So you have began your HubSpot journey or you're thinking of getting started, but there's a lot that you don't quite understand, right?
HubSpot is a complex marketing automation platform that enables you to do some incredible things, but it also is a learning curve that includes newfangled terminology.
We've compiled this list of major HubSpot terms and their definitions, to ensure that you go to the top of the class!
The Ultimate HubSpot Terminology Guide
Awareness Stage: This is the first stage of the Buyer’s Journey. At this stage they have realised and expressed symptoms of a potential problem, but will not yet know how to solve it. Your awareness stage content should work to address their early challenges, and nurture the buyer towards the Consideration Stage.
Blog: A blog is an important Inbound marketing tool, used for lead generation, thought leadership, traffic growth and more. Blog posts should not be gated as they are typically Awareness stage content, and provide helpful, educational content - used to help prospects address their pain points. Blogs help to build and maintain a relationship with leads throughout the Buyer’s Journey when used to support lead nurture activity.
Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU): In Inbound marketing, ‘BOFU’ is the term used to describe prospects at the final stage in the purchasing funnel. At the bottom of the funnel (as opposed to TOFU and MOFU) leads have reached the Decision stage of the Buyer’s Journey; content here should be more solution based, and Inbound Sales teams should be involved to help leads convert. Also see Buyer’s Journey.
Buyer Persona: We define a buyer persona as a 'semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, based on market research and real data about your existing customers'. All activity in an inbound marketing campaign is targeted around your personas, from content to the leads your sales team works to qualify.
Find out about our inbound marketing process, HubSpot retainer packages and the Thriveability Plan.
Buyer’s Journey: This is the three stage purchasing journey your buyers progress through before converting, consisting of:
The Awareness Stage, where buyers are aware of a pain point, but don't know how to solve it.
The Consideration Stage, where buyers have defined their challenge and are considering ways to solve it.
The Decision Stage, where buyers know the solution they need and are looking for data to make a purchase decision.
Call to action: A text link, button, image, or some type of web link that encourages a website visitor to visit a landing page and become a lead.
Campaign: An email marketing message or a series of messages, such as lead nurturing, designed to accomplish an overall marketing goal.
Consideration Stage: The second stage of the Buyer’s Journey after the Awareness Stage. Buyers at the Consideration Stage will have clearly defined and given a name to their problem or opportunity, and be researching possible solutions. Your Consideration Stage content will give further information on how to solve a problem, and work to nurture buyers to the Decision Stage.
Content: Helpful, educational persona-challenge focused content drives inbound marketing campaigns. Your content is everything from the copy on your site to blogs, ebooks, podcasts, images, social messages and more. Content should always be used to help buyers address their challenges, and should be mapped to the Buyer’s Journey for effective lead nurture and conversion.
Content Management System (CMS): A web application designed to make it easy for non-technical users to create, edit, and manage a website. Helps users with content editing and more 'behind-the-scenes' work like making content searchable and indexable, automatically generating navigation elements, keeping track of users and permissions, and more.
Content Optimisation System (COS): A COS is basically a CMS (Content Management System), but optimised to deliver customers the most personalised web experience possible.
Conversion form: A form in which you collect information on your site visitor. Conversion forms convert traffic into leads. Collecting contact information helps you follow up with these leads.
Conversion rate: The number of people who complete a form on a landing page divided by the total number of people who visited the page.
Decision Stage: The final stage of the Buyer’s Journey, after the Awareness and Consideration Stages. Buyers at the Decision Stage will have defined their solution strategy, method, or approach and be researching documents and data (such as a demo) to make a final purchase decision.
Find out about our inbound marketing process, HubSpot retainer packages and the Thriveability Plan.
Ebook: A common content offer, usually accessed via a landing page and used to generate leads. Often ebooks are longer form than blogs, and offer more detail, or step by step guidance.
Email Workflow: A series of emails triggered when a lead enters your database. Typically starting with a thank you email and access to a content offer, workflow emails are used to nurture leads and build a relationship through the funnel. Also see Lead Nurture Campaign, Workflow Automation.
Evergreen content: Evergreen content is content that continues to provide value to readers no matter when they stumble upon it. These posts are typically a content marketer's best friend because of the tremendous SEO value they provide. For effective nurture through the Sales Funnel and conversion, content and activity should be mapped to address your leads throughout the Buyer’s Journey.
Funnel: The process logic as a visitor gets to your page and completes the 'transaction'. Think of a visitor as someone at the top of your sales and marketing funnel. How do you push them to the bottom of the funnel?
HubSpot Certification: Certification provided by HubSpot, for HubSpot customers. It is designed to help marketers master the use of the HubSpot platform.
Inbound marketing: Inbound marketing is a style of marketing that focuses on getting found by new visitors, converting traffic into leads, and analysing performance. It’s a concept based on Seth Godin’s idea of permission marketing. David Meerman Scott recommends that marketers “earn their way in” (via publishing helpful information, nurturing leads, etc.) in contrast to outbound marketing where they used to have to “buy, beg, or bug their way in” (via paid advertisements, cold calling, etc.).
