SaaS Marketing Glossary for Founders Who Hate Marketing
Key Marketing Terms Defined. No Fluff.
This guide explains the important marketing words you need to know as a SaaS founder. Get clear on what they mean, so you can stop guessing and confidently start marketing your business.
We’ll keep adding terms, this is a living doc. last updated : 04/29/26
1. Getting Clear: Your Product & Audience (aka: What are we even doing?)
Start here if you're not sure how to explain your product or who it's for. These terms will help you get clear on your core message and target audience.
Understanding Your Audience & Market - Customers, customers, customers
You'll typically see these terms when you're doing customer research (talking to people who might want to buy from you), on discovery calls, and when naming the people you're trying to reach.
Customer Research
Learning about customers. You can gather background information from places like Reddit, forums, and reviews. Or, you can use surveys.
Most founders treat research as a chore, but it is actually the only way to avoid "guessing" your way into a business failure. When you map out the actual problems your customers face, you stop selling features and start selling solutions. This keeps your messaging grounded in reality rather than "marketing fluff."
See also: Customer Snippets
Founder Perspective: How to Do Customer Research When You're Scared of Talking to People
Customer Interviews
Talking to people one-on-one.
This can be through calls, video, or in person. An interview isn't a sales call; it is a discovery mission. By asking "how" and "why" instead of "will you buy," you uncover the hidden anxieties that drive a customer to seek a solution. These raw insights are the foundation of a brand that actually strikes heartstrings.
See also: Customer Research
Customer Snippets
These are direct quotes or exact phrases from customers.
You get them from their conversations, feedback, or reviews. Snippets are your secret weapon for copy. When you use your customer’s exact words in your ads or website, you aren't just writing; you are holding up a mirror to their specific struggle. It instantly builds trust because the customer realizes you finally "get it."
Use them to:
- Create marketing messages (like LinkedIn posts and blog posts).
- Improve products. This includes building new features, changing how people start using the product, or updating website text.
See also: Voice of Customer (VOC)
Customer Research Database
This is your central spot for all customer information that isn't numbers.
It holds insights and descriptions gathered from your research and interviews. It can also be a view in your CRM if marketing and sales are playing nice. A database is useless if it’s a graveyard for notes. You need a "living" place where marketing and sales can pull real-world language to use in emails, product updates, and website copy. If your team can’t access these insights in seconds, you are losing valuable time and repeating the same messaging mistakes.
See also: Customer Research
Target Audience
The broad group of people who might be interested in your product or service.
Trying to reach "everyone" is the fastest way to reach no one. By clearly defining your target audience, you can stop spending money on ads for people who don't care. It’s better to be the "must-have" tool for a small, specific group than a "might-be-nice-to-have" for the whole world.
See also: Market Segmentation
Founder’s Perspective: Choosing between target audiences playbook
Customers vs. Users
Customers are individuals who pay for your product. Users are individuals who use the product. They may or may not pay for it. This distinction matters for your messaging. You are writing for two different people: the Decision Maker (the customer who signs the check) and the person who actually uses the tool. If your website only speaks to one and ignores the other, you will lose the sale.
See also: Decision Maker
Market Segmentation
Breaking a large group of potential customers into smaller, specific groups. They share common traits. These traits can be:
- Physical/demographic: Like age, gender, or life stage. (Example: Targeting teenagers for a new social media app.)
- Psychological: Like interests, values, or lifestyle. (Example: Targeting eco-conscious consumers for sustainable products.)
- Job traits: Like their industry, company size, or role. (Example: Focusing on small business owners in the retail sector for accounting software.)
- Location: Where they live or work. (Example: Marketing a snow removal service only to areas with heavy snowfall.)
- Or any mix of these.
Segmentation allows you to "talk" to different people differently. An eco-conscious consumer and a snow removal business owner have different goals—if you send them the same email, they’ll both unsubscribe. Segmentation lets you show the right value to the right person at the right time.
See also: Target Audience
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) & Buyer Persona
A detailed picture of your best-fit customers. It includes more than just company details, covering their problems and what makes them buy. Often used as synonyms.
Most founders build an ICP based on who they want to sell to, but a real ICP is built on who actually buys and stays. If your ICP is just a list of job titles, you are missing the psychological motivators. When you stop looking at companies and start looking at the human beings with the "job" to be done, your sales calls shift from convincing people to serving them.
See also: Market Segmentation
Decision Maker
The person in a company who approves a purchase.
In SaaS, the person using the tool is rarely the person who pays for it. If you only talk to the daily user, you won’t get a budget. If you only talk to the Decision Maker, you won't get adoption. Your website copy must address the daily user’s pain while providing the ROI ammunition the Decision Maker needs to justify the spend to their boss.
See also: Customers vs. Users
Pain Points
Specific problems or difficulties a potential customer faces. Your product or service aims to fix these.
A pain point is more than an annoyance—it’s the thing that keeps your customer awake at night. If your marketing doesn't explicitly name the struggle, the customer assumes you don't understand them. When you name the pain clearly, you become the obvious choice to solve it.
See also: Jobs to Be Done (JTBD)
Jobs to Be Done (JTBD)
Looking at problems customers are trying to solve with a certain product or service. Term coined by Clayton Christensen in 2003.
