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16 Marketing Terms to Ban Today

Guest post by: Jeff Ogden

Article Overview: My good friend, Paul Dunay, who writes the popular blog Buzz Marketing for Technologyonce told me that B2B marketers are in an “Arms Race around Content.” This means that companies are one-upping each other on content. One of the keys to great b2b lead generation content is to make it engaging for your reader. This means to use terms readers use – not terms your industry uses. But what words are the worst?

16 Marketing Terms to Ban Today

The great book, Content Rules by Ann Handley and CC Chapman, had a superb list of words used in BtoB marketing that need to go away. The use of these words is egregious in technology. They drive me nuts! I share this list below, as well as a bonus list of common mistakes.

1. Impactful
   
   nonsense word. Try influential or powerful instead.
2. Leverage
   
   a noun morphed into a verb. Try influence, enhance, rely on or just use.
3. Learnings
   
   a word for an idea that somehow became plural. Makes no sense.
4. Synergy
   
   A snazzy word that means nothing. Try cooperation, or help, or join.
5. Revolutionary
   
   A stairway to the Moon. Overkill. Kill it.
6. E-mail Blasts
   
   Are you a spammer? Only spammers blast prospective customers. (Unfortunately, the marketing automation software we use has a menu titled "Email Blasts." I cringe every time I see it.)
7. Proactive
   
   The opposite of reactive. It's pompous and should not be used. Try active, anticipate, forestall or foresee.
8. Drill down
   
   A sin of software firms. Try in-depth or detailed.
9. 30,000 Feet
   
   A high level overview. Doesn't that sound better?
10. Incenting/incentising
    
    This smelly one belongs to sales. Try encourage.
11. Almost any word that ends in -ize
    
    monetize, socialize, etc. As the book says, it sounds like it comes from a robot.
12. Solution
    
    This is the word used when you cannot explain your product.
    
    Users
    
    Dehumanizing word that strips people of their identity. Why not people, customers, friends?
13. Any word applied to technology, such as
    
    ping for follow-up
    
    bandwidth for capacity
    
    Offline for not working

Use words that describe what people do



Overused words

• Granular
• Robust
• Strategic
• Mashed together words of any kind

Buy-in, mission-critical, value-add, face-time, win-win, low-hanging - can you say bore-ring?

Remember, you are talking to human beings, not robots. Write as if you are meeting on old friend for drinks. The way you talk to her is the way you should talk to prospective buyers.

Your Bonus

Here's a bonus for you English majors. Common writing mistakes from GlobalCopyWrite. Contact Sarah Michell at http://www.globalcopywriting.com

Public Service Announcement

As a service to anyone interested in evading the ire attached to the usage of these words, I'm providing a list. Use them at your peril. The overriding sentiment about non-word usage is it demonstrates lack of intelligence, education or attention to detail. If these words are appearing in your normal business communications and marketing collateral, my advice is to get rid of them and do it quickly.

The Top Offenders

Two words were submitted repeatedly. Obliterate them from your vocabulary.

incentivise

agreeance

Other non-words peeving the pets

In no particular order:

supposably

ideation

positivity

onboarding

de-train

de-plane

onforward

verbally facilitate

unpacking (as in "unpacking the issues")

disaggregations

misunderestimated

conversating

embiggened

learnings

irregardless

anonymize

operationalize

Westralia

Errors in Usage

Plenty of people complained about real words being used at the wrong time or in the wrong context.

enormousness vs. enormity

thankyou vs. thank you

round vs. around

penultimate vs. ultimate

hone vs. home

momentary vs. momentarily

phenomena vs. phenomenon

The evergreens in this category:

lose vs. loose

chose vs. choose

there vs. they're vs. their

its vs. it's

On contractions, just say them out loud. For instance, on it's, say "it is" Or on they're, say "they are" Does that fit in your sentence? If not, use the ones without the apostrophe.

What do you think? We love comments and people who share.

Jeff Ogden (@fearlesscomp) is the President of the B2B lead generation consultancy Find New Customers and the host of Mad Marketing TV - as well as a professional writer. Find New Customers helps companies dramatically improve revenue results by transforming the way they attract, engage and win new customers. Contact Find New Customers by calling (516) 495-9350 or sending an email to sales at findnewcustomers.com.

"If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold." Dan McDade, Pointclear.

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Article Tags: b2b demand generation, b2b lead generation, btob demand generation, btob lead generation, demand gen, demand generation, demand generation companies, demand generation company, find new customers, lead gen, lead generation, lead generation companies, lead generation company, sales lead generation



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