Marketing Speak for Dummies

I had a conversation today with a non-marketing person---yes I talk to them--who was having a conversation with a marketing person spitting out "crazy marketing language." By NO MEANS is this person a dummy (far from it!), but the subject line is to prove that sometimes those who are brought up with marketing language as their second nature of speaking use words freely making the non-marketing types scramble and feel a bit clueless.

So, to help the non-marketers of the world---I come with help. A basic list of words that we use on a daily basis that will make the dreaded calls with the marketing people better. For some reason, half of our language has turned into 3 letter acronyms for projects that could easily just be said in full. Why? Don't ask.

Please add to this in the comments section and I'll gladly add to the main list in the post.

RFP-Request for Proposal-is an invitation for suppliers, often through a bidding process, to submit a proposal on a specific service. This can include full marketing campaigns, tactics, goals, etc... RFPs are different for each client and can ask a wide range of questions.

ROI-Return of Investment- A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment. For marketing, we use ROI to measure the amount of return based on the given campaign. For example, did we get enough click throughs from an online campaign? Did we achieve X number of registered users for the site?

CB-Creative Brief : A written statement that serves as the creative teams guide for writing and producing an ad. It describes the most important issues that should be considered in the development of the ad (the who, why, what, where, and when), including a definition and description of the target audience; the rational and emotional appeals to be used; the product features that will satisfy the customers needs; the style, approach, or tone that will be used in the copy; and, generally, what the copy will say. **Probably the best definition I've seen for this.

SOW-Scope of Work A layout of the work to be done in detail and specifies everything involved and the exact nature of the work to be done.

SA-Service Agreement- part of a service contract where the level of service is formally defined.