In every industry, across every profession, you’re likely to find leaders, managers and colleagues who are constantly looking for ways to demonstrate their unparalleled industry knowledge and skill set to their peers. Often, this manifests in jargon: a specialised, often abbreviated way of talking that’s full of long-winded acronyms and unusual “Geekspeak” (technical jargon) that they rely on to communicate. Sharing this unique, common language is very powerful for cementing company culture. For example, when flight attendants (FAs) mention PAX numbers instead of passengers or waiters discuss booking “four-tops” instead of "a table for four guests," they're not just saving letters and syllables, it’s a way of insinuating that "we're a team together." Jargon and Geekspeak may be great in creating a certain kind of “synergy” in the workplace but it’s a mistake to think that this language holds the same appeal when it comes to marketing to your customers.
If you’re prone to stuffing your marketing content full of colloquialisms, enigmatic buzzwords and pompous industry-specific phrases as a copywriter – think again about the potentially destructive impact it could be having on your brand’s awareness, click-through rates and bottom line. Some marketing thought leaders go as far as to say that peppering your blogs, online webpages and podcasts with Geekspeak and jargon is the unrecognised killer of a positive customer experience and can actually sabotage the relationship you’re striving to create. Even Merriam-Webster’s dictionary refers to “jargon” as a language or dialect that’s “pretentious”, “unintelligible,” and “barbarous.”
So, how often do you find yourself talking about bleeding-edge technology, core competency and shifting paradigms in your marketing messages? It’s important to remember that marketing takes you out of the boardroom and zoom meetings where you’re chatting with consultants, investors, and colleagues, and places you directly in front of a group of people who have their very own language that you’ll need to adopt your messages to, to find a common ground. And the best way to do this is to limit your geeky gobbledygook and marketing jargon. Join Wordsmith, as we delve into the 5 main reasons why this type of language may be harming your brand.
It's a lazy substitute for doing real consumer research
Jeff Bradford, President of the Nashville office of Dalton Agency, explains, “Often, jargon is a substitute for thinking — or, at least, original thinking. Business jargon is shorthand for thoughts that have been thought before, usually long ago. For example, the first genius who came up with the concept of "scalability" communicated a clear and exact concept because they had spent a lot of time studying how small enterprises become large ones. But these terms have become shop-worn tools that lazy people substitute for thinking.” He continued, “Like all evils, jargon promises easy access to wisdom, sophistication and privilege (at least the appearance of such), but, in fact, leads to irrelevance. If you wish to think clearly and lead confidently, avoid the siren song of jargon.”
If you look deeper, you’ll soon find those content marketers who regularly churn out sentences laden with jargon and convoluted Geekspeak, use it as a fast-track substitute for consumer research. Throwing in useless technical jargon helps your team avoid having to put in the hard work and resources into effective consumer research that, in the end, allows you to better understand your customers' language and provide them with real answers to their questions and problems. If you want to be considered as a true thought leader in your field, you need to simplify complicated subject matters and translate them into something that anyone could understand. As Da Vinci famously said, “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.
It can breed mistrust among your consumers
The cohesion and trust between you and your customers depend on the sincerity of your communication. And jargon is extremely insincere - it impresses nobody. Generally, many would argue that we use industry language to indicate our marketing prowess, but in reality, the overuse of jargon has the potential to discredit your argument and become counterintuitive. Over time, it could potentially lead your customers to question the validity of your marketing messages and even your brand’s credibility. Research findings indicate that public speakers who used marketing buzzwords and industry slang in their speeches instead of basic, commonly-used language were often perceived by their audiences to be lying. You could assume that the same can be applied to written text, which is even further removed from face-to-face interactions and therefore, more difficult to decipher. In a time where brands should be working to stop selling and start serving in an effort to connect and appear more authentic and approachable, jargon can have the adverse effect of making your brand seem robotic and less genuine. To drive traffic, growth, and sales – you need to connect and resonate with your audience. If you come across as just another stuffy, money-hungry corporation writing in industry jargon every other sentence, don't be surprised if they go elsewhere.
It can be confusing at best and condescending at its worst
Due to the fact that acronyms and jargon vary across different professions, you run the risk of having your intended audiences misinterpret what you mean because of the way you’re choosing to explain it. Many common jargon acronyms have double or even triple meanings, and this can confuse buyers. For example, the acronym FOB can mean 'free on board' in the freight industry, 'forward operating base' to military personnel and 'front of book' to us bibliophiles and publishers out there. So, going forward, we’d recommend avoiding the use of acronyms altogether. However, if you absolutely have to use an acronym, as a rule of thumb, you should ensure that you immediately explain what it stands for and its meaning in the same piece of marketing content.
