Sales, Marketing and Prospecting Glossary
Find all the definitions, notions and themes to know everything about sales prospecting, marketing and automation 🚀
A
ABM or Account-based-marketing
Focuses on a smaller audience more than the larger number. The strategy involves your marketing and sales teams accurately identifying target companies.
Benefits:
- Shorter sales cycle
- Easy to analyze ROI
- Increased customer satisfaction
AIDA
Method often used to write a cold-email. It is based on the following acronym: Attention / Interest / Desire / Action
API
Programming interface that facilitates interactions and data exchanges between different applications.
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)
The average revenue per customer is calculated very simply. It is your monthly recurring revenue (MRR) divided by the total number of customers:
MRR / number of customers
That is here 183€ / 2 = 92€
Your goal will of course be to increase it. For example by suggesting to your customers similar products (cross selling), or higher range (up selling).
ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue)
The annual recurring revenue is based on the turnover generated over the year by the contracts subscribed by subscription. It is another essential metric to build the expansion strategy of your start-up.ARR = MRR x 12That is, in our example, 183 x 12 = 2 200€.
AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue)
Introduced by Dave McClure, AARRR stands for Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue. In short, AARRR represents the user life cycle for a company. The goal at the end of these 5 stages is to develop growth and generate revenue.
Acquisition cost
The acquisition cost corresponds to the total amount spent to acquire a new customer.
It is calculated as follows: costs related to the promotion of your product (marketing and sales campaigns) / number of customers acquired.
Automatic Email Rotation
Email rotation is a method that allows you to send thousands of emails per day by rotating between your mailboxes. Once you reach your daily sending limit on your first mailbox, automatic rotation will switch the sending to your second mailbox, then the third, and so on. The objective of this technique is to bypass daily sending limits for mass emailing.
B
Soft Bounce
A soft bounce is a temporary delivery error related to the receiving server: inbox full, message too heavy, server temporarily unavailable... However, the email address is correct.
And if you want to know more about bounces, it's here 💡
Hard bounce
A hard bounce is when an email address is invalid. There are several reasons for this: either a typo in the email address, or the contact is no longer part of the company, or the email address is wrong.
And if you want to know more about bounces, it's here 💡
Rejet/Refuse Bounce
Mail servers identify an email as unsolicited and/or have recently implemented automatic bounce/reject rules.
And if you want to learn more about bounces, it's here 💡
B2B (Business To Business)
B2B refers to commercial relationships and activities between two companies. For example: when a company sells computer equipment to another company.
B2C (Business To Consumer)
B2C refers to the relationship between the company and the end consumer. For example, the purchase of a cell phone by an individual in a phone store is a B2C transaction.
Backlinks
A backlink, also called "incoming link" or "external link" is a hyperlink that sends a visitor from a site A, to a site B. The use of backlinks is very important, even essential for SEO in order to link its own website to external sites. Backlinks are also very important for the website reputation. Indeed, the number of backlinks to a site will allow Google to determine the interest of a website, and therefore, to give it more visibility.
Boolean search
Boolean search is defined as a search for information using Boolean operators. Boolean operators are keywords that are used to target, expand or reduce the results of a search on the Internet.
To learn more, read our article on Boolean search.
Buyer behavior
It can be defined as the moment a consumer chooses and decides to buy a products or services. This behavior can be based on several influences such as the social environment, education, needs or culture.
Buying criteria
These are the questions prospects ask themselves before purchasing a product or service.
They include:
-Why buy this product?
-How do I buy this product?
-What are my needs?
-What price am I willing to spend?
Buying cycle
Buying cycle represents all the steps before the final purchase of the product.
It includes in particular:
-Identification of his need
-Search for a product/service corresponding to his need: this step is very important in the sales process and will be facilitated by advertising, marketing strategy, the performance of the Sales Team (finding the momentum to reach his prospect)
-The purchase: once the buyer has identified the product and the merchant, he is ready for the purchase
-The after-sales service, once the purchase is made, it is important to keep in touch with his customer to build long-term loyalty. For example, you can ask them for their contact information to send them your content, or ask them to evaluate their purchase.
C
Catch-All
A catch-all refers to an e-mail account that allows redirecting any incoming mail to a non-existent e-mail account for a domain to a defined e-mail account.
For example: if the address johndoe@example.com is configured to catch all e-mail addresses of the domain example.com, then all e-mails sent to undefined addresses of the domain @example.com will be redirected to johndoe@example.com instead of being rejected with the error message "unknown user".
The configuration of a catch-all can help to avoid the loss of e-mail due to a typing error when typing an e-mail address.
Discover our article Catch-All: should they be included in your Cold Emails campaigns?
