“I Have No Idea What Your Product Does”: A Cautionary Tale of Marketing Buzzwords
Yes, yes, I see that your solution will enhance my ROI and accelerate something or other while also optimizing and transforming my business. But, um, what does it do? If your B2B content strategy doesn’t include the prohibition of buzzwords, you may want to rethink your messaging.
Stop Recycling Buzzy Taglines- Just Throw Them Out
Unfortunately, B2B tech marketing has a tendency to go for fluff over substance. And marketers keep relying on the buzzwords that annoy and confuse customers because all the other marketers are doing it.
If you’ve spent any time on websites advertising products or services in the B2B tech sector, you’ll know what I mean. How many times have you come across some variation of a tagline like “Transform Your Business and Maximize ROI”? A lot, I imagine.
Honestly, though, could you confidently pin that tagline to a product or service? Is it describing a CRM platform? A cybersecurity solution? A cloud service? Is it targeted at the healthcare field? The financial sector? Retail? Who knows? Not your customers.
Take some popular tech marketing buzzwords like “optimize,” “maximize,” “unlock,” “ROI,” “scale,” and “transform.” Then throw in some unsubstantiated boasts like “the best” or “best of breed,” or “leading.” Et voilà! You have the majority of B2B tech product and service landing pages. No wonder they all start to look the same!
Let me give you a disturbing experiment. In your search bar, search all of these terms all at once:
- Accelerate.
- Innovation.
- ROI.
- Unlock.
- Agile.
- Smart.
- Scale.
- Transformation.
- Performance.
- Secure.
Google turns up more than 1.48 million results. I shudder to think of how many solution pages incorporate ALL of these terms.
If your product or service pages are relying on phrases like this, you can bet your sales team is having to do a lot of heavy lifting to explain what it is that you actually do… That is, if they’re lucky enough to get leads from marketing at all.
Please, do better with your messaging. It’s easier than you think. Here’s how.
B2B Content Strategy: Each Piece Should Have Specific Goals
Your B2B content strategy shouldn’t just be to “have a web page” or “publish a blog post.” Your primary goal should be to create something that is relevant to your buyers.
Obviously, you would write differently if the goal was to establish credibility in a complex subject area than you would if the goal was to induce shock and awe with a creative guerilla-marketing style content piece.
Maybe you want a blog post to answer some questions your sales reps are tired of having to answer over and over again. Or, maybe it’s more important for the post to help you rank better for a certain search term. Or, maybe one of your buyer personas doesn’t see themselves reflected on your website and that makes them skeptical, so you want to write a blog post dedicated to their particular use cases.
Writing voice, tone, and style is not one-size-fits-all. You need to have your goals clearly established so you can write in a way that will achieve them.
Know Your B2B Buyer Personas
Similarly, you have to know who you’re trying to convince with your writing in order to convince them of anything.
A director of marketing doesn’t have the same priorities and concerns as a director of product development, for instance. The same blog post might impress one while annoying the other.
Landing pages and blog posts need to be designed and crafted to persuade their intended audience. Speak specifically to their “jobs to be done.” Show how your product or service will make their day-to-day easier.
This may mean you need different pages or posts to convey the same basic information to different personas. This way, you can package the information in a way that makes it relevant to each potential buyer.
When you put yourself in your buyers’ mindset and start specifically writing to their pain points and “jobs to be done,” you’ll find you rely a lot less on buzzwords.
Beware of Boasts
Invest in any sort of message testing with IT buyers, and you’ll realize how important this is.
In our message testing research, we’ve heard countless B2B technical buyers ask what companies are basing claims of being “industry-leading” or “best of breed” on. If you don’t have some sort of prestigious rankings or stats to back it up, don’t brag like this. Your buyers will hesitate to trust you.
Simply Explain What You Do
You have to explain what your product or service does. Simply, clearly, and specifically. And above the fold. Visitors to your website should know what your solution does before they have to scroll down.
Start with the big-picture narrative. What would a buyer use your solution for? What’s the main business problem it solves? Then go into more detail.
Connect That Explanation Back to Your Audience
This is not a time to be wishy-washy.
You don’t do everything for everyone, and even if you did, that’s not memorable messaging.
B2B buyers are looking for solutions to specific problems. Specifically address those needs.
Tell Them Why They Need It
Then you’re going to have to explain why your product or service is the best solution for your target buyer’s business problem. Why is it better than a competitor’s offering? Why is it better than your buyer doing nothing or trying to handle the business problem themselves?
You may need to commission some market research to get a strong sense of your differentiators. But, in the meantime, you can always speak to your strengths. What does your product/service/team excel at? Who are your happiest customers and what were their use cases? How many years of expertise in your customers’ industry or sector can your company boast?
B2B Content Strategy: Prioritize Specificity
The problem with marketing buzzwords in that they’re vague. Strong B2B messaging and content marketing needs to be specific.
Making a practice of writing to buyer’s specific “jobs to be done” and industry context will help your solution stand out from a sea of buzzword b.s.
Want a strong, buzzword-free product page? We can help with that. Check out our marketing services.
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Isabel Gautschi
Latest posts by Isabel Gautschi (see all)
- “I Have No Idea What Your Product Does”: A Cautionary Tale of Marketing Buzzwords - November 19, 2019
- B2B Focus Groups: Aim for Alchemy, Avoid Anarchy - September 2, 2019
- B2B Brand Research: Don’t Skip the Qual - April 18, 2019
