The More Vang Glossary
Marketing can sometimes feel like another language, and here at More Vang, we have our own unique vocab. We’ve compiled some of our most commonly used terms so you no longer find yourself asking, “Pardon, but what is a Banjo?”
Acquisition
Acquisition marketing is the process of acquiring new customers into your business.
Algorithmic Direct Mail
Algorithmic Direct Mail is a marketing strategy that utilizes your data to drive the language, images, offers, and format of your direct mail. It can be executed one-to-one, where each piece of direct mail is specific to the recipient, or one-to-many, where the messaging is relevant to a segment of your audience based on certain characteristics.
API
API stands for Application Programming Interface. APIs allow information to flow back and forth between two applications based on a set of rules or protocols. APIs are more versatile than webhooks but require more effort to set up.
Asset
An asset is something you can use to personalize and customize your direct mail templates. Assets can include your customer data, image library, and variable content.
Audience Segmentation
A marketing and data strategy where you identify and group segments of your target audience based on certain characteristics (demographic, behavioral, or psychographic).
B2B / B2C
There are two types of marketing: business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C). In B2B marketing, you are selling a product or service to another business with (usually) many stakeholders. In B2C marketing, you are selling a product or service directly to an individual consumer.
Banjo
Banjo is a software to automate direct mail from data intake to mailing. Banjo is powered by our custom-built render engine to facilitate data sharing, specifically audience or consumer data bound for a print deliverable.
Banjo Pro
Banjo Pro offers automation via integration with full API access. With Banjo Pro, you control the workflow in your marketing system and trigger campaigns based on rules and actions you set up.
Banjo Smart Folders
Banjo Smart Folders allows you to automate direct mail without doing a system integration. We program and manage the entire workflow on our end. You trigger your direct mail campaigns via a simple data feed or drop into your Banjo Smart Folder.
Call to Action (CTA)
A CTA is the action you want your audience to take after receiving your direct mail. These actions can include visiting a website, completing a form, calling you for more information, or making a purchase. The action should be appropriate for where the customer is on their buying journey.
CMYK
CMYK is a multicolor process that stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, sometimes referred to as process color or four-color. With CMYK, the colors in a design are all rendered through some combination of these four colors. Most often, CMYK is used to create full-color images or graphics, often photographs.
Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS)
CASS is a certification system from the United States Postal Service for address validation. CASS will standardize your mailing list, update outdated street addresses, and verify that addresses are valid and complete.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate tells you who completed the call-to-action to become customers. For example, if someone visits your landing page, that’s part of the response rate. But if they sign up for your service, that’s a conversion. To calculate the conversion rate, divide the number of responses by the number of conversions.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Your CPA is how much you spend to gain a new customer. You can look at your overall CPA across all marketing campaigns and channels. You can also drill down into each campaign or channel to see which achieves the best CPA to optimize future campaigns. To calculate your CPA, divide the number of conversions by the total cost of your campaign.
CSV File
Comma Separated Values (CSV) file is a plain text file that contains a list of data.
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
Your customer LTV is how much you can expect an average customer to spend with you over time. To figure out your customer LTV, you need to know the average number of transactions, the average value of those transactions, and the average lifespan of your customers.
Data map
A data map is a PDF of the template that is marked up indicating where the data populates into a template using the column header names from the data. When automating direct mail with Banjo, the data map is one element of the Rules we program into your direct mail template.
Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM)
EDDM is a service offered by USPS that allows organizations to take advantage of census data in targeted mailings. You select a specific mail route, and USPS delivers your direct mail to every address within that route.
Informed Visibility
Informed Visibility Mail Tracking & Reporting is a service available to commercial mailers who are sending domestic, barcoded mail. It provides near real-time mail tracking and deliverability information using the data from the Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMb).
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
A KPI is what you use to measure the success of your direct mail. KPIs are based on your marketing goals (e.g., increase revenue, generate leads, build brand awareness). Common KPIs include response rate, conversion rate, return on investment, retention rate, cost per acquisition, and customer lifetime value.