Customers don't buy software; they hire it to make their life easier, help them get promoted, or stop them from getting fired. When you understand the "job" they are hiring you for, you can tailor your messaging to show exactly how you help them win at their specific task. It takes the focus off your features and puts it on their results.
See also: Pain Points
"Aha!" Moment
This is when a new user truly sees your product's value. If they hit this point quickly, they're more likely to keep using and paying for the tool. This means they stick around longer.
If your users don't hit the "Aha!" moment quickly, they will churn, no matter how good your marketing is. Your goal is to shorten the distance between "Sign up" and "This tool just saved me 5 hours." If you can’t describe that moment, you can’t optimize your onboarding.
See also: Onboarding Flow
Product-Market Fit (PMF)
Your product perfectly meets a strong market need. People really want it and are happy to pay.
PMF is often romanticized as a "lightbulb moment," but it’s usually just the result of painful iteration. If you are struggling to get sales, don't throw more money at marketing—revisit your Positioning. If the market doesn't want the product, marketing is just a megaphone for a problem.
See also: Messaging-Market Alignment
Founder Perspective: Boss Mode has entered the chat 👀
Messaging-Market Misalignment & Alignment
Misalignment is when your product copy misses the mark; Alignment is when your copy perfectly resonates with the market's needs.
Misalignment feels like screaming into a void—you work hard, but nobody listens. Alignment feels like a conversation where your customer says, "Yes, exactly, I was looking for this!" We achieve alignment by using the Voice of Customer to ensure your website sounds like a direct answer to their specific struggle.
See also: Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
Best-Fit Customers
The people or businesses who most need and will get the most good out of your product/service.
Not all revenue is created equal. A "bad-fit" customer will demand more support, churn faster, and complain the loudest. Focusing your messaging on your "best-fit" customers helps you filter out the "life-draining" leads, allowing you to build a business that is actually sustainable.
See also: Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Defining Your Product & Brand Identity
Before you even start marketing, you need to know exactly what your product is. You need to know who it's for. And you need to know why people should care. The terms below help you find your product's special place. They also help you build a brand that people truly connect with.
Positioning
Clearly showing how your product is different and better than other options. This shapes everything from your homepage to sales pitches and emails.
If you don't define your own positioning, the market will do it for you—usually by labeling you as "just another option." Positioning isn't about being everything to everyone; it’s about choosing a specific "hill" to die on. When your positioning is clear, your website stops competing on price and starts competing on value.
See also: Differentiation
Founder Perspective: We ride at dawn
Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
A single, sharp sentence that explains:
- What your product does
- Who it's for
- Why it's the best choice
This should be based on customer research (bottom up) instead of management’s opinion (top down).
Most UVPs are full of "corporate-speak" that tells the customer nothing. A true UVP is a promise. It identifies the specific struggle the customer has and explicitly states how you fix it. If your UVP doesn't immediately make the customer think, "Finally, someone gets it," then it’s just noise.
See also: Positioning
Differentiation
What makes your product or offer stand out from similar ones. It's not just about features, but about clear uniqueness.
Features are easy to copy; uniqueness is not. If your only differentiator is "we have more features," you are in a race to the bottom. True differentiation comes from your Brand Voice, your founder story, or how you simplify a complex task that your competitors make harder.
See also: Category Creation
Founder Perspective: What to Do When a Competitor Goes Out of Business
Category Creation
Making your product the leader in a new or redefined market. For example, before Salesforce, companies bought business software on CDs and installed it on their own computers. Salesforce didn't just sell a new product; they created a whole new category by showing that SaaS was possible! This made them the leader of a new market. However, this is very hard to do & rarely done well. It’s better to focus on solving existing customer problems instead.
Many founders chase "Category Creation" because it sounds prestigious, but it is often a trap. It requires educating the market on why the "old way" is dead, which is expensive and exhausting. Unless you have massive funding, it’s safer and faster to solve a Pain Point that customers are already actively searching for a solution to.
See also: Positioning
Branding
Building a unique name, look, and identity for a product or company in people's minds. Goes deeper than just a logo or slogan. your long-term differentiation framework:
- Establishes who you are
- Why you know the problem
- Why you’re qualified to have built a solution
- Why they should listen to & trust you
Branding is not your logo; it is the "gut feeling" people have when they hear your name. In the early stages, your brand is your reputation. If you don't build trust through your content and the way you solve problems, you have no brand—just a commodity.
See also: Brand Personality
Founder Perspective: How to Choose a Brand Name That is Impossible to Ignore
Brand Personality & Archetypes
Personality is how a brand would talk or sound if it were human. Archetypes are common personality types (Innocent, Sage, Explorer) that define how a brand interacts with the world.
Common Archetypes:
- Innocent: Simple solutions for a happy life. Example: Dove (focus on purity and natural goodness)
- Sage: Trusted knowledge and insightful guidance. Example: Google (information and knowledge at your fingertips)
- Explorer: Discover new horizons and experiences. Example: Jeep (adventure and freedom to explore)
A brand without personality is boring, and boring doesn't convert. Choosing an archetype helps your team write consistently, so the brand doesn't sound like a "different person" every time you post on LinkedIn. It gives your audience a human hook to hold onto, which creates the emotional connection necessary for retention.
See also: Brand Voice
Founder Perspective: Brand Personality Guide
Founder’s Brand
The reputation and personality of the founder—often the most powerful marketing asset for early-stage companies.
