- Trial – Getting someone to try something for the first time. Examples are buying the new kind of ice cream for the first time, having a play with an iPhone for the first time, test driving the car. Common phrases: Increase trial, induce trial.
- Consideration – The step before “trial”. Consideration is when someone moves a brand or product into the shortlist of brands or products they are considering. An example would be comparing features or prices of a product online.
- Propensity to buy/try – A measure of whether someone intends to try or buy a brand or product at some point in future.
- Purchase intention – A measure of whether a target market intends to purchase a brand or product in the future. Example: “I’m definitely upgrading to the iPhone 7”.
- Preference – Within a given category (let’s say “beer”), people will usually have some favorites. “Increasing preference” is about someone choosing a brand that is already in the category more often than they do now.
- Loyalty – This is just what you think it is: The degree to which someone will stick with a brand, especially in the face of attractive offers from other brands.
- Advocacy – This is when a customer recommends a brand to others. It is often referred to as “word of mouth”, but advocacy is not always conversational. For instance, bloggers, reviewers, and users of the thousands of social media channels also advocate. Advocacy is generally regarded as the most powerful marketing channel, as it is more credible and authentic than anything a brand can say about itself. Brands often try to engender advocacy by creating “talking points” or “fostering chatter”. Best practice sponsorship is a very powerful way to foster advocacy.
- Upselling – Selling a larger version of whatever someone already owns or is buying. For instance, selling a BMW 5-Series to someone who intends to buy a 3-Series.
- Incremental sales – Selling additional stuff to someone who already owns or is buying. For instance, upgrading to the top stereo system on the BMW or buying life insurance from the bank where you’re already a customer.
- Share (or market share) – This is the percent of the overall market for a product or service that a particular brand holds. As an example, Nokia has a global market share of about 40% of the smartphone market. Increasing share (or increasing market share) means growing a brands portion of the market for that product or service – in this case, smartphones – by reducing the market share of competitors.
- Share of wallet – In the financial industry, the term “share of wallet” is used to refer to the percentage of spending (or spend) their brand gets, as compared to other financial brands. As an example, American Express knows that their customers are not loyal, having a number of payment methods to choose from. They are trying to increase their share of wallet, so people reach for the Amex more often than for the Visa or Mastercard that is right next to it in the same wallet. It is basically the same as the term “preference”, but specific to the financial services industry.
Growing the market – As opposed to growing market share, this means to grow the entire market for a product or service, creating more sales and revenue for a brand, even if the same market share is maintained. As an example, if the market for smartphones doubles in the next year, manufacturers of smartphones will sell roughly double what they are selling now, even if all they do is maintain their current share.
Retail/dealer support – If a company says they are trying to “increase retail support”, that means they are trying to get retailers that carry their brand to promote it more aggressively, give it better or more shelf space, or undertake other activities that will increase the likelihood of selling the brand over other brands in the category.