Early energy sources were simple; fire was discovered to heat things, and then along came conversion – such as fire under a kettle producing steam. But times have changed, and the impact of using non-renewable sources of energy, or fossil fuels, is one that we can no longer afford to ignore. Putting the climate change debate aside, there are real commercial opportunities that businesses and governments can, and should, consider.
As author and marketing master Seth Godin once said: marketing is a competition for people’s attention. And in today’s hyperconnected world, that competition is really tough! Standing out from the crowd requires us to put a lot of energy into marketing.
The best companies spend this energy strategically. They direct their marketing efforts at the right people, with the right methods. And if you sit around a table with a good marketing team, you’ll need to understand – and use – the special language of marketing. For example, you might hear expressions like “to increase customer engagement.” Or “to capture market share.”
In English, this kind of expression is called a collocation. A collocation is a natural combination of words. Native speakers use collocations all the time without thinking about it. They don’t say “catch” market share, or “trap” market share. They always say “capture” market share. They remember the words together. And you can too. You can learn collocations to understand better, and to sound more natural.
In this lesson, we’ll look at collocations used to discuss marketing. We’ll hear a dialog between three people on a marketing team: Nathan, Camille, and Theo. In our last lesson, the team talked about market research. Today, we’ll hear them talking about some specific marketing activities. They’ll use lots of marketing collocations to describe their activities. Try to pick these out, then we’ll go through them later in the debrief.
Listening Questions
1. What does Camille say was the goal of the magazine and TV ads? 2. What type of marketing activity does Camille say they need to improve? 3. What does Nathan identify as the main purpose of the activity that Camille said they need to improve?
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on English collocations for discussing marketing activities.
Great marketing is at the heart of business success. This was just as true 100 years ago as it is today. Of course, the digital age has brought new methods of marketing, but the basic goals of marketing haven’t really changed. I mean, first of all, you want customers to know about your products and services. In the world of marketing, that’s what we call “brand recognition.” But it’s not just about recognition, it’s about making sales, and “capturing market share.”
As you heard, in describing the goals of marketing, I used two expressions that you might be familiar with: “brand recognition” and “to capture market share.” We call these kind of expressions collocations. A collocation is a natural combination of two or more words to talk about a single idea. You might think of collocations as chunks of language. And it’s usually easier, and more natural, to remember these chunks rather than learning individual words.
Every area of business has its own special expressions, or collocations. And learning these collocations will help you not only understand what others are saying, but communicate your own ideas more clearly. In this lesson we’re going to focus on collocations you can use to talk about marketing activities.
In today’s dialog, we’ll listen to a discussion by a marketing team at a home furnishings company. You’ll hear Nathan, who is leading the meeting, as well as Theo and Camille. They are discussing the company’s market research, their goals, and how to measure progress toward those goals. Try to pick out the collocations they use, and we’ll talk about them later in the debrief.
Listening Questions
1. What does Theo say the process of market research has helped them do? 2. What does Camille say the data from research has helped them do? 3. Near the end of the dialog, what does Nathan say they’ve talked about doing?
If you tuned in last time, you’ll remember that a metaphor is when you compare something you’re talking about to another idea. A classic example of a metaphor is “time is money.” But, if you really want to use metaphors to take your English to the next level, you’ll need to learn to think outside the box.
