AMA PCM Marketing Management key terms

The process of planning, executing, and controlling activities that create, communicate, and deliver value to chosen customers in order to meet organizational objectives and stakeholder needs.

The coordinated set of controllable decision areas a firm uses to influence demand, traditionally grouped as product, price, place, and promotion, and extended in services contexts with people, process, and physical evidence.

Dividing a broad market into smaller groups of buyers with similar needs, behaviors, or characteristics so that tailored offers and messages can be developed for each group.

Evaluating the attractiveness of each customer segment and selecting which segments the organization will serve with dedicated marketing effort and resource allocation.

Designing an offer and image so that it occupies a distinct, valued place in the minds of target customers relative to competing alternatives.

A concise statement of the specific benefits a product or service delivers, the problems it solves, and why the target customer should choose it over alternatives.

The progression of a product through introduction, growth, maturity, and decline stages, each requiring different pricing, promotion, and distribution decisions.

The process by which a new product or idea spreads through a social system over time, with adopters grouped as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.

The systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of data about customers, competitors, and markets to support marketing decisions and reduce uncertainty.

Data collected firsthand for a specific project through methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observation, giving control over questions and timing.

Analysis of data already collected by others, such as industry reports, government statistics, and internal sales records, typically faster and cheaper than primary collection.

Exploratory methods such as depth interviews and focus groups that generate rich, non-numerical insight into motivations, attitudes, and language, usually with small samples.

Structured methods that produce numerical data suitable for statistical analysis, such as large-scale surveys and experiments, enabling measurement and generalization.

Selecting a subset of a population for study, using probability or non-probability methods, so that findings can be used to draw inferences about the wider group.

A survey technique that asks respondents to choose among product configurations to reveal the relative importance they place on individual attributes and their preferred levels.

A visual technique plotting brands on key attributes as perceived by customers, revealing competitive gaps and white space that inform positioning decisions.

Systematic assessment of rival firms' offerings, pricing, strengths, weaknesses, and strategies to identify threats and opportunities and to sharpen differentiation.

A structured review of an organization's internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats, used to frame strategic marketing choices.

The proportion of total category sales, by units or revenue, captured by a given brand or firm within a defined market and time period.

The added value a brand name confers on a product, reflected in customer preference, price premiums, loyalty, and resilience against competitive pressure.

The extent to which target customers can recognize or recall a brand and associate it with a product category or need situation.

A customer's consistent preference for and repeat purchase of a brand, ranging from habitual buying to deep emotional commitment and advocacy.

The organizing structure that defines how a company's brands and sub-brands relate to one another, such as a house-of-brands or branded-house approach.

Launching a new product under an existing brand name to leverage established awareness and trust, carrying both acceptance benefits and dilution risk.

Aided or unaided retrieval of a brand from memory when a product category or need is mentioned, a common measure of awareness strength.

The present value of expected future profit from a customer relationship, used to justify acquisition spending and prioritize retention investment.

The total marketing and sales expense required to gain one new customer, computed over a period and compared against lifetime value to assess efficiency.

The rate at which existing customers stop buying or cancel a subscription during a period, a key driver of retention economics and lifetime value.

The percentage of visitors or prospects who complete a desired action, such as a purchase or sign-up, within a measured audience and timeframe.

A controlled experiment comparing two or more variants of a page, ad, or message with randomized assignment to determine which performs better on a defined metric.

Earning unpaid search visibility by improving content relevance, site structure, and technical quality so pages rank for queries target customers use.

Paid placement on search engines, typically through keyword bidding and ad copy, to reach users actively expressing intent related to the offer.

The amount an advertiser pays each time a user clicks a paid digital ad, a core input to comparing channel efficiency and return on ad spend.

Revenue generated divided by advertising spend for a campaign or channel, expressing the revenue productivity of media investment.

The rules or models used to assign credit for a conversion across the multiple touchpoints a customer encounters before purchasing.

A staged model of the customer journey from awareness through consideration and purchase to loyalty, used to align messages and metrics to each stage.

Creating and distributing valuable, relevant material to attract and engage a defined audience, building trust that supports later commercial action.

Activities aimed at keeping existing customers engaged and repurchasing, such as onboarding, loyalty programs, and lifecycle messaging.