{"id":2598,"date":"2013-01-14T20:25:27","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T01:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.123print.com\/?p=2598"},"modified":"2015-07-22T21:43:18","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T21:43:18","slug":"use-your-words-dont-overuse-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/use-your-words-dont-overuse-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Use Your Words (Don\u2019t Overuse Them)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/use-your-words-dont-overuse-them\/mouth\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2600\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2600\" alt=\"SMB marketing speak\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/mouth-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/mouth-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/mouth-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/mouth.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Urban Dictionary<\/a>, the phrase, \u201cuse your words,\u201d when spoken to a child, communicates a gentle reminder to speak clearly and enunciate. For our purposes, we just want to remind small business owners, email composers, bloggers, business writers and marketing communication professionals to choose your words wisely.<\/p>\n<p>What you write and say should engage and motivate, not cause eyes to glaze over. The only time people might want to see or hear phrases like \u201cat the end of the day\u201d and \u201c30,0000-foot view,\u201d is if they are playing corporate bingo.<\/p>\n<p>(Relevant Side Story Here: I once worked with someone who almost seemed to search out these kinds of meaningless phrases. A group of us decided to make up a phrase and try to get him to think it was real business lingo so he\u2019d say it in front of someone important. But, alas, he didn\u2019t take the bait. Dang it. What was the phrase, you ask? <em>\u201cWe better get this brook babbling or we\u2019re going to look like a bunch of doe-eyed Labradors.\u201d<\/em> I\u2019m not even sure what we were pretending it meant, and in hindsight, we realize it was just too long and complex to remember. Not to mention that it wasn\u2019t very nice of us, either.)<\/p>\n<p>To help you avoid the common mistake of incorporating overused words and phrases in your marketing, we\u2019d like to share something we saw at Yahoo! Small Business Advisor the other day: <a href=\"http:\/\/smallbusiness.yahoo.com\/advisor\/11-marketing-words-no-one-wants-to-hear-in-2013-230416330.html\" target=\"_blank\">11 marketing words no one wants to hear in 2013<\/a>, by Jeff Haden. You can go to the article for the background, but here\u2019s the bare-bones list:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 customer focused<br \/>\n\u2022 best in class<br \/>\n\u2022 low-hanging fruit<br \/>\n\u2022 exceed expectations<br \/>\n\u2022 unique<br \/>\n\u2022 value added<br \/>\n\u2022 expert<br \/>\n\u2022 seasoned<br \/>\n\u2022 exceptional ROI<br \/>\n\u2022 partner<br \/>\n\u2022 turnkey<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line is: say what you mean, don\u2019t use <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marketing_speak\" target=\"_blank\">marketing speak<\/a>, be clear and concise and focus on the benefits to your customer.<\/p>\n<p>You know there are way more than 11 inane words and phrases being used by marketers. Share your favorite marketing-words-to-hate below. Maybe we can create our own small business bingo game \u2014 and improve some marketing copy in the progress!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to the Urban Dictionary, the phrase, \u201cuse your words,\u201d when spoken to a child, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,8],"tags":[79,235,290,731,737,1033],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2598"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9375,"href":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2598\/revisions\/9375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.123print.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}