In the early days, people don’t buy from "a company"; they buy from a person they trust. Your personal reputation is your biggest distribution channel. If you hide behind a generic corporate logo, you lose the chance to build a human connection. Lean into your own story to stand out in a noisy market.
See also: Brand Personality
Brand Voice
The consistent tone and language your brand uses. Often infused with the Brand Personality. This is especially helpful when the founder isn't writing every message.
Your voice is the "personality" of your company. If your voice changes from "corporate robot" in your emails to "casual friend" on your social media, you destroy trust. A consistent voice makes your business feel like a reliable human, which is the key to building long-term loyalty.
See also: Messaging
Founder Perspective: How to NOT get rejected by the growing AI;DR (AI didn’t read) crowd
Voice of Customer (VOC)
These are the exact words and phrases customers use. They talk about their experiences, needs, and thoughts about your product or service.
VOC is the antidote to "marketing speak." When you mirror the customer’s language back to them in your copy, they feel understood. If you aren't using your customers' actual words, you are probably guessing—and guessing is a great way to waste your marketing budget.
See also: Customer Snippets
Founder Perspective: How to Talk to Customers: A Hella Practical Guide
Style Guide & Brand Kit
A style guide sets the rules for how to write and design, while a brand kit is the collection of official items (logos, colors, fonts).
These aren't just for "big companies." They ensure that every time a lead touches your business—whether it's a social post or a sales email—the experience is identical. Consistency creates the illusion of a much larger, more stable team, which increases trust.
See also: Minimum Viable Brand
Brand-Marketing Fit
How well your brand's identity shows up in all your marketing. This helps you connect with the right audience.
This is the ultimate "integrity check." If your brand says you are "simple and fast," but your marketing is a chaotic, long-winded mess, you have zero fit. Your marketing must live and breathe your brand promise in every single touchpoint, or your audience will get confused and leave.
See also: Messaging-Market Alignment
Minimum Viable Brand
These are the core elements you need for your brand to get started. Think main colors, fonts, and personality. They let you talk to your audience.
Don't spend months on a logo. You need an MVB—just enough "look and feel" to be recognizable. You can refine your brand as you grow, but you need a baseline identity today so your customers can start remembering who you are.
See also: Branding
Messaging & Messaging Matrix
Messaging is the consistent words and themes used in marketing. The Messaging Matrix is a tool to organize these messages for different audiences or stages of the buying journey.
A Messaging Matrix is your "cheat sheet" for consistency. It keeps your marketing team (or your own brain) from going off-script. It ensures that no matter where a customer enters your "funnel," they get a clear, coherent story that solves their specific problem.
See also: Brand Voice
Founder Perspective: Jump in loser, we’re going to the Matrix
Strategic Planning
Once you know what you sell and who your brand is, it's time to figure out how to reach your customers. These terms talk about the big plans and steps. These guide all your marketing work. They help you work well to reach your business goals.
Marketing Plan
A full document that spells out your marketing goals, who you're trying to reach, and the specific actions you'll take to get there over a set time.
Most marketing plans are "shelf-ware"—they look great in a document but never get used. A plan only works if it serves as a repair manual for your daily work. If your plan doesn't answer "What do we do on Tuesday at 9 AM?", it’s too vague. We build plans that prioritize execution over theory.
See also: Marketing Roadmap
Founder Perspective: How to Create a Marketing Plan That You Know Will Work
Marketing Roadmap
This is your strategic plan. It shows the main marketing projects, goals, and timelines for a set period. It guides all your marketing activities.
A roadmap keeps you from "shiny object syndrome." When you know exactly what the priorities are for the next 90 days, you stop wasting energy on random social media posts that don't move the needle. It turns your marketing into a predictable engine rather than a series of panicked reactions.
See also: Marketing Plan
Founder Perspective: How INM Fixes Marketing Strategy for B2B SaaS Companies
Go To Market (GTM)
Bringing a new product or service to market. It covers all the coordinated efforts and actions to achieve business goals.
A GTM is the difference between a "soft launch" that no one notices and a launch that actually drives revenue. It forces you to coordinate your Positioning, your content, and your sales pitch into one cohesive "beat." If your GTM is disorganized, your customers will be confused—and confused customers don't buy.
See also: Product-Market Fit
2. Growth Models & Marketing Styles (aka: Which growth style fits us?)
These terms are about how your business can grow. There are different ways to get new customers and make your business bigger. Knowing these styles helps you pick the best one for your company.
Overall Growth Strategies
First, let's look at terms about the big ideas for how a business grows. These are the main plans or ways you can get more customers and grow your company over time.
Product-Led Growth (PLG)
Your product attracts customers and drives growth on its own.
PLG is the dream because your product acts as its own best salesperson. However, the trap is thinking the product "sells itself" without any marketing. Even in PLG models, your website copy must explain the value clearly enough to move a user from "curious" to "activated." If the product is great but the copy is confusing, you’ll have a high sign-up rate but zero retention.
See also: Activation
Founder Perspective: Marketers: Stop Complaining and Start Building a Product
Sales-Led Growth (SLG)
New customers mainly come from your sales team directly selling.
