bad words

We ended the previous post: “You’ll be the exception to the dead marcom on innumerable websites in innumerable industries [when you communicate in a real, human voice.]”

This voice requires that you stop using the bad words that have that taken on a life of their own in B2B. You won’t find them anywhere except in traditional, hot-air marcom, for the most part, except a few, like “impact,” which is always wrong in marcom and weather reports. The correct word is “effect” or “effects.” And, “due to,” which is everywhere even though “because” is correct. And, the new one that has sneaked in, “verse,” in place of “versus.”

Bad words have lost all meaning to your customers because of their repetitive use on B2B websites throughout the land. Only the C-suite and marcom teams think they’re cool. They’re the opposite of cool. They’re pure filler—the padding for bloated web pages, case studies, press releases, white papers, and videos—and the reason why B2B marcom is dead.

Copy, paste, and print the bad word list below. You have my permission. Put the list on your wall. Make a vow—right here, right now—not to use them in your copy. You don’t need to tell anyone. Be the voice of simple communications; that’s all your customers want. And, they’ll appreciate the clarity.

A: advanced, aforementioned, agile, aids, align, amazing, anyways, articulate, as well, at the end of the day, award-winning

B: bandwidth, benchmark, best, best practices, best-in-class, best-of-breed, biggest, breakthrough, built-for-purpose

C: capability, capabilities, circle back, committed to, culminated, customer-centric, cutting-edge

D: deliver, designed to, disruptive, drill down, dynamic, due to

E: easy to use, elite, empower, empowerment, end-to-end, etc., exclusive, execute, extensive, extraordinary

F: fastest, fit-for-purpose, flexible, flexibility, focus, frictionless

G: game changer, game-changing [adjective], groundbreaking, growth hacking

H: highly skilled, holistic, however

I: impact, impair, incorporate, innovating, innovation, innovative, iterate, inventive

J: jumpstart, juncture, just, juxtaposition

L: largest, leader, leading, leading-edge, leading provider, legendary, leverage

M: market-leading, milestone-based, mission critical, modernize, modular

N: never before, new and improved, next-generation

O: one-of-a-kind, orient, oriented, out of the box, outside of the box, outperform

P: paradigm, paradigm shift, parameter(s), performance-driven, pioneering, plagued, powerful, premier, proactive, propagate, provide, purpose-built

R: radical, raise the bar, rectify, results-driven, revolutionary

S: savvy, seamless, smart, solution(s), solution-driven, spearhead, state-of-the-art, synergy, synergistic

T: techniques, terrific, therefore, thus, tools and techniques, top, top down, trailblazing, transformative, tremendous

U: unique, user friendly, utilize, world-leading

V: value-added, verse [versus is correct], viability, visionary

W: well-positioned [adjective], whatever, whenever, wherever, whilst, whoever, win-win, world-class

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