If you’ve ever taken a writing class, you’ve likely heard the instructor rail against clichés.
Why is that? If everyone is familiar with a phrase, then using this tried-and-true language will ensure we communicate our point.
Except it doesn’t work that way.
Using clichés tells your reader that you didn’t want to take the time to express yourself in an original way, so you took a shortcut.
Marketing clichés are just as bad. Pepper your marketing materials with them, and you sound like everyone else. If you’re like everyone else, why should someone work with you?
No doubt, your company excels at its core business, and you’re a really swell person. To help convey that information, strike the following words (or variations) from your website and marketing pieces and emphasize what makes you stand out
- Industry leader. Really? According to whom? If J.D. Power and Associates or some other recognized authority attests to your excellence, then share those props. If you’re saying it because it sounds good and no one can confirm otherwise, drop it.
- Value added. What does this mean? You’re delivering value in exchange for your customers’ patronage? Duh. Isn’t some value implied in a commercial transaction? Perhaps you mean that you provide greater value than the competition, which brings us to…
- Exceeding expectations. Uh huh. I don’t know about you, but my personal expectations tend to be high. Delivering what you said you would when you said you would doesn’t exceed expectations; it fulfills the minimum requirements of acceptability. If you truly exceed expectations, prove it.
- Unique. Yes, we all like to think that we’re special, that we, like a certain rose to a tiny prince, are one of a kind. But our products and services probably aren’t radical enough to qualify as unique. If, however, you do have a proprietary process or some other secret formula, let the world know. Be specific.
- Next level. Who else is sick of hearing entrepreneurs, athletes, you name it, talking about attaining the next level? What, pray tell, does that level look like? Most people don’t bother visualizing that level of success, which is why they rarely reach it. And marketers have seized this generic catchphrase and beaten it past resurrection. Enough.
Sure. These are a few of my personal pet peeves. But see how many you find the next time you’re forced to read someone’s collateral material, and then purge them from your own.
Excuse me. I’d better take another look at our marketing messages.
Don’t see your favorite marketing cliché in this list? Please share with us – both the cliché and the reason it irritates you.
SHARE THIS:
