1. Bragging

Have you ever felt like buying from a salesperson who answered your questions by bragging about how good he was and how many awards he’d won?

No.

Nor has anybody else I’ve asked. Yet so much corporate content is mere bragging, even though it’s guaranteed to chase customers away.

“We’re the best; buy from us. We won this award; buy from us. These companies have already bought from us, so you should too.”

A smart salesperson doesn’t have to brag. She delivers so much value that her customers brag to others about her.

 2. Same old introduction

How many times have you read corporate marketing content that looks like what corporate marketers believe corporate marketing content ought to look like?

You know the kind, which had to be approved by many, and consequently has become so boring no one wants to read it.

It begins, “In these competitive times, you need/want/have to blah blah blah…”

Ho freaking hum.

Does that make you want to read further?

Nope. I’m already bored with that line… I was so afraid of boring you I placed it second.

 3. Mission Statement

How realistic does your mission statement sound? (Can you remember it?)

When’s the last time you heard someone say, “I bought from them, because I fell in love with their mission statement”?

Never.

Goals are great to have… for you and your organization. Your customers don’t care about your goals however. They care only about what you can do for them. Therefore your marketing has to show what you can do for them.

 4. Rebranding

Announcing a rebranding is possibly the most self-indulgent reason for generating content (notice I typed generating instead of creating).

Rebranding announcements prove two things about the proud owners of new and expensive logos…

1. They are bereft of marketing creativity, so they do what everybody else does.

2. They are sufficiently delusional as to believe anyone else gives a crap about their new logo.

Sure… when it comes to clothes, vehicles and personal items, everybody has brand preferences. But when considering an expensive purchase, does the seller’s logo affect your judgement?

“We were going to buy a new technical solution from Seller A, but when Seller B unveiled a new logo we bought from them instead,” said NO ONE EVER.

 5. Jargon

Plenty of content contains jargon, which I prefer to call corporate bullshoney.

Understandably one might insert a buzzword or two in a headline, in effort to attract a member of your ideal market or repel a non-member.

The problem is that jargon can overwhelm your true message… becoming instead an ego trip of industry-specific words that pile up into a wall…

“Our best of breed solution is architected to proactively disseminate robust deliverables. Utilizing our client-centric innovation and combining methodologies with tactical imperatives renders bleeding edge paradigms of core competencies that are truly out of the box.

“Conceptualizing a holistic interface harnesses enterprise-wide granularity, while simultaneously revolutionizing next-generation mission-critical streamlined synergies. This low-bandwidth dashboard interfaces with an innovative, target-rich ecosystem of which we’re absolutely certain, because we eat our own dog food. Going forward, let’s take this offline.”

Sure, go ahead and laugh at a vocabulary refuse pile written by those desperate to prove they’re as good as “the cool kids” of the industry.

If you feel the need to build a jargon wall to show how intelligent/hip/cool you are… who is your wall keeping out?

You can do better

Creating interesting content that delivers your message is simple. All it takes is a content creator who knows what questions to ask the…

1. Engineers who designed it.

2. Salespeople who have listened to why customers buy it.

3. Customers who’ve bought it. It takes experience to uncover reasons for buying that those too close to the product are not aware of. At least one otherwise-undiscovered reason always exists. Always.

After gathering sufficient information from research and interviews, this content creator communicates the benefits of your product and service to potential customers in ways they a) appreciate, b) understand, and c) one other thing I’ll share another time.

While those steps are simple, they’re not easy. Maybe that’s why so much content is boring?

Tell me what you think in the comments section on LinkedIn.