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4 min read

Kill these 10 Words from your Copy to Improve Marketing Performance

By Mark Gibson on Jul 11, 2022 12:00:00 AM

Words. Often it's the little things that turn visitors off after arriving at your Website, reading your copy in a brochure or sales letter, or suffering through a bad PowerPoint presentation.

The technology business is rife with words in Website, whitepaper copy and bad PowerPoint presentations, that I call "product-speak".

Write from your Best Customer's Point of View

When people read your copy, visit your Website or sit through your presentation, they are doing so because they have pressing issues or problems that they need to solve. When you write - start from the point of view of your buyer's needs, not your "ground-breaking" product, unless you want to sound just like your competition.

David Meerman Scott calls these words Gobbledygook and he wrote a brilliant E-Book that you can download instantly called The Gobbledygook Manifesto.

You can even run your copy through a content analysis tool called Gobbledygook Grader, to identify text that could be improved.
You might find David's blog "The Four P's of Marketing" that topples one of the pillars of marketing literature worth a read...and a laugh!

If you need help in translating your "product speak" into something that your visitors will want to read, then we can help.

In our work with technology companies in creating website messaging and whiteboard stories, we see the following words or phrases frequently.

My Top 10 "Product-Speak" words.

Topics: marketing messaging marketing positioning gobbldygook
4 min read

Brand Value Proposition and your Logo - Nobody Cares except you!

By Mark Gibson on Oct 7, 2012 12:00:00 AM

What's in a Brand?

  • What's in your Brand?
  • What can customers expect from your brand?
  • Why should consumers choose your brand over that of your competitor?
  • Is it important to have a logo as part of your brand?
  • Does your logo contribute value to your brand identity?
  • Should I even have a logo?
These are interesting and important questions and there have been volumes written on each of the points above.

I am prompted to write this after reflecting on the changes we made as part of our recent Web-site redesign project with partner Kuno Creative and after reading this blog article,  Brand Logos: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from Rachel Sprung of HubSpot last week. 

Designing Brand Identity

In her book Designing Brand Identity, Alina Wheeler has helped thousands of companies improve their image and sharpen their brand value proposition. The following excerpts from her book are relevant to our conversation and are worthy reminders of important brand basics.
  • The best Brands marry intelligence and insight with imagination and craft. (Connie Birdsall, Creative Director, Lippincott.)
  • Brand Identity fuels recognition, amplifies differentiation, and makes big ideas meaningful and accessible.
  • A Big Idea functions as an organizational totem pole around which strategy, behavior, actions and communications are aligned. These simply worded statements are used internally as a beacon of a distinctive culture and externally as a competitive advantage that helps consumers make choices.
  • The right Name is timeless, tireless, easy to say and remember; it stands for something and facilitates brand extensions.
  • Creating Value is the indisputable goal of most organizations. A brand is an intangible asset -brand identity, which includes all tangible expression from packaging to websites, upholds that value.
  • A Wordmark is a freestanding word or words. It may be a company name or acronym. The best brandmarks imbue a legible word(s) with distinctive font characteristics, and may integrate abstract or pictorial elements

Admarco Branding Redesign Case Study.

Topics: Admarco brand value marketing positioning