CRM (or Customer Relationship Management)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategy for managing a company's relationships and interactions with its customers or potential customers. A CRM system helps companies interact with customers on an ongoing basis, streamline their processes and improve profitability. Example: Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho, etc.
And to learn more about CRMs, we present you which one to choose for your business
Custom Domain
This is the unique domain name that identifies you and is used in your email campaigns. Configure your domain not to use the same one as other senders that could have a bad reputation.
Discover how to set up your domain to reach 70% of opening
Churn
Churn is a term used to describe the loss of customers or subscribers. The French term for churn is attrition. The phenomenon is generally measured by the churn rate.
Cold-Calling
Cold-calling is a technique that corresponds to telephone prospecting. By cold-calling, you call a customer who doesn't know you (yet), and you try to convince him/her by phone to buy your product/service. This technique can be coupled with Cold-Emaling.
Also view: our article on Cold Calling VS Cold Emailing
D
Data Cleaning
Data cleaning consists of organizing, maintaining and standardizing your CRM in order to make the most of it. On average: between 25% and 30% of your data becomes obsolete every year, so it is crucial to keep it up to date and therefore to: clean your CRM.
DNS (Domain Name System)
Service whose main function is to translate a domain name into an IP address. In simple terms, the DNS server acts like a directory that a computer consults when accessing another computer via a network. In other words, the DNS server is the service that allows you to associate an IP address with a website (or a connected computer or server), just like a telephone directory allows you to associate a telephone number with a subscriber's name.
DPO
Data Protection Officers are responsible for overseeing the strategy as well as the implementation of data protection to ensure compliance with GDPR requirements.
Data Enrichment
Data enrichment is the addition of additional information about your business contact. It can be information such as phone number, job, company information or professional email.
Indeed, Dropcontact enriches your business contact data with the first name, last name and company website (or if not available, the company name).
F
Follow-Up
The follow-up strategy consists of maintaining contact with your prospect, for example by means of follow-ups by email, by message, by telephone or via social networks. The main objective of this strategy is to convert, to create the sale of your product through a personalized contact and multi-channel campaigns.
G
Growth Hacking
Growth Hacking consists in using marketing techniques and strategies to generate a rapid growth of your company at low cost. This strategy can be linked to the acronym AARRR, which means as Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue.
Discover our article on Growth Hacking to boost your sales prospecting 🚀
GDPR
The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation came into effect on May 25, 2018. It is the new European regulation on data collection and use. It applies to any company that processes and stores personal data directly or indirectly related to a person. It is essential to respect the RGPD when prospecting or any other approach using personal data of users, at the risk of being sanctioned by the CNIL.
To learn more, it's here 🚀
H
HubSpot
HubSpot is a CRM that allows companies to centralize all their information and data (Sales, Marketing, Customer Support, etc.)
There are several subscription packages suitable for all types of businesses such as Start-Ups and SMBs.
Dropcontact natively integrates with HubSpot to:
- Clean and enrich your data (qualified and updated email, pro phone number, LinkedIn, etc.)
- Merge and detect duplicates present in your HubSpot
- Standardize data (remove encoded characters, reverse last name-first name, etc.)
- Add company information (SIRET, known headcount, headquarters address)
Discover Dropcontact x HubSpot integration
I
Inbound/Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing consists in setting up a set of actions and levers to go and find the buyer where he is. This traditional marketing technique, although complementary, is opposed to Inbound Marketing, a web marketing approach aiming at increasing the incoming traffic on a website.
Inbound marketing consists in attracting prospects in a non-intrusive way, by proposing them non-commercial contents with high added value. As opposed to the so-called outbound methods, which come to meet the potential customer directly (telephone prospecting, online advertising, etc.).
L
Lead
Lead is an anglicism used to designate a commercial contact, i.e. a potential customer (prospect) whose interest in the offer is more or less proven. It can be a direct contact obtained by a sales representative (at a trade show, in a sales outlet) or a contact that has been declared through other means (request for a quote, phone call, website visits linked to inbound marketing, etc.).
Lead generation (or lead gen)
Refers to all marketing actions (making contact at a trade show, providing content, contests, etc.) aimed at capturing new potential customers. The more information the company has about the lead (e-mail, socio-demographic data, behavioral data), the more qualified it is.
Lead magnet
A lead magnet is web content offered to a prospect in exchange for contact information. It aims to turn an anonymous visitor into an identified lead. It is also called "Gated Content" or "Premium Content". A classic and not very time consuming example? Offer to download the article in PDF format.
