God help us all. Almost every word of 91 is a cliché or marketing waffle or both – with seven uses of the word strategy or its derivatives. Only one fact is missing: “Cannot write for toffee”.
In their excellent book “Writing that Works” my former colleagues Ken Roman and Joel Raphaelson tell of a revealing study.
U.S. business leaders were asked what aspect of business they would most like to see improved. The majority simply said “Please can someone teach people to write better”.
That was some years ago. As education has got worse and people read fewer books, so has writing deteriorated. And nowhere more than in that great slough of bilge, the marketing industry.
Here’s how someone who offers marketing services describes themselves.
• Strategic consulting, including marketing plan & sales strategy development
• Develop end-to-end strategic direct marketing solutions for B2B and B2C Clients
• Develop integrated lead generation, retention and acquisition strategies using digital and offline media to drive results and ROI
• Develop and manage B2B database solutions for clients
• Provide media plan and marketing strategies based on data analysis and analytics
• Manage Agency Services team including creative development, copywriting, data analytics
• Responsible for marketing strategy and execution for DMS
• Provide thought leadership for clients and internal teams in emerging technologies, media, and integration strategies
Angels and ministers of grace defend us! What do you have to do to write as badly as that? If you ignore words like “and” and “in” it is almost all jargon.
Imagine sitting in a meeting with that person! Imagine reading a report they wrote.
I am utterly sure that as people write, so they think. If they write tedious, unimaginative piffle, devoid of originality, that is the kind of thinking they will give you.
Yet this is not the exception in marketing. It is the rule.
If you can write better you will do better.
And now that I’ve got this far let me suggest one small step in the right direction. It is called How to Write and Persuade.
I swear I didn’t plan to mention it when I began writing this. I just can’t help myself. I really did it to piss off the clowns at the Content Marketing Institute who say you should just write helpful stuff and never try to sell because it upsets people.
Are you upset? Did I ruin your day? Do tell me.
Have you read a job description for pretty much any job out there recently? It doesn’t take long to find evidence to suggest why people feel they need to write like this when selling themselves.
Here are a few bullets from a job description I received only yesterday:
Core responsibilities:
• Manage your team’s customer book of business
• Foster strategic relationships with senior, exec level customer contacts
• Create account plans and manage oneself and a team to the documented plans
• Manage the financial aspects of assigned book of business: revenue, PSO commercials, cross sell / upsell
Knowledge, Skills & Experience:
• 8+ years’ account management experience in ASP
• 5+ years’ experience with email, CRM and database marketing
• 2+ years’ experience managing people in a SaaS environment
• Ability to effectively interact with cross functional teams/management
and then they have the cheek to ask for……
• Strong communication and presentation skills (both oral and written)
I have read job ads before where the employer is guilty of using jargon that I’m fairly sure doesn’t actually exist outside of their own company or department! I can only assume the writer uses the terms either because they can’t remember what it’s like to work for anyone else or because they get some sort of sick thrill from the idea that candidates would read it and worry that they were deeply inferior because they had no idea what it all meant! If you excluded every job description like this on the grounds that whoever wrote must be a dreadful bore there wouldn’t be anything left to apply for.
So I can understand why good people might sometimes concede defeat (knowingly or otherwise) and join the bullsh1t brigade.
This is very funny and absolutely true.
I did write a while ago about why I never use employment bureaux – their outrageous fees, the fact that they cannot possibly understand what I want as well as I do – and gave an example of an ad I wrote in about half an hour and ran, free, on Gumtree.
It got me over 60 replies and one very good P.A. Quite a few people wrote in saying how much they enjoyed the ad.
I think it was headed Miserable Old Git Seeks P.A.
I have just stumbled across the ad I ran that did so well. One applicant said she read and reread it because she enjoyed it so much. Many commented on it.
Wanted: brilliant, long-suffering PA – to work from home for demanding old git
The pay is nothing special, but you may find it interesting.
I am a writer, speaker, travel a lot, pretty disorganised, allegedly one of the best in the world at what I do.
I need someone to make up for my many inadequacies.
You must be literate, numerate, good at PowerPoint, resourceful, a good organiser (of me and what I do), good with people and prepared to put up with someone who may ring you at odd hours.
You must understand the internet. If, like Chloe who has been doing the job but is emigrating you also understand anything about video that would be even better.
You will never be bored, but often confused. As far as I know everyone who has done this job (only 5 in the last 34 years) enjoyed it. You can ask Chloe about it if you get on the short list.
Age is not important. The oldest doing this job was 58; the youngest, 22. The reason for the ad is that I’m closing down my London office and going to work at home in Bristol.
Please write an e-mail telling me about yourself to (address)