Market Intelligence & Marketing Glossary
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This glossary for terms related to marketing and market intelligence wants to address most common terms that are explained here to better understand the market intelligence function. Please feel free to add on to this list by using our journal.
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Market Analysis: identifies critical intelligence topics, investigates relevant market research, and communicates significant market insights and implications.
Market Attractiveness: two-dimensional matrix designed to serve, as a diagnostic tool to highlight Strategic Business Units that have an opportunity to grow or that should be divested.
Market Coverage: ensuring that the product is made available through appropriate intermediaries so that: (a) the potential customer can access it as easily as possible, and (b) the product is properly displayed, sold and supported within the channel of distribution.
Market Data Analytics : converts vast amounts of internally and externally available data into actionable insights through advanced analytical techniques to answer current and “what-if” questions about the market, the company and the competition.
Market Data Execution: drives revenue generation by turning strategy into action by melding customer and prospect information with the company’s offering information and other market and business data to target recipients with the highest probability of buying the companies goods and services.
Market Data Strategy: consults with other organizations to set a strategy that will best leverage customer, prospect and marketplace information to drive market data execution plans.
Market Definition: the way you describe the marketplace in which your product / service competes or will compete.
Market Demand: total volume of a specific product / service bought by a defined group of customers in a specific market area, in a specified time period.
Market Development: selling existing products into new segments or geographic markets.
Market Leader: brand or product securing the greatest proportion of total sales within its field. May sometimes refer to the company marketing the product or service concerned.
Market Manager: person responsible for the marketing activities necessary to serve a particular group or class of customers.
Market Opportunity: an opportunity that arises when the right combination of circumstances occurs at the right time to enable an organization to take action toward generating sales from a target market.
Market Opportunity Analysis: using advanced analytical techniques, describes market segment opportunity and predicts future growth.
Market Orientation: a business approach that centers its activities on solving the problems of, and satisfying the needs and wants of its customers.
Market Penetration: the number of individual’s prescribing / buying / using the product / service within a given market.
Market Planning Cycle: the five-step cycle that involves developing or revising marketing objectives relative to performance, assessing marketing opportunities and resources, formulating marketing strategy, developing the plan for implementation and control, and executing the marketing plan.
Market Potential: estimated size of total present or future market, i.e. number of individuals who will need / use the product or service. May be calculated as volume (number of units) or value (total spend).
Market Research: (definition of the American Marketing Association) information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve the understanding of marketing as a process.
Market Segmentation: process of dividing a total market into groups of firms or customers with relatively similar characteristics and therefore similar needs, for the purpose of designing marketing and sales programs that more precisely meet the needs of firms for a selected segment.
Market Segment: group of individuals, groups, or organizations that share one or more similar characteristics that make them have relatively similar, measurable, and actionable needs.
Market Share: percentage measurement of the share obtained by an individual company or product from the total market available. May be calculated in unit or value terms and often expressed as a percentage.
Marketing Channels: group of interrelated intermediaries who direct products to customers; also called channels of distribution.
Marketing Concept: managerial philosophy that an organization should try solve problems by satisfying customers’ needs through a coordinated set of activities that at the same time allows the organization to achieve its goals.
Marketing Environment: environment that surrounds both the buyer and the seller; consists of political, legal, social, economic, and technological forces.
Marketing Intelligence: all data gathered which forms a basis for marketing decisions.
Marketing Management: process of planning, organizing, implementing, and controlling marketing activities to facilitate and expedite exchanges effectively and efficiently.
Marketing Mix: planned combination of the elements of marketing in a marketing plan which will typically include Product, Place (distribution), Price and Promotion (communication) with the aim of achieving the greatest effect at minimum cost.
Marketing Need: absolute requirement from a product or service. May be expressed as a feature or as a benefit.
Marketing Planning: a process whereby an organization can develop marketing strategies that, when properly implemented and controlled, will contribute to achieving the organization’s overall goals.
Marketing Plan: written document or blueprint for implementing and controlling an organization’s marketing activities related to a particular marketing strategy.
Marketing Strategy: the approach a company takes to securing and retaining profitable relationships with its customers, generally involving segmentation, targeting and positioning choices as well as adoption of a suitable marketing and sales program.
Marketing: the anticipation, and identification of customer needs, and the profitable meeting of these with information, products and services.
Market-Oriented Organization: organization that attempts to determine what target market members want and then to produce and deliver it.
Market: aggregate of people who, as individuals or as organizations, have similar problems and, for this reason, similar needs for products / services in a product / service class and who have the ability, willingness, and authority to purchase such products.
Mark-Up Pricing: pricing method whereby the price is derived by adding a predetermined percentage of the cost to the cost of the product.
Metadata: Also Known As: Meta Data or Meta-data: Data that describes the data in the warehouse. Metadata includes the following:
1) A description of tables and fields in the warehouse, including data types and the range of acceptable values.
A similar description of tables and fields in the source databases, with a mapping of fields from the source to the warehouse.
2) A description of how the data has been transformed, including formulae, formatting, currency conversion, and time aggregation.
3) Any other information that is needed to support and manage the operation of the data warehouse.
There are a number of companies and organizations attempting to standardize the use of metadata. A standard metadata model would greatly aid the process of integrating data warehousing tools from different companies. Some data warehousing experts believe that the standardization of metadata is impossible.
Monopolistic Market: structure existing when a firm produces a product that has no close substitutes and / or when a single seller may erect barriers to potential competitors.
Multidimensional Analysis: Also Known As: OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing): A process of analysis that involves organizing and summarizing data in a multiple number of dimensions.
People can comprehend a far greater amount of information if that information is organized into dimensions and into hierarchies. The wide use of spreadsheets and graphs illustrates the need for people to have their information organized.
