Your marketing questions answered

“The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask”

Any questions?

Call me ancient, but I still like some of the old fashioned terminology and methods used in the modern and online world of marketing today. But what does it all mean, and what about all those acronyms?

Even experienced business owners and qualified marketing professionals come across words and phrases that just don’t make sense. Here are ten random marketing questions I’ve been asked in the last month that you might also want to know the answer to…

1. What do the letters in DMU mean? DMU – ‘Decision Making Unit’: The people or person involved in making the overall buying decision – e.g the user, the gate-keeper, the influencer, the holder of the purse strings, etc.

2. What does ATL, BTL and TTL mean? BTL – ‘Below The Line’. ATL – ‘Above The Line’. TTL – ‘Through The Line’: Essentially marketing, advertising or promotional techniques used in business.

• Activities carried out through mass media, such as television, radio and newspaper, can loosely be classed as above the line promotion.
• The term ‘below the line’ refers to forms of non-media communication, even non-media advertising, like ambient media (pavement painting, ads on miscellaneous objects, projections on the side of buildings).
• ‘Through the line’ refers to an promotional strategy involving both above and below the line communications in which one form of promotion points the target to another thereby crossing the ‘line’. An example would be a TV commercial that says ‘go to our website to download XYZ paper’ or ‘Look out for the leaflet coming through your door’.

I’d love to one day actually see this ‘line’, but I think it’s getting pretty blurred and meaningless. But, if you hear people use it, this is probably what they’re talking about.

3. Is there a standard equation of how much a company should spend on marketing vs turn over. No, it does depend on your objectives. But a good starting point is between 3% and 5% of targeted revenue.

4. Is there a way I can see how many hits my website is getting? Yes, and so much more. You can ask a specialist or your web agency to run some reports for you. Or, do it yourself using Google’s FREE software ‘Google Analytics’. Your web agency may have to set you up initially, but it’s a great little tool for business owners and marketers: http://www.google.com/analytics/

5. What is the difference between ‘RGB’ and ‘CMYK’, and what does the ‘K’ in CMYK mean?

• RGB – ‘Red, Green and Blue’: A scientific model in which red, green and blue light is added together to make any other colour. For example, if you overlap green and red you get yellow; blue and red you get pink. Red, green and blue are the coloured tubes that make up your TV or monitor screen (have a look through a magnifying glass). These are often referenced in colour balancing photos or pictures, or in an ‘on-screen’ environment.
• CMYK – ‘Cyan (blue), magenta (pink), yellow and ‘key colour’ (black)’. These are the coloured inks used in traditional lithographic printing. An image or text is split into these four colours and made into separate printer’s plate using a series of dots. When the layers of colours are printed on top of each other using the plates, they make practically any other colour (have a look at an image in a magazine through a magnifying glass to see the dots).
• K – The K in CMYK stands for ‘Key’ and is used rather than ‘B’ (to avoid confusion with ‘blue’). It in facts refers to the first plate used in the printing process (the ‘key plate’), which is the first layer of printed ink with which you align the other three-coloured plates.

It’s got nothing to do with computers (and over the years, I’ve heard many definitions, but I think this is the most accurate). These days you’ll hear a reference to a HEX, this is the computing version of one of the above. So, when a designer is giving you colour references, ask for RGB, CMYK and HEX so that you have all future production requirements covered.

6. What does URL, PDF and JPG stand for?

• URL – ‘Unique Resource Locator’ (The location of a file on the Internet).
• PDF – ‘Portable Document Format’.
• JPEG – In computing, JPEG is a commonly used method of compression for photographic images. The name JPEG stands for ‘Joint Photographic Experts Group’, the name of the committee that created the standard.

7. What’s the difference between ‘Push’ and ‘Pull’?

• Push – a marketing method that uses the channel (retailer, distributor or agent for example) to ‘push’ products to the end-user.
• Pull – a marketing method that talks directly to end-users or customers and literally delivers them to your door or website. ‘Ring this number for a quote today’, ‘Buy online at www…’

There are a few nuances to this… indeed we could write a thesis on it, but this description gives you a broad idea of the concept.

8. What’s the difference between ‘Quantitative’ and ‘Qualitative’ research? The first uses numerical and statistical data gathered through opinion polls and surveys for example. The second uses data and subjective feedback from interviews, focus groups, etc. Rule of thumb; the former is usually facts and figures, the latter is most often opinion.

9. What does PPC mean? PPC – ‘Pay per click’. Payment is based on each on-line click-through from an advertisement or link.

10. What does ‘mark-up’ mean?

• [1.] Commission or handling fee added to a bought in cost for onward sale.
• [2.] Handwritten or electronic notes or symbols used to indicate corrections to a piece of copy or other ‘output’ or ‘layout’ (hard copy, PDF or other soft document). When ‘marking up’ any hard copy output, we always recommend using a coloured pen (red usually), and distinctive proof reading marks or symbols (traditional type setter’s marks). They take up less space, and are kind of industry ‘short hand’. There a good reference here: http://www.ngomedia.org.uk/proofmarks.pdf. Always proof read when you are fresh, even better get someone else to check your work.

Now this isn’t a challenge, but if you are new to marketing and have a burning question about an annoying three letter word, or a puzzling phrase, drop a Clear Thinker a line on Twitter @clear_thinking and we’ll find out what it means.

Alternatively, there quite a good glossary here: http://www.mshmgi.com/glossary,A,.html. It’s an American site, but one of the better sites that I have seen for finding things alphabetically.

One of specialisms here at Clear Thought is working with people who are new to marketing. Typically over 12-months, we give them the skills and confidence that they need to make marketing pay. If you have someone in your business who needs a little support to get them up to speed on all-things marketing, drop us a line.

By Cheryl Crichton | Associate Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | www.clear-thought.co.uk

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Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this at the fraction of the cost of recruiting into a full-time position by delivering one-off strategic projects, hands-on training, marketing support, and out-sourced marketing departments. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.

Published on 16 February 2010