Crystal Clear Communications Blog

Is your company an innovative leader in your market or industry? Of course it is. And I bet most of your competitors say they are too. Yet many companies continue to put overused words such as “leader,” “innovative,” and others in their marketing materials.

It’s time for all of us to stop using overused words such as “leader.” Why? For one, overused words lose their power and become meaningless over time.

Second, many companies use the words without any evidence to back them up.

Third, and most importantly, overused words are almost always about the company using them and rarely about what’s in it for their clients.

Need to get out of your overused marketing words rut? Here are 3 tips:

1. Know your target audience.
2. Use concrete words to be specific and descriptive.
3. Test and improve.

Stop using “leader” by knowing your target audience.

When you know your target audience, you can create marketing content tailored to their preferences and needs.

So instead of relying on Sales to tell you about your prospects and clients, see if you can talk to them directly. Find out what their questions are, and exactly what they want to know before they buy. Use that information to create a buyer empathy map to guide your content.

I prefer buyer empathy maps to buyer personas because empathy maps enable you to better capture buyer feelings. Once you know buyer feelings, you can create content containing emotional value words, which are key to getting, and keeping, buyer attention.

Knowing your audience also enables you to tailor your content to resonate with them, using words that are relevant and meaningful. It also helps you avoid generic buzzwords that may not have an impact.

Once you have your buyer empathy map, create and use a Message Map to keep your content focused on your buyers.

Use concrete words to avoid using “leader”

Many marketers use the language of their business and industry so often that they forget the power of concrete words:

• Do you want a dog or do you want a greyhound?
• Did you want an iPod or did you want 1,000 songs on the go?
• Do you want an innovative, cutting-edge platform, or do you want an easy-to-use solution that makes creating and sending invoices faster?

Concrete words paint a picture in your buyers’ minds, making them more likely to remember your message – and more likely to buy from you.

If you must use generic words such as “leader,” “innovative,” or “cutting-edge,” make sure you have the evidence to prove them. Focus on tangible results, and provide statistics, case studies, testimonials, and other evidence that supports your claim. Buyers won’t believe you’re a leader because you say you are, they’ll believe it when you actually demonstrate it.

Test and improve to keep overused words out of your marketing content

Testing marketing content is crucial for better understanding buyer preferences and optimizing your messaging. Testing messages before launching full-scale campaigns also can save time, resources, and money.

Test your content internally and externally. For internal testing, keep a list of overused words and have someone else on your team review marketing content against the list and replace any words on the list.

For external testing, keep track of results so you can continue to improve and personalize your marketing content over time.

You can keep overused words out of your marketing content. Know your target audience, use concrete words, and always test your content.

For assistance with marketing or communications needs, email me at ariana@crystalclearcomms.com.