In an SLG model, your marketing’s job is to feed the sales team high-quality leads. If your website is attracting the wrong people, your sales team is wasting hours on calls that go nowhere. Marketing needs to act as a "filter" that educates the lead so that by the time they talk to a human, they are already halfway to a "yes."
See also: Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
Content-Led Growth
High-quality content drives sign-ups and sales.
This is the "slow and steady" engine. It isn't about writing blog posts for the sake of SEO; it’s about writing content that answers your customer's specific, burning questions. When your content proves that you understand their struggle better than they do, you don’t have to "sell"—they will come to you ready to buy.
See also: Distribution Strategy
Customer-Led Growth
Growth comes directly from customer insights and actions.
This is the most efficient way to scale because you stop guessing. By listening to what your best-fit customers love about you, you can double down on those features in your marketing. If your growth feels stuck, it’s usually because you stopped asking your customers what they actually value.
See also: Customer Research
Founder-Led Marketing
This is when the company's founder is the main face, voice, and often the primary marketer. It's common in early-stage SaaS businesses.
In the early stages, you are the brand. A founder’s voice carries an authority that a generic company account never will. The challenge is finding the balance between being a "founder" and being a "marketer." You don't need to post all day; you just need to be clear about who you are and why you built this.
See also: Founder’s Brand
Understanding Leads & Marketing Efforts
These terms & phrases help you understand who might become your customers. It also explains how your marketing work turns these people into actual buyers.
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
Someone who showed enough interest in your marketing (like downloading a guide) to likely become a customer.
An MQL is a "hand-raiser," not a "buyer." If you treat every MQL like a guaranteed sale, your sales process will become bloated and inefficient. The goal of an MQL is to nurture the lead until they are educated enough to care about your specific solution. If they download a guide but never open an email, they aren't an MQL—they’re just a curious bystander.
See also: Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)
Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)
Someone your sales team has checked. They are ready for a direct sales conversation.
An SQL is the "end game" of your marketing funnel. By the time a lead becomes an SQL, they should already understand your value and have a clear problem you can solve. If your SQLs are "cold" or confused when they get on a call, your Messaging-Market Alignment is broken. Marketing’s job is to make the sales conversation easy, not harder.
See also: Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
Marketing Sprint
This is a short, focused period. It's often 1-2 weeks long. Its purpose is to get a specific set of marketing tasks done.
Marketing is a marathon, but "sprinting" helps you build momentum. When you try to "do everything," you end up doing nothing well. A sprint forces you to pick one project—like updating your homepage or fixing your email sequence—and finish it. It prevents the "open loop" stress that leads to founder burnout.
See also: Marketing Roadmap
Founder Perspective: Website in a Week PDF
3. Funnels & Journeys (aka: How do users go from ‘never heard of us’ to paying?)
This part explains the path people take. It shows how they go from not knowing about your product to becoming a paying customer. You'll learn how to guide them every step of the way.
Understanding the Customer Path
Before we guide customers, we need to understand their trip. This section explains the different stages people go through when they are thinking about buying your product.
Buyer Journey
These are the steps a potential buyer takes. It starts when they realize they have a problem. It ends when they make their final purchase decision.
Most founders expect a straight line to a sale, but it’s actually a messy, non-linear process. If you only provide information for people ready to buy now, you lose the majority of your audience who are still just "learning." You need to map your content to their stage of curiosity, or you’ll be talking to a wall.
See also: Customer Journey Map
Founder Perspective: Jump in loser, we’re going to the Matrix
Customer Journey Map
A visual guide that shows every step a customer takes. This goes from first hearing about your business to becoming a loyal supporter.
This map is your "reality check." It forces you to see the friction points where your business is losing people. If you see a massive drop-off at the "trial" stage, you know exactly where to fix your Onboarding. Without this map, you’re just guessing why people are leaving.
See also: SaaS Marketing Funnel
SaaS Marketing Funnel (ToFu, MoFu, BoFu)
A visual model of the customer path: ToFu (attracting attention), MoFu (building trust), and BoFu (encouraging purchase).
The funnel isn't just theory—it’s how you manage your resources. If you spend all your time on social media (ToFu) but have no pricing page or demo (BoFu), you’re just a content creator, not a business owner. A healthy funnel balances all three stages so you are constantly attracting, educating, and closing.
Examples:
- Top of Funnel (ToFu): Marketing activities for attracting wide attention. Like blog posts, glossary pages, and social media updates.
- Middle of Funnel (MoFu): Content to build trust and educate potential customers. Such as webinars, case studies, and introductory email series.
- Bottom of Funnel (BoFu): Content for encouraging a purchase. Like pricing pages, product demos, or comparison tables.
See also: Pipeline
Pipeline
A visual way to show the different steps a potential customer takes. Begins from first hearing about you to finally buying. Often used by sales and marketing teams to see where things stand.
A pipeline tells you if your business is actually growing or if it's just "busy." If your pipeline is empty, stop tweaking your website and start focusing on Distribution. It’s the heartbeat of your sales process; ignore it, and you won’t know if you’ll make payroll next month.
See also: SaaS Marketing Funnel
Objection Handling
The process of listening to and addressing a potential customer's worries, doubts, or reasons for not wanting to buy.
Every "no" is actually an "I'm not sure yet." If you see the same objections (e.g., "it's too expensive," "I don't have time") over and over, stop fixing the price and start fixing the Messaging. Good marketing handles the objection before the customer even gets on a call with you.