Landing page: A website page containing a form that is used for lead generation. This page revolves around a marketing offer, such as an ebook or a webinar, and serves to capture visitor information in exchange for the valuable offer.
Lead: A person that transforms from an anonymous website visitor into a known contact part of your business sales cycle. This process occurs as the visitor provides his or her contact information in exchange for valuable content.
Lead generation: Lead generation is the process of attracting new leads. It is a marketing tactic that drives a person to demonstrate interest in a product or service. Online this traditionally happens by providing valuable content in exchange for contact information from a website visitor.
Find out about our inbound marketing process, HubSpot retainer packages and the Thriveability Plan.
Lead nurturing campaign: An email series that can be triggered after someone fills out a form on your landing page.
Lead to customer rate: This is a percentage calculated by dividing the total number of customers for a given marketing channel by the total number of leads generated in that same period of time.
Lifecycle stages: Lifecycle stages are helpful ways to describe the relationship you have with your audience, and can generally be broken down into three stages: awareness, evaluation, and purchase.
Marketing Automation / Marketing Automation Software: The marketing software platform (tools, analytics, workflows) that enables your campaign and lead nurture activity, and automates repetitive marketing tasks. HubSpot is an example of marketing automation software.
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL): A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a good-fit business lead. These are leads that match your target customer/persona definition and have the budget, profile and challenges that your solution addresses. It is important that your marketing and sales teams are aligned on your exact definition of an MQL. Also see Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).
Middle of the Funnel (MOFU): The term used to describe leads in the middle of the Sales Funnel. Sat between TOFU and BOFU, MOFU prospects are typically at the consideration stage of the Buyer’s Journey.
Offer: The content that is provided once a lead has filled out a landing page form. Examples of offers include ebooks, whitepapers, webinars and kits.
Outbound Marketing: Traditional marketing that goes out to find customers, rather than attracting them in (as Inbound does). Techniques are often interruptive and hard to quantify such as cold calling, print ads, direct mail, event sponsorship etc. Also known as Traditional Marketing.
Permission based email: These are emails sent to recipients who have opted-in, or subscribed, to receive email communications from a particular company, website or individual. Permission is an absolute requirement for legitimate email marketing.
Personalisation: Personalisation refers to addressing individual recipients by their first name, last name or both, in an email. Personalisation can also include a reference to previous purchases, or other content unique to each recipient.
Qualified Leads: A qualified lead is a good-fit business lead. These are leads that match your target customer/persona definition and have the budget, profile and challenges that your solution addresses. Also see Lead, MQL and SQL.
Sales Cycle: The length of time it takes your prospects to move through the Buyer’s Journey or Sales Funnel before reaching a purchase decision. For enterprise businesses this may be around 6-18 months. Email workflows should be mapped to nurture leads throughout the sales cycle for best ROI.
Sales Funnel: Also known as a revenue funnel or sales process. This is the buying process you lead your customers through. Also see Buyer’s Journey and Lifecycle Stages.
Sales Qualified Lead (SQL): A sales qualified lead (SQL) is a sales-ready opportunity - an MQL who has been nurtured through the Sales Funnel to the purchase stage. It is important that your marketing and sales teams are aligned on your exact definition of an SQL. Also see Lead, MQL.
Find out about our inbound marketing process, HubSpot retainer packages and the Thriveability Plan.
Targeting: Sending emails to a select audience or group of individuals likely to be interested in the message. Targeting is very important for an email marketer because a relevant email campaign will yield a higher response rate and result in fewer unsubscribes.
Thank You Page: The page that a lead is directed to after completing a Lead Capture Form. Thank you pages should provide access to the content offered on the previous Landing Page. Also see Conversion Path.
Top of the Funnel (TOFU): The term used to describe prospects at the top of the Sales Funnel, or the Awareness stage of the Buyer’s Journey. TOFU/Awareness activity and marketing content is used to attract and educate.
Webinar: An online seminar or presentation. These may be live or recorded and used as a piece of video content. Webinars allow participants from around the globe to join and participate. May also be called a WebEx.
Workflow Automation: A workflow describes a Lead Nurture campaign. An automated workflow does just that, automates the events that move a lead through the Sales Funnel. Typically an automated workflow will be a series of automated emails containing relevant content to nurture leads along the conversion path and through the Buyer’s Journey to conversion. An automated workflow is typically triggered when a lead first converts. Also see Email Workflow, Automated Lead Nurture.
Workflow: A workflow is another way to describe a lead nurturing campaign. It’s a set of triggers and events that move a lead through the nurturing process. A workflow can also serve other purposes, such as adjust contact properties on a lead record based on certain conditions, or adding a contact record to a certain list. Regardless of how you use it, workflows can be a very powerful asset in an inbound marketing strategy.
Find out about our inbound marketing process, HubSpot retainer packages and the Thriveability Plan.