Lead nurturing
In marketing automation, lead nurturing consists of sending pre-programmed emails based on the actions taken by the prospect. For example: a prospect gives his email address in a store > He receives an email with other promotional offers that might interest him.
Lifetime value
Lifetime value is the average total value of a customer until he or she churns, which is a combination of your average revenue per customer at the moment and your churn rate. By applying the churn rate to your customer base until it expires, you calculate the overall lifetime value.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Sales Navigator is a premium package from LinkedIn that centralizes in one platform everything that helps you find new customers: a database enriched in real time and the means to create a relationship with your potential customers.
Lead scoring
A technique for scoring prospects to detect those most advanced in their buying cycle. This allows salespeople to deal only with the "hot leads" sent by marketing.
Liquid Language
The liquid language is used to create dynamic content on pages, websites, articles, or other. To create dynamic content, it is necessary to insert variables that will be later replaced by text, images, or dynamic links. Many tools have integrated it such as Zendesk, lemlist or GitLab.
M
Momentum
Momentum is the ideal time for selling, it is when the prospect needs your product.
MRR : Monthly Recurring Revenue
The monthly recurring revenue is a very important indicator if your business model is based on subscriptions (e.g. monthly box sales). It allows you to "predict" your turnover, and therefore the development of your business. Essential to convince potential investors!
Thus:
If 1 customer pays 100€ / month, then MRR = 100€
If 1 customer pays 1 000€ for a 12 months subscription, then MRR = 83€ (1 000€ / 12 months)
For these 2 customers combined, MRR = 183€.
N
Nominative email
A nominative email is an address associated with a person. It can for example be in the form FirstName@company.com ; FirstName.LastName@company.com ; initial.LastName@company.com ; etc.
Netlinking
Web marketing technique aimed at exchanging links between partner sites.
Net Promoter Score (or NPS)
Customer satisfaction indicator. The NPS is measured on a scale of 0 to 10 and allows you to evaluate to what extent your customers would recommend your product/service to their friends and family.
It is calculated with the following formula: percentage of satisfied customers (score between 9 and 10) - percentage of dissatisfied customers (score between 0 and 6)
NPS is expressed in numbers and not in percentages.
O
On-premise
Unlike SaaS, it is a licensing and usage model for server-based software and computer programs installed in a company's own IT environment for "on-premise" use only.
P
Pay-as-you-go
A system where you pay for a service before you use it and you can't use more than you paid for.
Pipeline
The sales pipeline is your lead pool. Most sales management tools present a pipeline view of opportunities, i.e. the "stock" of leads to be processed for each stage of the sales journey.
Pixel (emailing)
An invisible tracking pixel is stored in each email. As soon as the recipient opens the email, it downloads this pixel. This is when you are notified that the email has been opened.
DKIM Protocol
The DKIM protocol is a cryptographic protocol based on the use of public keys that are published in your DNS. The protocol allows you to sign your email with your domain name, just as you would sign a letter with your signature. The recipient of your email is sure that the email he received was written by you and was not altered during transmission. This protocol is particularly effective against "man in the middle" attacks.
Find out how to set up your domain to reach 70% open rate
DMARC Protocol
The two protocols DKIM and SPF are complementary and respond to different types of attacks. Nevertheless, they have the disadvantage of not giving any instructions in case of an attack. The DMARC protocol makes up for this lack and gives indications in case of an attack: in particular, it is possible to be warned if someone impersonates you.
Find out how to set up your domain to reach 70% open rate
SPF Protocol
The SPF protocol, which is based on the DNS of your domain name, makes it possible to certify that the sending IP has the right to send the email. This protocol prevents third parties from fraudulently using your domain name and impersonating you. This protocol is particularly effective against phishing attacks.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a CRM that offers multiple features to boost your prospecting. It includes basic features such as lead and offer tracking, visual pipeline creation or activity and contact management.
Dropcontact natively integrates with Pipedrive to:
- Update your data directly in your Pipedrive
- Enrich known data already present in your CRM (qualified email, phone number, LinkedIn profile, website, etc.)
- Add company information (SIRET number, known workforce, type of company, head office address)
Discover Dropcontact x Pipedrive integration
Persona
The notion of persona consists in representing a potential buyer by assigning characteristics such as lifestyle, age, gender, needs, etc. The main objective of a persona is to identify "target" groups and thus offer content adapted to this target.
Q
Email Qualification
The qualification of emails corresponds to the identity of your contact.
It can be of several kinds:
- Nominative: the address is therefore associated with a person. For example: mathieu.bernard@dropcontact.com
- Catch-all: the domain is set in a way that makes the email address unverifiable.
- Non-validated: the email address present in your CRM can't be verified for now.
