages in photo captions. Websites were the only types of links you could put in your bio (hence the common phrase "link in bio"). "Link in bio" is essentially a call to action, promoting more information available outside of Instagram's parameters. But Instagram recently gifted us two new features: linkable profiles and hashtags, right in your bio. You can now add them alongside the link to your website. How to Add a Link to Your Instagram Bio Open your Instagram mobile app. Visit your profile by tapping the person icon on the bottom right. Tap "Edit Profile" at the top of the screen. Write a custom description in 150 characters or less. Add a brief...
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15 Key Performance Indicators to Help Improve Your Marketing

Marketing Reporting
September 16, 2020/by
15 Key Performance Indicators to Help Improve Your Marketing When I was cooking steak the other day, I had to use a meat thermometer to check and see if the meat was cooked all the way through. In other words, I had to look for an indicator to see how the cooking process was coming along. Marketing is fairly similar. As a marketer, instead of a meat thermometer, you're going to use key performance indicators (KPI) to measure success. Below, let's learn more about KPIs and review some examples of marketing KPIs that can help you improve your marketing. Essentially, KPIs are measurable metrics that gauge overall performance over time. A great way to analyze and report on your KPIs is to create custom dashboards in your automation software. So, now that we understand what a KPI is, let's look at some examples. For today's purposes, we'll focus on marketing KPIs, but to learn more about sales metrics, check out our ultimate guide. 1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Customer acquisition cost (CAC) measures the amount of money it takes to convert a potential lead into a customer. This metric can be used to improve your marketing because it helps you make important budgetary decisions. For example, you don't want to spend too much money acquiring a customer if it won't result in a profit. Basically, this helps businesses decide how much money to spend on attracting customers. 2. Lifetime Value of a Customer (LTV) Another metric that can...
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12 Tactics That Take Webinars From Good to Great, According to HubSpot Marketers

Webinars
September 15, 2020/by
12 Tactics That Take Webinars From Good to Great, According to HubSpot Marketers In 2020, with conferences and events going virtual, a number of brands around the world have heavily embraced webinars.  Along with allowing marketers to educate audiences about topics related to their brand, webinars can also offer major lead generation benefits. But, while a number of successful marketing pros make creating webinars look easy, there's actually a hefty amount of work that needs to go into planning them in order to see solid engagement. The lead-up to a webinar requires other facets of inbound to come into play -- everything from getting a speaker to join the webinar, to planning blog and social posts to promote it, to developing the actual topics and focus for the event. At this point, you might be asking yourself if there's a checklist that can assist you in your webinar planning. Well, look no further. Below, I've outlined 12 tactics you should focus on to ensure you and your team are fully prepared to put on a high-quality, successful webinar. How to Prepare for an Engaging Webinar 1. Interact with your audience through promotions before the webinar. If your audience doesn't know about your webinar or isn't excited about the topic, they won't sign up.  Be sure to tweet about the event, write blog posts promoting it, and come up with other creative ways to share it online. To engage attendees -- even before your event, your promotional messages,...
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27 Striking Examples of Minimal Design That’ll Kickstart Your Creative Process

Design
September 12, 2020/by
27 Striking Examples of Minimal Design That'll Kickstart Your Creative Process If you've been on the internet, chances are you've come across stark, simple websites or ad creative. In fact, this design sensibility — known as minimalist design — has been rising in popularity, though it's far from a passing trend. What is minimalist design? Minimalism is a design aesthetic that embodies the phrase "less is more." With minimalist design, you push an idea by stripping it down to essential (sometimes bare) elements, using clean, modern, and minimal aesthetic, font, and color choices. Whether you're curating an Instagram feed or designing a web page, there are plenty of advantages to minimalist design. Minimalist Graphic Design Rather than bogging your audience down with vibrant patterns or paragraphs of text, a minimalist approach allows you to focus on a few key components of your brand you feel are truly important. However, minimalist isn't as simple as white space. To avoid creating boring or uninspiring designs in your attempt to become minimalist, it's critical you take a look at some successful examples of minimal design, ranging from posters to logos, to kickstart your creative process. 1. Braga Da Cruz These Braga Da Cruz jewelry store business cards, designed by Luke Halota, are a good example of how minimalism can help brand name stand out on the page. Halota uses grids to center the company name on one side, with a small, unobtrusive logo placed above. On the back, he makes...
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