We’ve talked a lot about writing best practices here on The B2B Lead.  B2B Marketers out there, pay special attention to this chapter.  Gobbledygook words – that’s what David calls jargon-laden phrases.  Words like groundbreaking, industry-stand, and cutting edge are good examples of gobbledygook words.  David goes on to say that business-to-business technology marketers are the worst offenders.

Here are some interesting findings from a study David highlighted in this chapter.

388,000 press releases were analyzed over a 9 month period.
74,000 of them had gobbledygook words
9895 of them used the words next generation
over 5000 of them used words like flexible, robust, world class, scalable, easy to use
between 2,000 and 5,000 used words like cutting edge, mission critical, market leading, industry standard, turnkey and groundbreaking

WOW!  And isn’t the goal of doing a news release to stand out in the crowd?  Well we’re not if we’re using these words.

Here’s a few more tips – another study highlighted in this chapter, this time a survey of general business and trade editors.  These are these people that we sent out announcements to.  Are you using these words?

• “Leading” (used as an adjective) – 94% of editors feel it is overused
• “We’re excited about…” – 76% of editors feel it is overused
• “Solutions” – 68% of editors feel it is overused
• “…a wide range of…” – 64% of editors feel it is overused
• “Unparalleled” – 62% of editors feel it is overused
• “Unsurpassed” – 53% of editors feel it is overused

David does a great job of summarizing the importance of writing for our buyers, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to steal a couple of lines for the book to close this as well.

“Your online and offline marketing content is meant to drive action, which requires a focus on buyer problems.  Your buyers want this in their own words, and then they want proof.  Every time you write, you have an opportunity to communicate and to convince.  At each stage of the sales process, well-written materials combined with effective marketing programs will lead your buyers to understand how your company can help them.”

If you’re worried about your use or overuse of gobbledygook words in your news releases, check out Hubspot’s Press Release Grader.  This free tool helps you make sure you are getting the most out of every news release you write.