Danger Words that Savvy Marketers Never Use

I had breakfast with a CEO a couple of weeks ago. Together we looked at a company’s website, and he said, “Oh no, that’s a danger word.” He was referring to a phrase in one of the headlines on this site, “real value” — as opposed to pretend value? Ironically, the fact that the writer felt the need to clarify the value is authentic made my friend think that maybe the value of the business is actually in question.

Perhaps it was just meant for emphasis. After all, Americans love to add adjectives! But that phrase made me wonder if it was an ironic Freudian slip. Danger words are to prose like a record scratch is to a song. Yikes!

When I see these words on a company’s website, I know at best they need help with product marketing, and at worst, they don’t know what they are doing.

Here is a list of words I urge you to take out of your writing. Make like Marie Kondo. Thank them for their service and let them go.

• Real value

• Smart money — no I want dumb money

• Thought leader — real thought leaders have professional titles

• Influencer — unless you actually have 10,000+ followers on IG, step back

• Innovation — innovative companies don’t have to announce they are innovating

• Authentic — unless we are talking about antiques

• The cloud — this used to mean something but is suffering from over-use and now means nothing

• Platform —your startup is probably not a platform (Beware: sometimes people get very mad at me when I say this.)

• Synergy — unless you mean it ironically because if you use this people will either laugh with you or at you

• Big Data — no I want tiny data

• Machine Learning or AI — many companies mean they plan to have machine learning… someday

• Disrupt — suggests foolish optimism and means your company is in the seed stage. Especially scary for enterprise customers.

Cut the fat

While you are at it, just cut these garbage words, too. They say, sorry my body is in the office but my brain has left the building.

• Level up

• Circle back

• Wheelhouse

• Boil the ocean

• Percolate/marinate

• Add some color to it

• Work your magic — do I look like Rumplestiltskin?

• Aligned

• Incentivize

• Touch base

• Omni-channel

• Loop in

• Optics

• Grock — I am embarrassed for you.

• Hack — 2005 called and wants its word back.

Full disclosure, I am guilty of saying words on this list. I get it, jargon feels so good — like a shortcut, but we can do better!