A type of experiment that rolls out a different version of the component that you are trying to test to different groups. By comparing the performance of two versions of a single element, A/B testing helps validate a specific hypothesis. Also known as split testing.

A strategy that consists in optimizing the site where your app is sold in order to facilitate the sale or download.

Incoming links that point to a section of your brand’s site.

A brand is the unique story that consumers recall when they think of you. This story associates your product with their personal stories, a particular personality, what you promise to solve, and your position in relation to competitors. Your brand is represented by your visual symbols and feeds from multiple conversations where you must participate strategically.

The material that we use to communicate our brand’s message to a determined audience (e.g., press, potential customers, and investors).

The resistance to changing brand symbols, stories, and strategies fearing that they may reflect confusion or inconsistency or otherwise hurt consumer perception.

A selection of images that represent and help explain the brand’s story in the marketplace. Brand imagery elucidates and exemplifies the product, positioning, pricing, personality, and promise that the brand offers to a specific set of buyer personas.

Types of customer journey maps that display the complete adventure that customers engage with as they consume your product or service. The maps display different stages with strategic touchpoints, which are spots where your brand can add value for the customer. Brand Journey Maps help us recognize what these stages and touchpoints look like to design an effective response. These maps visualize your product experience in terms of all the brand elements that must come together when someone consumes your offer.

Humane psychological qualities associated with our brand that dictate its interactions in the marketplace during different situations and over time.

Finding and taking a space within the marketplace that projects your brand as the “aspiration enabler” for a certain customer segment. In other words, positioning is finding the right parking space inside the consumer’s mind and going for it before someone else takes it.

A memorable, short phrase that encapsulates your brand’s core value offer.

Switching from one brand communications channel to the next. Unless done in conjunction with a brand redesign or repositioning, rechanneling does not imply changing the essence of a brand’s story or visual symbols. Instead, it deals with changing the way in which we approach any of the existing communications channels to strengthen conversion.

Modifying the symbols that constitute a brand’s visual identity in response to changes in the marketplace or your business model.

Adjusting the brand’s initial story to reflect changes in the marketplace or your business model.

When your brand story fits with your market’s expectations, aspirations, and demands. Resonance happens when customers pulsate in response to your message, becoming involved with your value offer because it feels relevant to their needs.

An indicator of the market’s reaction to your brand. In words credited to investor Naval Ravikant, “Traction is quantitative evidence of market demand.”

A set of type arrangements and selections that identify the brand’s story in the marketplace.

A vertical or horizontal surface on which ideas, data, and works in progress related to your brand can be displayed, rearranged, and extended.

Archetypes or models that we build to represent our customers in order to inspire everything our brand is, does, and communicates. These personas are fictional characters based on real needs and aspirations discovered through consumer research.

A clear, unambiguous invitation to engage in a certain conversion act. This act is defined differently by each brand and may range from a straightforward newsletter subscription to a thorough product purchase process.

The act of leading customers down a desired action path. Customers convert when they have successfully completed this path. Conversion is often defined differently based on the industry and business model that you’ve decided to pursue.

A piece of code that can be inserted within online elements like ads, emails, sites, buttons, and shopping carts to track whether users have completed a specific conversion path.

A research technique where you become part of a given scenery for a defined period of time to observe and take note of existing behaviors, environments, and objects. This helps us understand our buyer’s context and unveil valuable insights to address his needs effectively.

Extensive one-on-one sessions with potential or existing customers to discover underlying motivations, lifestyles, and preferences that may inform brand development.

A site where your prospective buyers first “land” to know about your brand. Landing pages also attract a wide array of visitors with different interests, such as reporters, potential investors, and partners, among others. They are different from traditional websites in that their main objective is to generate a specific type of conversion rather than providing all available information about a brand or company.

A visual symbol used by brands to identify their story in the marketplace.

A strategy that consists of designing the space where your product is sold in order to facilitate the sale.

An online environment where reporters and other interested parties can find statistics, testimonials, partnerships, news, evidence of traction, and other relevant information about your brand.

Traits that go beyond a consumer’s demographic qualities (age and gender, among others) and into an analysis of psychological criteria like their attitudes, lifestyle, personality, and aspirations.

Designing and referencing our online content so that search engines can find and place our brand properly. Ideally, search engines should point to the different channels that compose our online presence whenever users’ queries are related to the problem that we are trying to solve.

Existing information that we analyze to discover insights that may guide our branding work.

The practice of using sensorial stimuli to build lasting associations with your brand.

A research technique where you follow a given subject’s journey for a defined amount of time to discover insights in her routine. We use these insights to inform brand development.

A feature that shrinks long links to facilitate sharing on social networking sites.

A clear scheme that reveals a list of pages within your brand’s website that are accessible to crawlers and users themselves. They give a sense of your site’s inner organization.

A concept in social psychology suggesting that “most of the behaviors that people display are learned, either deliberately or inadvertently, through the influence of example” (Bandura, 1977).

The practice of using social networking sites as strategic business communication channels to generate brand conversion.

See A/B testing.

Products and services convey symbolic meaning well beyond their functional features. Consumers may engage in the purchase process in response to the meanings that they ascribe to certain brands.

A concept in social psychology that explains how humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings that they assign to those things. Since humans are permanently interacting with symbols and defining them, brands can use existing layers of meaning to associate products and services with specific values and aspirations via visual symbols.

A strategy whereby a brand is presented as an expert in its customers’ main area of interest or need to generate trust and conversion.

A technique to measure consumers’ perception about the product experience (journey) that we have created for them. Consumers rate different values added by our product or service on a scale of low, medium, and high. Value opportunity analysis helps us visualize where our product journey is lacking and where it is fulfilling expectations. By showing us weak areas, this tool enables new opportunities for our brand to add value along the entire product journey.