Why you shouldn’t use jargon in your marketing and how to communicate more effectively without it.

Jargon isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In the right context, between specialists where individuals are well acquainted with the issues being discussed, ‘jargon’ is often seen as useful:

• American lexicographer Erin McKean commented that “People say jargon is a bad thing, but it’s really a shortcut vocabulary that professionals use to understand one another.”
• US Government website plainlanguage.gov, in its section ‘Avoid jargon’, advocates the necessary use of technical terms. “Special terms can be useful shorthand within a particular audience and may be the clearest way to communicate with that group.”

But generally speaking, jargon shouldn’t feature in marketing communications.

‘Jargon’ or ‘buzzwords’ - dare I say it - are often used by sales and marketing teams in the misplaced belief that it makes them sound like experts and helps build trust. That simply isn’t true.

The truth is that jargon pushes readers (or viewers) away. It’s a turn off.

When communicating with wider audiences, ‘jargon’ is seen as unnecessary and off putting:

• In his book ‘Leading through language: Choosing words that influence and inspire.’, Bart Egnal is of the view that ‘jargon frustrates, confuses and generally alienates listeners’. He argued that to be an effective leader ‘you must be brave enough to be the first to drop jargon in favour of simple, coherent language’.
•  Advertising great David Ogilvy commented that “Our business (advertising) is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.”

plainlanguage.gov defines jargon as ‘unnecessarily complicated language used to impress, rather than to inform, your audience’. It goes on to explain that readers complain about jargon more than any other writing fault. This is largely because writers often fail to realise that terms they know well may be difficult or meaningless to their audience.

The impact of using specialised jargon when communicating with members of the general public isn’t just a question of making something hard to understand. The implications are much wider.

In a study of 650 adults by Ohio State University, led by Assistant Professor of Communication, Hillary Shulman, the use of difficult, specialised words was seen as ‘a signal that tells people that they don’t belong’.

Defining the specialised terms doesn’t help. Hillary Shulman explains “You can tell them what the terms mean, but it doesn’t matter. They already feel like that this message isn’t for them.”

Complex language can lead to people ‘tuning out’ and give the impression that the author is ‘out of touch’ with their audience. The exact opposite of what any marketing communication is trying to achieve!

So, how do you bring ideas to life and make communications memorable without using jargon?

Some tips:

• Always write for your audience and speak their language. For example, the content and language for a presentation targeted at a company’s technical teams should be very different to that of a presentation targeted at the whole of a company’s workforce.
• Write to communicate, not to impress. Plain language, that makes a subject easy to understand, can really stand out and give a point of difference – especially where competitors have been tempted to use jargon.
• Be concise. Use short sentences. They are easier to understand than longer, more complex ones.
• Use plain, direct language. Don’t ‘talk down’ to audiences but do use plain, direct language. For instance, ‘homeless’ would be better than saying ‘involuntarily undomiciled’. Avoid acronyms and buzzwords (unless you know that your audience is going to understand them).
• Edit and edit again! Vet your content, strip out the jargon, and make it easy to understand what you’re talking about and how it will help your audience.

In summary

It’s worth investing time and effort to keep marketing communications simple, clear and easy to understand. It will make your marketing communications more successful. In the words of Steve Jobs:

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Making communications clear and easy to understand can set you out from the crowd:

“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” General Colin Powell

(You could easily replace ‘leaders’ with ‘companies’ in this quote.)

Keeping things simple, especially when writing about complex subjects, takes time and effort but the reward is that it can help deliver a big competitive advantage.