Buzzwords in Marketing

“Marketing is fertile territory for buzzwords because it is closely related to being modern and fashionable”.

Marketeers will tell you that marketing is the most important function in a company. People from other departments will probably tell you that marketing is the most self important department in the company. Either way, marketing is in fashion and has a lot of related jargon.

Marketing is not just about selling but about establishing a presence in the market for the company´s products and services through the marketing-mix. To do this the department must understand the customers perfectly and fit in with their lifestyle. An important element in this process is to have a data warehouse so that marketeers are well-informed about their customers.
A small company is probably looking for a large share of a niche market rather than a small share of a large market.

Relationship Marketing
One of the most fashionable ideas in this area is “relationship marketing”. This concept implies that the company becomes the customer´s “friend”, treating him or her as an individual with specific needs and tastes. The company thus builds up a long-term relationship with the customer by responding to these requirements. One way of doing this is by creating a help desk. Another is to offer affinity cards or loyalty cards which reward the customer for continuing the relationship. An example would be the VIPS card in Spain. Other examples are the air miles offered by certain airlines and the well-known cards that accumulate credit points while purchasing certain products. Everyday people see new offers and ideas coming to the surface and it takes some time to get used to them. They sometimes do not know exactly what to choose because of the huge amount of offers and they find themselves immerse in a world full of adds, credit points, rewards, discounts, free services, publicity and more. Some people may see this as smoke and mirrors or gimmicks. Either way marketing is here to stay, so we had better get used to all those new “friends” we have unwittingly acquired.

Here are some useful terms I have chosen from the text above:

Marketeers: specialists in marketing
Self-important: having an excessively-high opinion of your own importance
Jargon: vocabulary specific to a profession
Presence: significant market-share and influence in a sector, public awareness (people have heard of your company)
Marketing-mix: combination of activities of advertising, selling and the promotion of concepts
Data warehouse: a collection of useful information
Share: (market share) part of a market controlled by one company
Niche: a small, profitable segment of market
To build up: (in this context) create over a long period of time
Help desk: a hot line, a telephone, fax or e-mail service which solves customers´ problems
Affinity/loyalty cards: identity cards which records each transaction to accumulate credit points for future discounts or benefits
Smoke and mirrors: insubstantial effects to get people´s attention. Originally referring to magic performances
Gimmicks: something designed to attract extra attention, interest or publicity