See also: Messaging-Market Misalignment
Founder Perspective: How to have a sales process as tight at Kris Jenner’s new face
Guiding & Nurturing Customers
Once you know the customer's path, you need to help them along. This part shows how to guide and care for customers at each step. This helps them move closer to buying and staying with you.
Lifecycle Marketing
Marketing that adapts to where the user is in their relationship with your product. From their very first click to becoming a loyal, long-term customer.
Most founders make the mistake of treating all users the same. They blast their entire email list with the same generic "buy now" message. Lifecycle marketing is about sending the right message at the right stage. If a user is brand new, they need education; if they’ve been around for a year, they need a reason to stay. This strategy is how you lower Churn and keep your best customers happy for years.
See also: Onboarding Flow
Onboarding Flow
Steps to help new users understand and start using your product.
Your onboarding flow is the "first date" of your business. If it’s confusing, slow, or overwhelming, your user will leave and never come back. We don't just "design" flows; we look for the shortest path to the Aha! Moment. Every click you remove from this process increases your conversion rate.
See also: Activation
Email Sequence
Set of automatically sent emails after a specific user action,. Like signing up.
Email sequences are your "automated employee." They work while you sleep to welcome new users, handle objections, and build trust. If you aren't using sequences, you are manually doing work that a computer should be handling for you. It’s the highest ROI task you can automate.
See also: Email Workflow
Founder Perspective: Email Writing Tables
Email Workflow
A visual map of an automated email sequence. This map shows all the emails, choices, and actions within that sequence.
Without a workflow map, your automation can quickly become a "spaghetti mess" that sends the wrong emails to the wrong people. Mapping it out forces you to think about the user’s logic: "If they click this, send that; if they don’t, send this." It keeps your marketing clean and intentional.
See also: Trigger
Founder Perspective: 5 Basic Emails
Trigger
An action or event that automatically kicks off an email or an email series. Like signing up or downloading something.
A trigger is a "promise" you make to the user. When they perform an action, they expect a specific response. If your triggers are delayed or broken, you miss the moment of peak interest. We use triggers to make sure your brand is responsive and helpful exactly when the user is looking for a solution.
See also: Lifecycle Marketing
Customer Engagement & Retention
Getting new customers is great, but keeping them is key. This section talks about how to keep your customers happy. It also covers how to make sure they stick around and keep using your product.
Activation
When a user experiences and understands the main value of your product.
Activation is the "moment of truth." If a user signs up but never experiences the value, you haven't acquired a customer—you've just acquired a statistic. We focus on shortening the path to this moment because if the user doesn't get a "win" early on, they will never become a long-term customer.
See also: "Aha!" Moment
Retention
Getting users to continue paying for your product or service.
Acquisition is expensive; retention is where the actual profit lives. Most founders obsess over the top of the funnel, but if your product is a "leaky bucket," you are just wasting money. Retention is the result of consistent value—if your marketing sells a promise, your product must deliver on it every single month.
See also: Churn Analysis
Churn Analysis
Looking at why customers stop using your product or service. Finding common reasons can help figure out how to keep them.
Churn is the most honest feedback you will ever get. It tells you exactly where your product or your messaging is failing. Instead of fearing churn, we treat it as a forensic investigation. By talking to the people who leave, we find the "blind spots" that are costing you money.
See also: Customer Health Score
Customer Health Score
Shows how likely a customer is to stay with you or use more of your product. It's based on how they use it and how they interact with your support.
This score is your "early warning system." If you wait until a customer cancels to realize they are unhappy, you’ve waited too long. A health score helps you be proactive—when you see usage dropping, you can reach out with a personal check-in before the cancellation email ever hits your inbox.
See also: Retention
Word of Mouth (WoM)
When people share information, opinions, or recommendations about a product, service, or brand with each other casually.
You cannot "force" word of mouth, but you can definitely "earn" it. It is the ultimate stamp of approval. When your product solves a problem so well that people have to tell their friends, your marketing costs drop to near zero. It’s the result of doing one thing exceptionally well instead of ten things "okay."
See also: Differentiation
Founder Perspective: We ride at dawn
Product Interaction & Data
How do customers actually use your product? This part explains what makes your product easy and fun to use. It also covers the important information you can learn from how people use it.
User Experience (UX)
How easy and enjoyable it is for someone to use your product or website.
UX isn't just about "pretty" design; it's about reducing the "friction" that stops a user from buying. If your website is hard to navigate or your sign-up process feels like a chore, you are actively losing money. Good UX is invisible—it guides the user so smoothly that they don't even realize they're being sold to.
See also: Onboarding Flow
User Interface (UI)
What your product or website looks like and how you click or tap on it.
UI is the "handshake" your product gives the user. If the interface is cluttered or the buttons don't make sense, your user will feel incompetent—and nobody likes feeling incompetent. A clean, intuitive UI builds immediate trust and makes your product feel more valuable than a clunky, outdated competitor.
See also: User Experience (UX)
Customer Data
How customers interact with your marketing materials (like emails and website) and product. This data is usually managed using different tools for marketing and product analytics.
Most founders drown in data but are starved for insights. Data is useless if you don't use it to change your behavior. If your data shows people are leaving at the pricing page, stop looking at the numbers and start looking at the Messaging-Market Alignment. Data should tell you where the problem is, not how to fix it.
