That taboo word is . . . words.

At least it sometimes seems that way to us at our marketing agency in Phoenix. All the talk these days seems to be centered on the media, as in “conventional media”, “social media”, “multi-media” and the like. It’s as though we’ve forgotten that the building blocks for marketing communication are words; as in the effective use of them to deliver a marketing message that induces the desired action.

The success of our marketing communication, whether it be in Arizona or Argentina, will be in direct proportion to, neither the media chosen, nor the graphics, nor that announcer’s soothing voice, nor that attractive model, nor that persuasive spokesperson, nor the typography, but, rather, in the way words are arranged in, around, through and over the other elements of the marketing message.

A Phoenix advertising agency owner and friend agreed, saying, “When we stop to think about it, few would have cause to argue with this point, yet we seems to have become a bit lost amid our frantic dash to try the latest media trend as served up by what has become a decidedly media-oriented genre of marketing gurus (not to mention media salespeople).”

A PR authority’s revelation about words

Of course, to our peril, words can be misused, or for a variety other reasons they often do little justice to the idea, concept or product being promoted. And now, it has been brought to our attention by PR strategist Adam Sherk that words also can quite possibly be overused. Indeed, this learned contemporary of ours conducted a little survey, and reports some interesting findings:

Taking 23 of the most popular buzzwords in marketing and PR, he compiled a list of the top 100 in June, and then ran 25 of them through PRFilter, a website that aggregates press releases.

The results: “Solution” led the pack with 243 appearances.

Whoops! – Shortly after he published the post, PRFilter set the record straight: “Solution” did not appear in press releases 243 times; it appeared 622 times. Yet, it was only the second most common buzzword.

The most common word is “leading,” which showed its face 776 times – in one 24-hour stretch!

Here’s the full list:

1. leading (776)
2. solution (622)
3. best (473)
4. innovate / innovative / innovator (452)
5. leader (410)
6. top (370)
7. unique (282)
8. great (245)
9. extensive (215)
10. leading provider (153)
11. exclusive (143)
12. premier (136)
13. flexible (119)
14. award winning / winner (106)
15. dynamic (95)
16. fastest (70)
17. smart (69)
18. state of the art (65)
19. cutting edge (54)
20. biggest (54)
21. easy to use (51)
22. largest (34)
23. real time (8)

So, we would conclude, it’s not just how – but how often – we use (the same) words that can have a marked effect on how, for instance, a press release is received. Can it be any different for other forms of marketing communication? We think not.

The lesson: Use words correctly, persuasively and not – at least the same ones – too often. I would add that this would be the “leading” and “best” “solution” to our marketing communication problems, but if I did, I’d be overusing the three most overused words.

So I won’t. Happy marketing!

Author Bio: Allan Starr founded Marketing Partners of AZ in 1976. He is former governor of the Southwest District of the American Advertising Federation (AAF), two-term president of The Arizona Small Business Assn. and recently completed six terms on the board of directors of The Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. http://marketingpartnersaz.com/

Category: Marketing
Keywords: marketing buzz words, marketing advice, marketing ideas, marketing buzzwords