- Generic: these addresses are based on roles or functions like 👉 admin@, support@, contact@...
- Random / disposable: these addresses are false or used as tests, they are neither associated with a person nor a company.
- Invalid: these addresses do not exist.
R
ROAS
ROAS, which stands for Return On Ad Spent, is a marketing metric that quantifies the return on investment of a campaign's ad spend and is calculated as follows: (Total campaign revenue ÷ Total cost of managing the strategy)
ROI
The ROI (return on investment) is an indicator of performance measurement, and therefore of decision making, which consists in evaluating the success of the marketing actions of a company.
Generally speaking, it is calculated as follows: (Sales generated - Marketing cost) ÷ Marketing cost x 100
The result being expressed as a percentage.
S
SaaS (Software As A Service)
SaaS are online software that can be used via a simple Internet connection. They avoid companies to download software that is usually tedious to configure and update one by one. With a SaaS, data is stored online in the cloud, and accessible for a subscription fee from any medium: desktop, smartphone, tablet. DropBox, Slack, etc.
Scalability
Scalability is a term used in the field of computer hardware and software to define the ability of a computer product to adapt to fluctuations in demand while maintaining its various functionalities. The term "scalability" is used to describe the ability of an IT product to adapt to fluctuations in demand while maintaining its various functionalities. It applies to all IT programs or services that are highly successful and, consequently, increase in load or data volume.
Scraping
Web scraping is a technique allowing the extraction of data from a site via a program, an automatic software or another site. The objective is to extract the content of a page of a site in a structured way. Scraping allows you to reuse this data.
SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
SEM is the combination of SEO and SEA.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization. In other words, it corresponds to the referencing of your website, that is to say all the actions you will perform to ensure that your website is well ranked among the organic results of search engines (eg Google, Bing, Mozilla Firefox, etc.). The objective of all companies in terms of SEO is to be located in the first position.
SEA (Search Engine Advertising)
SEA stands for Search Engine Advertising. SEA consists of advertising directly on search engines. For example, Google offers its own advertising platform called Google Ads. We can recognize SEA ads thanks to the mention "sponsored" or by their display at the top of the search results, above the organic results (which have been placed at the top of the list thanks to SEO)
SMB ou PME
SMB is the acronym for Small and Medium Businesses, in French: une PME est une Petite ou Moyenne Entreprise. These acronyms qualify all companies with a workforce of less than 250 people and a turnover of less than 50 million euros.
Sticky Content
Sticky content refers to content published on a website, which is intended to get users to return to that particular website or to hold their attention and get them to spend more time on that site. Webmasters use this method to create a community of returning visitors to a website. Examples: chat rooms, forums, webmail, games, weather, news, horoscopes...
Sales Automation
Sales Automation consists of automating certain tasks in your sales process to improve it. There are many tools that allow you to automate these routine and time-consuming tasks related to sales prospecting. These tools allow you to lighten the workload of your sales team so that they can finally focus on sales ⚡️
Salesforce
Salesforce is a CRM that offers multiple features. Salesforce offers several subscription plans suitable for all types of businesses
Dropcontact natively integrates with Salesforce to:
- Clean and enrich your data directly in Salesforce (qualified email, pro phone number, LinkedIn, etc.)
- Merge and detect duplicates
- Standardize data (remove encoded characters, reverse last name-first name, etc.)
- Add company information (SIRET, known headcount, type of business, headquarters address)
Discover Dropcontact x Salesforce integration
Social Selling
Social Selling is a process in which sales teams use social networks to find and contact new prospects. LinkedIn is one of the main professional networks used by salespeople to prospect.
R
Opening Rate
The opening rate allows you to know the ratio between the customers who receive the communications of a company via different digital channels (emails, SMS, instant messages, etc.) and those who consult them.
Bounce Rate
The bounce rate corresponds to two types of behavior:
The rate of emails that could not be received by their recipient for various reasons (see the notion of bounce)
Or the bounce rate also corresponds to the number of users who consulted a single page during a website visit
Attrition Rate
The attrition rate, or churn rate, measures the rate of customer loss.
U
UTM (Urchin Tracking Module)
The UTM is a URL marker widely used in digital marketing. It is found in the address of a web page and allows you to know the origin of your visitors (Adwords ads, social networks, etc.).
W
Warm-Up
The warm-up process consists of "warming up" your email inbox to improve your email domain reputation and optimize your deliverability rate. There are various tools on the market that employ different methods, such as:
- The use of multiple mailboxes ready to interact with yours to enhance your deliverability.
- Your email is sent and then removed from spam boxes and various categories to land in your recipients' primary inbox.
- Obtaining your spam score.