Or why jargon is making your business forgettable.
If you visit three engineering firms’ websites in a row, I guarantee it won’t take long before the headlines start blurring together. They’ll all be talking about ‘Innovative solutions tailored to your needs’ or ‘Industry-leading expertise you can trust’ or ‘Delivering excellence on every project.’ I’m also sure that if you swapped around the logos, you’d be hard pressed to guess which site belonged to which business.
And it’s not just engineering. Pathology labs use ‘ensuring compliance’ and ‘navigating complex regulatory requirements’. Event organisers promise to ‘bring together industry leaders’ for ‘an unmissable event’. Every technical industry has its own small set of phrases that are recycled across website after website…until they stop meaning anything much at all.
These businesses probably are skilled, compliant…even unmissable. The problem with using jargon is that the words they use to describe themselves are the same words every other competitor is using too. And that’s why they all sound the same…when they’re clearly not.
Jargon bores your clients
This is a hard fact to swallow, but it’s true. The phrases you use when you’re deep in a technical field become second nature to you, so I understand why it’s hard to let them go. They’re useful as shorthand for talking to your peers. They also signal that you value accuracy and want to avoid confusion.
But hanging onto jargon in your marketing is a mistake. And that’s because your web copy, your social posts, in fact all of your marketing, is not for you or your peers.
It’s for your potential clients.
Yes, jargon makes you sound credible, reliable and professional, but your three biggest competitors are probably using exactly the same phrases on their websites.
When you write in plain language, you’re not only making the site easy for potential clients to understand, you’re also making it clear that you’ve thought about your how industry can help potential clients…and it also allows you to show a little of the ‘personality’ of your business. Talking about how your business actually works, rather than how your industry typically talks, marks you out as different…and ‘different’ in marketing is often what gets people to pause, take a moment…and maybe even consider you as a potential service provider.
Compare these two lines:
‘We provide tailored compliance solutions backed by decades of industry expertise.’
‘We’ve sat through enough lab audits to know exactly which paperwork gets flagged and which doesn’t matter at all.’
The first could sit on any consultant’s website, for any technical industry. The second could only be written by someone who’s actually worked in the field and knows how laboratory accreditation and compliance work. That’s the difference between generic and memorable.
Why sameness costs you more than you’d think
Web visitors skim text. And they do this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they want to know that they’re in the right place. Everyone is busy these days and no-one wants to waste time reading unnecessary content, so they want to know as quickly as possible if you can do the job they want done.
Secondly, they want to find something that makes a business stand out as a possibility. They’re asking, ‘Do they get me?’ or ‘Have they done this before and with what success?’ or ‘Should I trust them?‘
If every site they visit says roughly the same thing in roughly the same tone, there’s nothing to remember and nothing to make a choice on…except maybe price or whichever name they happened to see last. So, sounding professional often results in sounding forgettable.
Dump the camouflage
In nature, camouflage has many uses. For example, a moth’s markings work because they match the bark it’s sitting on. That’s the point of it. Camouflage helps you blend in until you’re impossible to pick out from what’s around you. Now that’s brilliant if you’re a moth avoiding a hungry bird. But less brilliant if you’re a business trying to be the one a prospect remembers.
If you’re using jargon or standard phrases that everyone in your indusrty uses, you’re blending into your surroundings…the same surroundings every other competitor is also trying to match. The better your jargon blends in, the harder it is for you to be memorable.
Plain language boosts credibility…and choosability
It seems counter-intuitive, but plain language is actually preferred by all readers, not just the non-technical ones. A report, entitled ‘Plain Language Is for Everyone, Even Experts’ by Hoa Loranger of the Nielsen Norman Group, found that even highly specialised readers preferred content written more simply, finding it faster to scan and easier to act on. The article counters the idea that simple writing reads as condescending to technical audiences. In fact, the article argues that professionals specifically want concise content without unnecessary jargon.
You’re not a unicorn.
As small business owners, we’re often told to ask, ‘What makes us different?’ and use that in our marketing. But that doesn’t address the fact that there are probably plenty of people in your sector who can do the same job. The honest answer is, you don’t need to be unmatched to stand out. You need to be specific. A better question to ask instead is, ‘What’s one thing we do that gives an outcome our clients value?’
That could be something as simple as ‘Our onboarding process starts with a site visit so you can show us how your lab works day to day’ or ‘We assign a single specialist to your event, from kick-off to sign-off, so you have one contact who knows the whole job.’
Your competitors may also do these things, but if they’re not saying them on their websites and their copy is drowning in jargon, a simple outcome statement in plain language can make it clear why your business is a good choice.
You’re not alone
If your site’s speaking the same language as everyone else in your category, that’s the easiest thing in the world to fix, once you can see it.
I eat jargon for breakfast, so reach out for a chat to see how I can help.
Like this post? Make me your preferred source on Google. It’s free, makes sure you get trusted information…and helps people find me.
