Fundamentals
Before you launch an ad or open a social media account, you need to understand the big picture. Who is your customer? What path brings them to you? What do you offer that is different? The fundamentals answer these questions. These are the ideas that stay true when tools and platforms change. Here you'll find the persona, the customer journey, the sales funnel and acquisition channels. These words come up everywhere in digital marketing, and all the other terms in this glossary build on them. If you're a beginner, start here. Read the pages in whatever order makes sense to you, then apply each idea to your own project, even a small one. One idea you understand and use is worth more than ten definitions you memorize. And if you already have experience, this category is still useful: when a campaign doesn't work, the problem often comes from a weak foundation, not from the tool.
An acquisition channel is the path a new customer takes to discover you and reach you: Google search, a social network, advertising, email or word of mouth. There are organic channels, which are free but slow, and paid channels, which are fast but stop as soon as you cut the budget.
BrandingBranding is everything people think and feel when they hear your name. The logo and colors are only a small part of it. Your tone, your promise, the experience customers have and your consistency matter much more. It is what people say about you when you are not in the room.
Buyer personaA buyer persona is a precise portrait of your ideal customer: a made-up first name, a situation, a daily life, a problem, a fear and a goal. A target describes a group, but a persona represents one realistic person. It helps you choose what to say, where to say it and how to present your offer.
Customer journeyThe customer journey is every stage a person goes through before, during and after a purchase. They discover your business, get interested, compare, decide, use your offer and may come back. Understanding this journey helps you give the right message at the right time, without asking for a sale too early.
Digital marketingDigital marketing is everything you do to find, convince and keep customers through the internet. It has the same goals as traditional marketing, but it uses digital channels such as your website, social media, online advertising, SEO, email and artificial intelligence.
LeadA lead is a person who has shown interest in your business and given you a way to contact them again, such as an email or a phone number. They are not a customer yet. Their level of interest can be cold, warm or hot, depending on their actions and how close they are to buying.
PositioningPositioning is the place your brand holds in your customers' minds, compared with others. It answers the question: when people think of you, what do they think of? Good positioning means making a clear choice, because you can't be both the cheapest and the most premium option.
Sales funnelA sales funnel shows how a large number of interested people turns into a smaller number of customers. At each stage, some people continue and others leave. The funnel helps you measure these moves, find the biggest leak and improve one specific stage instead of changing everything.
SMART goalA SMART goal is a clear goal you can track: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. Instead of “sell more”, you write for example “make 20 sales in 30 days through Instagram”. You know exactly what to aim for, how to measure it and when to review your results.
Value propositionA value proposition is the sentence that answers the customer's question: “Why you and not someone else?” It says who your offer is for, what problem it solves, what benefit it brings and what makes it different from other solutions. People should understand it within a few seconds.