See also: Customer Research Database
Founder Perspective: How to Do Customer Research When You're Scared of Talking to People
Distribution Strategies
You have a great product and know your customers. So, how do you reach them? This section explains different ways to get your message or product out to the right people.
Pull Distribution
Marketing approach simplifying customers to find your content or products. Usually through active searching for solutions, like on Google or in app stores.
Pull distribution is "high intent" marketing. These customers are already looking for a solution, which means your job is simple: show up and prove you’re the best fit. If you aren't showing up when they search, you are invisible. This is the foundation of Good Enough SEO.
See also: Push Distribution
Push Distribution
Marketing approach where you use ads or emails to put your content or products in front of potential customers.
Push distribution is how you grow when you can't wait for organic search to kick in. You are interrupting their day, so your creative and Brand Voice have to be sharp. If your "push" marketing feels like spam, you are damaging your reputation. If it feels like a helpful, timely tip, it’s the fastest way to scale a business.
See also: Pull Distribution
4. Content, Conversion, and Distribution (aka: What should we actually publish?)
This part is all about what you share with the world. It covers how to make good content, how to get people to act on it, and how to make sure your message reaches the right people.
Content Creation & Strategy
This section helps you think about the content you'll make. It's about planning what to say, who to say it to, and why you're saying it.
Content Marketing
Creating and sharing helpful, interesting stuff to attract and keep customers. Like blogs or videos.
Content marketing isn't just "blogging"—it’s how you prove you are an expert before the prospect ever speaks to you. If your content doesn't solve a specific problem or reduce a specific anxiety, it’s just noise. Effective content turns your website into a 24/7 sales representative that builds trust while you sleep.
See also: Content Strategy
Content Strategy
Your main plan for why you're creating content, who it's for, and what you want it to achieve.
Without a strategy, you are just "doing content" to stay busy. A strategy acts as your filter: if a content idea doesn't serve your Best-Fit Customers or solve their specific pain, you don't do it. A clear strategy saves you from burnout by ensuring every hour spent writing actually moves the needle.
See also: Marketing Roadmap
Content Plan & Editorial Calendar
A schedule and outline of what you'll create and where it will be published to ensure consistency.
Consistency is the only way to build authority, but it’s the hardest thing for a busy founder to maintain. An editorial calendar removes the "what should I write today?" panic. It forces you to look ahead so you can batch your work, keeping your brand visible even when you are busy running the actual business.
See also: Content Repurposing
Founder Perspective: The Content Multiplier Chronicle
Evergreen Content
Stays useful and interesting for a long time, so you don't have to update it often.
Evergreen content is your "digital real estate." A great piece of evergreen content can drive traffic and sign-ups for years after you publish it. It’s the highest return on investment you can get for your writing time. Stop chasing news and focus on answering the "forever questions" your customers keep asking.
See also: Content Marketing
Content Repurposing
Slicing the same content into multiple formats to save time.
You are already overworked; repurposing is how you scale your voice without doubling your workload. Take one deep-dive post and turn it into three LinkedIn updates, an email, and a short video. It’s not "cheating"—it’s ensuring your message actually reaches people who consume information in different ways.
See also: Content Plan
Info Product & Lead Magnet
A digital item (e-book, course, checklist) given away to attract new leads or sold at a low price.
A lead magnet is the "toll bridge" to your audience. If you aren't collecting emails, you don't own your audience—the social media platforms do. By offering something genuinely useful, you earn the right to enter their inbox, which is the most valuable real estate in marketing.
See also: Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
Founder Perspective: Lead Magnet Workflow
Optimizing for Action
It's not enough to just put content out there. Make sure your content and website get people to do what you want them to do. Like sign up or buy.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Changes to your website to get visitors to do what you want them to do. Like sign up or buy something.
Most founders try to grow by just adding more traffic, which is expensive. CRO is how you grow by getting more out of the traffic you already have. If you can move your conversion rate from 1% to 2%, you have effectively doubled your business without spending an extra cent on ads. It’s the ultimate "efficiency" play.
See also: Landing Page Optimization
Landing Page Optimization
Tweaking headlines, copy, etc., on a webpage. The objective is increasing how many people take a desired action.
Your landing page is your "salesperson on the ground." If the headline doesn't connect or the form is too long, the sale dies right there. Optimization isn't about guessing; it’s about aligning your words with the customer’s Pain Points so the next step feels obvious and easy.
See also: Call-to-Action (CTA)
Founder Perspective: How to write pro landing page copy in <2hrs that converts (even if you’re terrible at marketing)
Call-to-Action (CTA)
The part of your site or email that tells the user what to do next.
A weak CTA ("Submit") is a wasted opportunity. A strong CTA is a clear instruction that lowers the user's anxiety about what happens next ("Get my free roadmap"). If your user has to guess what to do, you’ve lost them. Your CTA should be a bridge to the value you promised.
See also: User Experience (UX)
A/B Testing (Split Testing)
Trying out two different versions of something to see which one works best. Like a webpage.
Founders love to argue about "what sounds better." A/B testing stops the argument and lets the customer decide. It is the only way to move from opinion-based marketing to evidence-based growth. When you test, you aren't just trying to win; you are learning exactly what makes your specific audience tick.