A spreadsheet is a two-dimensional analysis tool. If a person could comprehend 10 individual facts, they could possibly comprehend 100 facts if they were arranged in a spreadsheet.
If 3 or 4 or 5 dimensions could be displayed, the amount of information that could be comprehended would be increased exponentially - to 1000 facts, 10,000 facts, and 100,000 facts.
Multidimensional data is also organized hierarchically, allowing users to “drill down” for more detailed information, “drill up” to see a broader, more summarized view, and “slice and dice” to dynamically change the combinations of dimensions that are being viewed.
New Product Development: process consisting of the following phases: idea generation, screening, business analysis, product development, test marketing, and commercialization.
Niche Strategy: strategy to serve market segments that are big enough to be profitable for the company but small enough to be of little interest for competing companies.
OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing): The use of computers to analyze an organization’s data.
“OLAP” is the most widely used term for multidimensional analysis software. The term “On-Line Analytical Processing” was developed to distinguish data warehousing activities from “On-Line Transaction Processing” - the use of computers to run the on-going operation of a business.
In its broadest usage the term “OLAP” is used as a synonym of “data warehousing”. In a more narrow usage, the term OLAP is used to refer to the tools used for Multidimensional Analysis.
“Think of an OLAP data structure as a Rubik’s Cube of data that users can twist and twirl in different ways to work through what-if and what-happened scenarios.” - Lee The, Editor, Datamation (May 1995).
Out of Stock Costs: costs that can be attributed to the non-availability of products when the customer wants to buy them.
P.B.I.T.: profit before interest and taxes. Also known as operating profit or earnings before interest and tax, EBIT. Patent Expiry: date at which patent protection for a branded product is no longer valid.
Patent: temporary monopoly given by law to an inventor, which allows the inventor to prevent others from exploiting the invention.
Payback: time in which a new product/service has recovered its cost of development and marketing.
Penetration: the proportion (usually expressed as a percentage) of a population of interest that has accepted a product or an idea in some way.
Perceived-Value Pricing: pricing method in which the seller sets the price at a level that the intended buyers value the product/service.
Perception: process by which an individual selects, organizes, and interprets information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world.
Perceptual Mapping: is an analysis technique that is designed to portray how customers view a concept or brand relative to the alternatives.
Perceptual Map: a diagram that shows the relative perceived positions of brands in terms of the most important brand characteristics, sometimes used to summarize the findings of attitudinal research.
Perfect Competition: ideal competitive structure that would entail a large number of sellers, none of which could significantly influence price or supply.
Portfolio: the total range of products offered by the company also incorporates products in development.
Positioning Statement: written description of the position that a company wishes itself, its product or its brand to occupy in the minds of a defined target audience.
Positioning: the act of creating an image of what a product can offer and to whom, so that it will occupy a distinct and sustainable competitive position in the mind of the target customer.
Post-Purchase Evaluation: evaluation of a product / service after consumption or use. The degree of satisfaction (disappointment / satisfaction / enthusiasm) influences subsequent (repurchase) behavior.
Pre-Marketing: any marketing activity taking place before the launch of a product/service.
Price Competition: policy whereby a marketer emphasizes price as an issue and matches or beats the price of competitors also emphasizing low prices.
Price Structure: time and conditions of payment, discounts and other conditions of pricing in a given market.
Price: the stated amount of money charged for a product or the monetary amount agreed for an exchange between the buyer and the seller.
Primary Research: original, new marketing research, which involves collecting information for a specific purpose, and possibly commissioning a study tailored to filling the information gap. It also means using a variety of research techniques, determines the company’s and competitors’ marketplace position on a wide variety of characteristics (such as satisfaction, brand image, pricing, ease of use etc.) and associated implications for the company.
Procurement: function normally executed by the purchasing department. Covers the activities of the time period from the moment an item is requisitioned until its delivery.
Product Innovation: activities to create a new product/service. Different from invention (finding a new idea), the innovation process includes the work required to bring the idea into the final form for marketing.
Product Life Cycle: concept suggesting that a product goes through various stages in the course of its life: introduction, growth, maturity and decline. At each stage, a product’s marketing mix changes, as will its revenue and profit profile.
Product Line: group of closely related products that are considered a unit because of marketing, technical, or end-use considerations.
Product Mix: the full range of products and their variants that an organization makes available to customers.
Product Orientation: marketing approach to business that centers its activities on continually improving and refining its products, assuming that customers simply want the best possible quality for their money.
Product: a good or service offered or performed by an organization.
Purchase Intention: a measure of respondents’ attitudes towards buying a particular product or service.
Push Strategy: an attempt to sell into channel intermediaries using personal selling and sales promotions and fulfilling their specific requirements.
Qualitative Research: marketing research used to explore opinion and value judgments of individuals from which collective general conclusions may be drawn. Such research usually involves group discussions or in-depth interviews.
Quantitative Research: involves the collection of statistically large samples of data and usually some form of statistical analysis. Quantitative research is often used to substantiate the findings of qualitative research.
R.O.I.: return on investment, The profit or loss resulting from an investment transaction, usually expressed as an annual percentage return.
Recession: stage in the business cycle, during which unemployment rises and total buying power declines, stifling both consumers’ and business people’s propensity to spend.
Relationship Marketing: deliberate building of strong relations with (internal and external) customers with the aim of satisfying their needs and wants in order to keep them enthusiastic. In this way (internal and external) customer retention will create an ongoing market success.
Risk analysis: stage in the definition of a marketing plan where the internalvulnerability (weakness) and the external threats are identified.
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Also see the most comprehensive business intelligence glossary by Vernon Prior. Market & competitive intelligence thesaurus and glossary. Terms and terminology used in business intelligence.