No more scalable, pathbreaking, innovative technology solution.

We MBAs love jargon.

Being marketers, being salespeople, we LOVE JARGON. Not getting the ideas for better communication?, not knowing what to write on the website?, do not know what to communicate to prospective buyers? When do we not know the real value proposition of our product? Whether the customer asking more intelligent questions for which we do not know the answers?, then what we do is

Use JARGON.

The overused and overly heard marketing communication goes something like this.

" We are an innovative product using new age technologies by industry leading well positioned company"

"Our product is disrupting and ground breaking with cutting edge technology enables top performance"

Not believing me? Then look at the following real examples. (Hello, I googled and found an example for you ????????)

I have noted down a couple of commonly used words in our marketing communication. We all write messages, design marketing communications, create content, create brochures, and videos, etc. During my demos and conversations with prospective buyers, I often use these words. Strangely, we use these words when we are presenting to B2B technology companies and when presenting the solution to companies in the other sectors, we (I) use less jargon.

I always wonder about the meaning of the following words (Jargon) that are repeatedly used in marketing communication.

1) No.1

2) Best in class

3) Enabling top performance

4) Flexible

5) Scalable

6) Cutting edge

7) New age technology driven

8) Market leading

9) Mission critical

10) Groundbreaking

11) Best of bread or best of the class

12) Turnkey

13) Use friendly

Why do we companies use this overused jargon?

What I observed is that many of the companies outsource marketing communication to PR agencies and companies do not explain to PR how the product addresses the problem of the buyer. This applies to our own marketing departments as well.

If marketers do not know the buyers, buyer's problems,how the product helps to solve customer's problem, then they start write about the features of the product and try to add few over used industry jargon.

Why should we not use this jargon in our marketing or sales communication?

1) Marketing communication will not serve its purpose if we use unnecessary jargon. The main aim of marketing communication is to generate the interest of the prospective buyer that has to convert as leads. We think that customers will be impressed by our heavy words and show interest in our products. But the problem is that every marketer out there is 'disrupting' and everyone is an 'emerging leader'.??????. So we are not special and our cutting-edge technology is not so 'cutting edge.

2) We think jargon can be a differentiator from our competitors, but the problem is that all our competitors are using the same language of overused jargon and we all stand in the parallel line of 'flexible, scalable, inter operatable, innovative state of the art product'.

What can we do?

Let us look at the following two examples of marketing communication.

If we carefully observe the above two examples, being AI-based products, both are talking about customer benefits and not about AI or product features. The communication is simple and easy to understand.

The following can be the thumb rule for any professional who is into marketing communication.

1) Customer-Centric communication. Before even inking the pen, it is better to think by standing in the shoes of the buyer and not as a product owner. Talk about benefits for the customers not the features of the product.

2) Make it simple. In the above-mentioned example, (the first example) the company is clearly saying that one can boost traffic and save time by creating content in seconds with their tool.

3) Understand the journey of the customers. Different type of communication is needed for the customers at different stages.

Awareness Stage - The aim of the communication is to create awareness about the product's benefits for the buyer. For example, if you are into AI content writing (GPT-3 Tool), you can add the name of your product in a blog 'Top ten free AI- content writing tools in 2022'. This blog can create awareness about the product.

Consideration stage - This is a stage where your marketing communication must pull the customer to consider your product. Here, the customer is not very sure whether your product can solve the problem. At this stage, a more elaborate article with specific benefits for the buyer persona or a product explanation video can help you pull the customer. In our example of AI tools, articles on how AI writing tools can help bloggers/digital marketers/founders can help the customer to consider the AI writing tool.

Conversion stage - A comparison chart of your product and your competitors or the list of customers can help the customer decide the buying.

Loyalty Stage - A report on usage metrics or engagement metrics can help to reinforce the value proposition.

Advocacy Stage - A video of the customer or a white paper.

4) The voice of the product must be the same across all the communication. This is a very important aspect we all miss since our product communication is done on a daily basis by so many stakeholders. (by the sales department, marketing department, customer success, by distributors etc) I always observed that one of my resellers adds his own imagination and experience to our product and explains it to the customers. The damage control takes a lot of time because of a mismatch of expectations.