See also: Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Reaching Your Audience
You've made great content, but how do people see it? This section how to get your message and product in front of the right customers.
Marketing Channels
Different places you connect with your audience to promote your product. Like social media, email, or paid ads.
The biggest mistake founders make is trying to be everywhere at once. You don’t need to be on every channel; you only need to be where your Best-Fit Customers are hanging out. It is better to own one channel deeply than to be mediocre on five different ones.
See also: Distribution Strategy
Distribution Strategy
How you plan to get your content or product in front of real people.
A great product with no distribution is a secret. Strategy is your plan for moving your product out of the "building phase" and into the hands of users. If you spend 90% of your time building and 10% on distribution, you are building for a market that doesn't know you exist.
See also: Pull Distribution
Founder Perspective: Back to school, back to realityyyyyy
Above the Fold
The part of a webpage you see right away without scrolling down. It's important for quickly grabbing attention and showing key information.
You have about three seconds to tell a visitor who you are, what you solve, and why they should care. If you bury your UVP below the fold, you are betting that your user has the patience to keep scrolling—they don't. Keep the most important information front and center.
See also: Landing Page Optimization
Founder Perspective: How to Create a Landing Page That Converts
Keyword Research & Good Enough SEO
Keyword Research is finding the words people type into search engines. "Good Enough" SEO is a "findable" approach that isn't overly technical or perfect.
Don't obsess over "ranking #1" for competitive keywords. Focus on "Good Enough" SEO: answer the specific questions your customers are already asking. By building content that answers their "how-to" problems, you become the helpful expert—and search engines will naturally reward you for it.
See also: Content Marketing
Customer Awareness Levels
How much a potential customer knows about a problem, a solution, or your product. From knowing nothing to being fully informed.
If you pitch a "fully informed" buyer the same way you pitch a "problem-unaware" buyer, you will fail. You must meet them where they are. If they don't know they have a problem, you need to sell the problem first, not the product. Aligning your content to their awareness level is the secret to high conversion rates.
See also: Buyer Journey
Founder Perspective: From Boring Basics to Bootylicious Content
Viral Marketing
Marketing strategy encouraging individuals to pass along a marketing message. Increases the message's exposure and influence.
"Going viral" shouldn't be your goal; it should be an outcome. Viral marketing works best when your product or content makes the user look smart or helpful for sharing it. If you build something that actually helps someone solve a massive pain point, they will want to share it with their team. That is how you get sustainable, organic growth.
See also: Word of Mouth
Founder Perspective: My mad-dash Reddit experiment to test my positioning
5. Metrics & Money (aka: How do we know it’s working?)
This part is all about numbers. It shows you how to tell if your marketing is actually working. How to measure your money and how customers are acting. This helps you know if your business is growing well.
Core Financial Metrics
These are the most important money numbers for your business. They help you see how much money you're making, how much customers are worth, and how much it costs to get them.
MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)
Predictable income your SaaS business makes month after month.
MRR is the "pulse" of your business. It’s what allows you to sleep at night because you aren't starting from zero every single month. However, don't let MRR blind you. If your MRR is growing but your Churn is high, you are just filling a bucket with holes in it. MRR matters most when it’s healthy and stable.
See also: LTV
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
How much money a customer will bring to your business over time.
LTV helps you understand how much you can afford to spend to acquire a customer. If your LTV is $100, you can't spend $150 to get that customer. Knowing your LTV prevents you from going broke by spending too much on ads. It shifts your focus from "making a quick sale" to "keeping a customer happy for a long time."
See also: CAC
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)
How much money you make, on average, from each user within a certain period.
ARPU tells you if you are underpricing your product. If your ARPU is too low, you need massive volume to survive—which is exhausting. By tracking ARPU, you can see if your efforts to sell "upgrades" or "add-ons" are actually working, or if you're stuck in a cycle of selling low-value plans.
See also: MRR
ROI (Return on Investment)
How much profit you made from money you spent. Compares what you gained against what it cost.
ROI is the ultimate reality check for your marketing. If you spend $1,000 on ads and get $800 in revenue, you are paying for the privilege of working. Every marketing activity—from a blog post to an ad campaign—should have a projected ROI. If it doesn't pay for itself over time, kill it and put that energy somewhere else.
See also: CAC
Founder Perspective: How to Set a Marketing Budget for B2B SaaS Scale-ups
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
How much it costs to get one paying user. Including expenses like ad spend, time, and tools.
Most founders forget to factor in their own time, which makes their CAC look lower than it really is. If your CAC is higher than your profit, you have no business. Keeping your CAC low is about finding "leverage"—using content that keeps working for you long after you write it, rather than just relying on expensive, one-time ads.
See also: CPA
CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)
How much it costs you to get one new paying customer from one marketing effort.
While CAC is your "big picture" number, CPA helps you track which specific channel is working. If your Facebook ads have a $50 CPA but your email sequence has a $5 CPA, you know exactly where to put your energy. Use CPA to ruthlessly cut the losing experiments and double down on the winners.
See also: Marketing Channels
Founder Perspective: Marketing Experiment Case File
Customer Behavior & Health Metrics
You also need to know how your customers are doing. How much customers use your product and if they are happy or likely to leave.
Activation Rate
Percentage of new users actually 'get' and start using your product.
