Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?

I recently ran into an article at Web Ink Now, Gobbledygook banned by English and Welsh local authorities, that got me thinking about the way that businesses use language.

Have you ever felt the temptation to use a lot of really technical, industry-specific language to make what you’re saying sound more important, or less uncomfortable for the person who is listening?

Using hard-to-understand language is one way that people protect themselves from scrutiny - their audience’s eyes glaze over and they don’t have to worry about unwanted criticism. This is something that the English and welsh governments are trying to put a stop to.

However, sometimes you really do want your audience to understand what you’re talking about, and that’s when they are your potential customers. I’ve personally found myself on websites where I think I’m the target market for a product, but I can’t figure it out for sure; often I’m not really sure what product they are actually selling!

Our product is an online accounting application delivered using the Saas (Software as a Service) model, and during its development we did a demo with a company who provides some automation services for billing and user account management. They had a feature where I could define different pricing plans for the product, including how long the trials are, the monthly or annual fees, and which features are enabled for each plan. They called this “merchandizing”, which I associate with Space Balls action figures, not pricing plans.

If you have marketing materials that sport unclear language and/or insider jargon not easily understood by your customer, it’s likely your sales will suffer.

As easy way to test this is to find someone and ask them to look at your website (or a printout of it), packaging, or other marketing material for a minute and then ask them a few questions about the product, like who it is for, and what it does.

Bookmark this post:

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a Del.icio.us

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a digg

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a reddit

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a Technorati

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a Newsvine

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a Ma.gnolia

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a Stumble Upon

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a Google Bookmarks

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a Squidoo

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a Live-MSN

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a FaceBook

Add 'Do you use Gobbledygook, market-speak, and vague language?' a Twitter

Next Steps

Tags: marketing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 12:28 am by Dobes and is filed under Small Business Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.