CopyDiva

What does it take to show customers, partners, investors and competitors that your company fits in, gets it and is a force to reckon with? For marketers, one among many is the way your company talks about itself. Do you understand the marketplace? Do you use the right terminology? Are you solving customer pain points?

All this is fine, but where you lose me is when you start talking in junk words because you can’t think of anything else to say. I find this particularly troublesome on overview pages where companies often find it difficult to think of something to say. What happens (as on this page from IBM) is it isn’t readable. Its just a long verbose mess of big words strung together in the hope of getting someone to click somewhere else. Ack! This is where the use of junk words comes in — when there is nothing really to say, these marketers resort to junk words to fill up a page and sound important. The end result is it sounds forced and boring. Remember, web site visitors aren’t going to stick around and read your junk words, so don’t bother. If you don’t have anything to say, don’t say it.

I don’t necessarily mean to pick on IBM — the same junk words can be found in so many other places on the web, they were just the first site I went to today. Go to Oracle, Sun, HP, Mercury, pretty much most any firm that sells into the IT space and you will find some of my all time favorite marketing junk words:

• enable: Used universally by all the above and many others, this has to be the weakest verb in use. Whenever I hear it, I think of the spouse of an alcoholic. Why IT firms think that being an enabler is a good thing is beyond me — too many negative associations. Besides, there are so many better verbs out there!
• solutions: Used when you can’t do a good enough job being clear about what it is you’re selling. This word wore out its welcome in the late 90’s.
• best of breed: This pains me. I mean, what, is this a replacement for the useless word quality? To me this reeks of “I don’t know how to differentiate myself from my competition, so I will just say I am the greatest and hope it sticks.”

Whenever I work with new clients that use these words, I quietly rush to get rid of them and move to explain their benefits in friendly plain language that people will read without the glaze over effect. It forces people to really be clear in how they stack up to their competition.
So what are your favorite junk words? There are many others that could go here, but I hate to beat on something for too long, so here I am stepping down from the soapbox…Your turn to step up.

Last month, the Colorado Business Marketing Association held its annual Winterfest auction. Theme: the Copacabana.

As the board member with the highest embarrassment threshold, I decided that yes, in fact, I would be the stooge to dress up for fun and entertainment — fun and entertainment besides drinking, that is. What was it going to be? Ricky Ricardo costume or Carmen Miranda? No question, fruit on the head! So, go ahead and laugh, I know I did…

Have you heard of Wordie.org? This latest social networking tool has potential for serious word nerds and snobs — you know, copywriters, technical writers, documentation managers, editors and the like — but will it resonate with people looking to connect? So far, no one has commented on any of my word lists, but then again, I haven’t bothered to do that for anyone else. Then again, I used to subscribe to an editor’s list, and there was so much passionate activity on that list I had to cancel my subscription — people do care about words and word usage. Somebody, please comment on any of my word lists!

One of the pitfalls in high-tech marketing is that more often than not, the language used to speak with potential customers, journalists and investors is nothing more than, well, bad. Too technical, full of jargon, hard to read. Many high-tech marketers assume that customers looking for a technology solution want technical terms tossed around. In my experience, this is almost always a bad assumption.

Let’s put it this way: if I can’t understand why I need or want you (your product, service, application, etc), then I don’t need you. Period.

But, should all materials read at a 4th grade level? If you’re writing a best-selling book or magazine, definitely. For marketing and other writing, it really depends on your industry and the pre-existing knowledge of the reader. Example: One of my clients sells a sophisticated business intelligence service to Wall Street investors. Do these traders care how the technology works? No. In fact, that will just confuse them. They just want to know how it helps them improve investment strategy. If this service was sold to engineers experienced in artificial intelligence, the approach would be different.

Readability scores like Flesch-Kincaid, and the Fog Index help you determine readability, but are not a perfect science. These tools rely on artificial intelligence rules that don’t always apply. For example, one parameter of the Fog Index is the number of syllables per word — more syllables means more complicated. But, is that always right? Are the words “asparagus” and “integrated” really the same level of difficulty? They both have four syllables, but most people know what asparagus is.

The best way to improve readability in marketing, blogs, articles, even white papers:

1. Use the active voice: Write your sentences in the active voice instead of the passive voice. Active engages readers, passive drags down readability.

2. Use simpler language: Perfect example — instead of “utilize,” a 3-syllable word, try “use.” Opt for shorter simpler words wherever you can. Don’t try to impress with your large vocabulary.

3. Vary sentence length: Write the way people talk. Most people speak in phrases that vary in length, especially good public speakers. Write a mix of sentence lengths to keep the tempo lively.

4. Use the language of your audience: Writing for people who have specific technical knowledge? Use terms they understand, but sparingly. Too much jargon bores even the most technically-adept person.

5. Drop the word “solution” from your vocabulary: Unless you sell mixtures of chemicals, think of a better way to describe what it is you sell. This is the most abused word in high-tech marketing, and it’s my personal mission to eradicate that word from all of my client’s content and marketing. Join the good fight and get rid of it in yours too!

Back in the Web 1.0 days, dot-coms and big companies alike used endlessly ridiculous phrases (always ending in solutions, of course) to try and puff up their image and make it sound like they actually had something to sell. Some very funny person created an auto-generator of these sound-bites that I was happy to learn is still live. Have a little fun at the web economy bullshit generator and discover that, alas, many of these phrases are still in use…