A high sign-up rate is meaningless if your activation rate is low. It means your marketing is promising something your product isn't delivering. If this number is low, stop buying more ads and look at your Onboarding Flow—you are losing people before they even realize how you can help them.
See also: Activation
Customer Engagement Rate
How much customers are using your product, brand, or content.
High engagement is the best early warning sign that a customer will stay. If engagement drops, Churn is likely to follow. We track engagement to see who needs help, allowing us to reach out before they decide to cancel.
See also: Customer Health Score
Churn Rate & Churn Prevention
The percentage of users who stop using your product; Churn Prevention is the proactive work to keep them.
Churn is the "silent killer" of SaaS. Even a 5% churn rate can destroy your long-term growth. Prevention isn't about giving discounts; it's about making sure your customers are actually hitting their goals using your tool. If they are succeeding, they won't leave.
See also: Churn Analysis
Strategic Metrics & Experimentation
These numbers help you see the big picture of your business. They also cover how to test new ideas safely and know if your experiments are going well.
North Star Metric
The single, most important number. Shows how much value your product brings to customers. The main indicator of your business's growth and success.
Founders often get distracted by 20 different dashboards. Your North Star Metric keeps your entire team focused on one thing: Are we delivering value? If your North Star is going up, your business is winning. If it’s stagnant, no other vanity metric matters.
See also: Vanity Metrics
Vanity Metrics
Numbers that look impressive. Like many social media likes or website visits). They don't actually show real business growth or help you reach your main goals.
Vanity metrics feel good, but they don't pay the bills. They are dangerous because they trick you into thinking you’re winning while your bank account stays empty. Always ask: "Does this number prove a customer is getting value?" If the answer is no, ignore it.
See also: North Star Metric
Founder Perspective: I think you forgot to floss 🪥
Guardrails
Specific limits or warning signs you set for your marketing tests. If these limits are crossed, it tells you there's a problem, and you should probably review or stop the test.
Testing is great, but it can turn into a money pit if you don't have guardrails. By setting a "stop loss" (like a max CPA), you allow yourself to experiment without risking the company's future. It turns marketing from a gamble into a calculated, safe process.
See also: A/B Testing
CTA button → Pricing
6. Tools & Infrastructure (aka: Do I need to buy anything?)
This part talks about the different tools and systems you might use for marketing. You'll learn what software and setups can help you get your marketing work done.
Data Management & Insights
You need to understand your customers. This section explains how to collect and keep track of information about them.
Quantitative Data & Qualitative Data
Quantitative is data you can count (analytics, surveys); Qualitative describes characteristics (customer stories, feedback).
Quantitative data tells you what is happening (e.g., "users are dropping off at the pricing page"). Qualitative data tells you why it’s happening (e.g., "the price feels unfair because they don't understand the value"). If you only look at one, you are flying half-blind. You need both to build a product people actually want to keep.
See also: Customer Research Database
Single Source of Truth (SSOT)
Important data stored in a reliable and easy-to-access place. This helps make sure everyone in the company is looking at the same, correct information.
When marketing says you have 100 leads and sales says you have 50, you have a "trust" problem. An SSOT prevents the "which spreadsheet is the real one?" argument. It ensures your team spends their time executing strategy rather than debating whose data is accurate.
See also: CRM
Analytics Platform & Customer Data Tools
Tools that help you track who visits your website and consolidate info for a complete view of each customer.
An analytics tool is a telescope. If you don't know how users move through your site, you’re just throwing money at traffic you can't measure. The goal isn't to track everything; it’s to track the specific signals that tell you if someone is becoming a customer or getting ready to leave.
See also: Customer Health Score
Core Marketing Systems
The main software tools that help your marketing run smoothly. They let you manage customer relationships and handle many marketing tasks automatically.
Marketing Stack (or Martech Stack)
The set of tech tools and software we use for our marketing.
"Stack bloat" is a real problem for founders. It’s easy to buy a new tool every time you have a problem, but every new tool adds complexity and overhead. A great stack is lean—it does only what you need and, more importantly, it lets your tools talk to each other so your data doesn't get trapped in "silos."
See also: Marketing Automation
Founder Perspective: How to Spring-Clean Your Marketing Stack
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Software to manage your interactions and relationships with customers. You generally only need one once you're getting a lot of leads.
Your CRM is the "memory" of your company. It keeps track of who said what to whom. If you’re manually tracking leads in a notebook or a messy email chain, you are losing money. But don’t rush—only adopt a heavy-duty CRM once your lead volume is actually too high to handle manually.
See also: Single Source of Truth
Founder Perspective: They said get a CRM and I said no no no
Marketing Automation Platform
For routine marketing tasks automatically. Like sending emails or posting on social media.
Automation is how you buy back your own time. If you find yourself sending the same email to every new sign-up, you are wasting your talent. Automation allows you to scale your communication so your brand stays consistent and helpful, even when you aren't at your keyboard.
See also: Email Workflow
Founder Perspective: I stepped into the quagmire of CDPs so you don't have to 🫨
Conclusion
If this sounds like a whole lot of mumbo jumbo (and zero fun), we do marketing for founders who are stuck (or suck) at doing it.
Let’s chat about what’s not working and how we can help.
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Or, if you’d like to read more, our pricing and services list is right here in the open.