Thisarticlewas originally published onBuilt InbyAlexander Lewis.
What is jargon, anyway?
For our purposes which include helping people at technical companies write clearly about their offerings that definition isnt practical.
Most of us only think of the word jargon in a negative sense.
Its something were supposed to avoid in our writing at all costs.
But thats not quite accurate.
After all, good writing and technical writing are not antonyms.
So where do we draw the line between jargon and necessary parlance?
We want our copy to be memorable and clear, without being dumbed down.
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Consider a phrase like business solution.
When used in a sentence (ABC Corp. delivers best-in-class business solutions), you lose the reader.
Theres nothing about the phrase to cause it to stick in the readers mind.
Asking a reader to visualize a business solution is like asking them to grab fog.
The carwash down the street isnt marketed as a water-based transformation solution for vehicles.
The operation is called a carwash.
Its the clearest, simplest, and most visual term for what is being offered.
When youve written a sentence about your product or company, do the visualization test.
Look at each word in the sentence and determine if your words have a visual counterpart.
Tactic #2: 1 point per sentence
Dont attempt to impress with long, comma-packed sentences.
If you have multiple points to make, save each of them for their own sentence.
Instead, slow down.
Simple is more memorable.
Just change your context.
Start writing about your product in the body of an email or in a physical notebook.
This practice gets you out of your own head.
It puts your mind at ease, allowing you to write using a more conversational tone.
Better yet, get on the phone with one of your best customers.
This is the first place I turn when starting a new website copywriting project.
Tactic #5:Answer Whats in it for me?
One of the most common causes of jargon is simply writing about details your customers dont care about.
This comes down to what many marketers call the difference between features and benefits.
Benefits are how your features positively impact the customer.
This is the famous iPod slogan, 1,000 songs in your pocket, in action.
While other music players were talking about gigabytes and storage, Apple cut to the chase.
Would they get excited about what you just wrote?
Or would they grimace and ask, Whats in it for me?