Another sore point when using jargon is that these unfamiliar words and phrases can mislead customers into thinking that they’re being belittled or purposefully confused. Some go even as far as to say it’s like a communication crutch that alienates those “not in the know.” Perhaps you’ve spent years studying the US stock market, and you’re proud of the knowledge you’ve accrued along the way. However, instead of bordering on snobbery by using that insider knowledge through flexing your technical vocabulary, it’s more effective to prove you’re on the side of your audiences and customers, by showing them that you can explain what you know in clear, and concise terms that make sense to them.
It can make your audiences lose interest – fast
If you can't explain your brand’s product or service by imparting knowledge in layman's terms, you and your content team probably don't understand it as well as you think you do. And for your potential buyers and loyal customers, time is ultimately money, so if they're forced to feel like they’re cracking the enigma code every time they read a piece of your content, they're going to lose interest, fast. And the last reaction you want from your marketing communications is for your key audiences to zone out and buy with another competitor.
There’s also a fine line between audiences losing their attention span at useless jargon and audiences losing their attention at overused buzzwords – especially during the peak of the pandemic when a brand-new list of covid buzzwords bulldozed its way into our global vocabulary. This includes those knee-jerk reaction phrases like “new normal”, “unprecedented times” and “in times like these”. And I’m pretty sure all of us can put our hands up and say we’ve committed buzzword crimes such as these, but it can not come at the expense of your concise and clear marketing messages. Otherwise, these overused phrases and jargon, make your brand run the risk of becoming a mere echo. If this is a piece of jargon they've heard fifteen-plus times before, they'll gloss over it instead of considering the point you're trying to convey.
You need to communicate with conciseness, passion and warmth to connect with customers. Micah Solomon, customer service consultant and bestselling author agrees, saying, “Creating a great customer experience is a lot like being onstage, or/and setting a stage for your customers to enjoy being in the scene. But it's easy to let the curtain slip down, let the stage fall apart, if you stop speaking a warm, shared language with your customers. "Did I just change channels?" your customer may think, when employees suddenly lapse into the language of their co-workers and industry rather than the language they have in common with customers.” To be successful, your brand not only needs to build a relationship through consistent conversations between you and your audiences but every piece of communication needs to put clarity about all else. As this sets you apart from the competition who are regurgitating the same convoluted jargon.
It's bad for SEO search rankings
One last point. In this day and age, the growth and prosperity of your brand largely depend on customers finding you online. And once they’ve found you and consumed your content, the yellow-brick road to conversion happens if they like your content enough to make a purchase.
So, for a buyer’s journey to happen as smoothly and successfully as possible, your website needs to be using natural language and relevant search topics to attract your key audiences, which will, in turn, boost your Google search rankings, as Google bots rank pages in terms of content readability. However, if you go down the route of using excessive jargon and Geekspeak on your online platforms you’re essentially using a language that your customers aren’t, which ultimately damages the user experience and negatively impacts your overall SERP ranking. Google algorithms will see the traffic trend of audiences bouncing from your website and heading elsewhere, which leads to them devaluing the authority of your website. Shawn Byrne, Founder and CEO of My Biz Niche, encourages content marketers to strike a balance between relatable customer-centric keywords and conversational language, “Keyword stuffing is a thing of the past, but many still do it today. You will reap better rewards in your SEO campaign if you come up with content, still with keywords, but with a more natural flow, making it an easier read for your audience to digest.”
So, before you hit publish on your online content, do your keyword research and find out precisely what your customers are searching for. By doing this you’ll have loads of words at your disposal that resonate with your customers, while also pleasing the Google bots. It’s a win-win.
The verdict
We understand that avoiding technical jargon, Geekspeak and acronyms entirely can be difficult, especially when a language you use every day becomes so familiar to you, but when it comes to marketing, the goal is to create consistent, valuable communication that truly resonates with your audiences. Language is an incredibly powerful tool content marketers have at their disposal to stand out from competitors, but overusing buzzwords and jargon is never going to help you build relationships and make sales – but we can. Get in touch with our friendly team of copywriters today to help you cut the clutter and connect with your key audiences.