Lead Grading
Lead grading assigns a letter grade based on how closely a lead’s demographics align to your ideal buyer persona.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring involves assigning a specific value to leads, usually on a scale of 1-100, based on their behavior and how likely they are to convert.
National Change of Address (NCOA)
NCOA is a product of the United States Postal Service and provides updated and accurate addresses for individuals, families, and businesses that have filed a “Change of Address” form at the Post Office when moving. NCOA will also indicate foreign moves and people who have moved with no forwarding address.
Pantone Matching System (PMS)
PMS spot colors refer to a precisely mixed color that matches a swatch in the Pantone catalog. PMS colors are often used for branding elements like logos because they guarantee consistent color matching.
Personalization
Personalization involves using variable data to pull information into a direct mail piece. With personalization, the data itself is the message—the contents of a data field (every letter, number, and space) are copied and dropped into a defined variable field exactly as they appear in the data file.
PURL
PURL stands for personalized URL, and it’s a landing page or website specific to an individual, such as morevang.com/john-doe. Using your data, you can create a customized landing page experience, where every piece of content on the landing page is relevant to the recipient.
QR Code
The QR stands for Quick Response. QR codes are made up of black and white squares that can hold more data than a simple barcode. Most often, especially in marketing, QR codes are used to store URLs to direct someone to a particular webpage, but they can also store other data such as text or images.
Relevance
Relevance is about making your direct mail connected and useful to each person in your target audience. With relevance, the data informs the message—using data-driven variable content to tailor the images and copy in a direct mail piece to each individual.
Rendering Engine
A rendering engine is software that draws text and images on the screen. The engine draws structured text from a document (often HTML) and formats it properly based on the given style declarations (often given in CSS).
Response Rate
Response rate tells you how many people responded to the CTA(s) in your direct mail. Calculate the response rate by dividing the total number of pieces mailed by the number of responses you received. If you include multiple CTAs in your direct mail, make sure you’re tracking them all for an accurate response rate.
Retention
Retention marketing is the process of retaining your existing customers.
Retention Rate
Your retention rate tells you how effective you are at retaining your existing customers. To figure out your retention rate for a given timeframe, you need to know the number of customers you had at the beginning, the total number of customers you have at the end, and how many new customers you acquired during this period. Subtract the new customers from the total at the end and then divide that number by the total from the beginning. Multiply that number by 100 to get your retention rate.
Return on Investment (ROI)
ROI tells you how much money you made on a campaign relative to how much you spent. To calculate ROI, subtract your total cost from your total revenue and then divide that number by the total cost.
RGB
RGB is a color model that stands for Red Green Blue and uses different hues and combinations of these three colors to produce a wide variety of other colors. RGB is primarily used for on-screen applications.
Rule
A rule is something we use to determine the parameters around how and when to send your direct mail. Rules allow us to automate the process and are specific to your particular needs. There are four primary types of rules: batching by time or quantity, data-driven, time-triggered, and behavioral.
Template
The design and layout wireframe to which content/data is applied—either manually or via data upload/merge—in order to create a customized PDF for printing. Templates are programmed by the Tech Services team based on how you want to be able to customize your direct mail.
TRUSTe Certified
Being TRUSTe Certified means that our data practices meet the standards of the TrustArc Privacy & Data Governance Accountability Framework. This framework includes:
- EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- ISO 27001
- U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
- OECD Privacy Guidelines
- APEC Privacy Framework
The process to obtain a TRUSTe certification involves a thorough privacy assessment, remediation, and extensive documentation. TrustArc conducts ongoing compliance monitoring and requires annual review and renewal.
Variable Content
Variable content allows you to customize your direct mail by varying both the images and copy based on information in your data. An example would be using a ‘company industry’ field in your data to tailor your messaging to speak to the pain points in that industry.
Variable Data
Printing Variable data printing (VDP) is a linear process where the columns and rows in your data map directly to corresponding fields in your direct mail piece. A common example of VDP is the “Dear >>First Name<<,” on a letter or the mail panel on a postcard.
Webhook
Webhooks allow information to flow from one application to another based on a trigger or event. Webhooks can send data in real time, but the information can only flow in one direction—they can send but not request data.
