Marketing is developing new words, phrases and activities like its going out of fashion.
Every industry does it, whether you sweep the streets, pass judgment on the prosecuted or talk at the despatch box there will be a language of convenience that develops amongst people who spend all day together, talking about the same things.
Marketing, especially with the evolution of internet marketing, has become increasingly technical and this has resulted in the creation of brand new terms, brand new activities and brand new job titles. Ten years ago nobody googled, browsing only ever happened in the African Veld or Libraries, link building took place exclusively in chain factories and I don’t know anyone that was employed as a Webmaster, Blogger or Reputation Manager.
Marketing is constantly reinventing itself to keep itself fresh, alluring, attractive, and, dare I say it – billable. Marketing has developed a language of it’s own, that makes sense. What causes the problem in marketing is the marketing industries terrible habit of talking absolute rubbish at the best of times.
We have been aware of this for a long time, which is why I once translated my 60 seconds at a BNI into Spanish, to make the point that your marketing people shouldn’t be hiding behind confusing language, technobabble or jargon. What I wasn’t aware of is that I am as guilty as anyone else, that is until it was pointed out to me recently.
So we have decided to do something about it. What I have decided to do is create a glossary of marketing terms; all the jargonistic words, phrases and achronyms and provide definitions that will make sense to the whole population. So the next time you find yourself sitting down with your marketing people you will at least have some sense of what they are saying.
Come back next week if you haven’t got a blogging clue about MARKETING.
