Lingo-lovers Lose. A Cautionary Tale…

A quiet morning in St. Louis, MO, USA.

Your friendly neighborhood storytelling expert sits at his desk, peacefully interacting with some new connections on LinkedIn when…

…the alarm sounds…

…The Lingo Alarm.

Here’s the LinkedIn post that triggers it…

(Our company) delivers expertise, market experience and a proven track record in bio-based composite manufacturing (masterbatch, extrusion and molding), supply chain and products. With Innovative patented bio-mass technologies and bio-plant based pigment…we…can offer customers hemp and plant derived sustainable solutions as a drop-in eco-technology and bio-product replacement in a multiplicity of products and industrial platforms. Sequestering carbon and reducing a product or companies carbon footprint.

I read the post…

…and then I read it again…

…and then again…

And I still have no idea what this company does.

(They lost me at “bio-based composite manufacturing…”)

I’d been introduced to the guy who posted it so I ask him, “Who’s your target market?” 

His reply: “…the target market is the planet.” 

(Sigh! Not helpful!)

So I visit the company’s website, searching for clues. 

And the alarm sounds again.

“(Our product) is a hemp biochar – recognized by the IPCC as a Negative Emission Technology (NET),” the site proclaims.

(Sigh! Not helpful!)

I grab my dictionary and look up “biochar” 

bi·o·char (/ˈbīōˌCHär/)
nouncharcoal produced from plant matter and stored in the soil as a means of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

(Now we’re getting somewhere)

I scroll down and find some coherent, lingo-free copy on the website:

For over 150 years, crude oil has been burned to create ‘carbon black’, the black pigment used in virtually everything from tires to shoes, fabrics to cosmetics, from inks to personal electronics. This crude and polluting process is still used to color and pigment billions of products because there isn’t a sustainable alternative…

…Until now.

Now we’re really getting somewhere)

And then at the very bottom of the page, in small print, I see:

“We are part of a shared global mission to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions…Whether you are a consumer, an investor or a manufacturer, we can make the world better together.”

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

That’s the sound of a lingo-free, prospect-focused marketing statement. 

And (sigh!) it’s buried at the bottom of the web page.

So…after all that sleuthing, I’m ready to translate that LinkedIn post: 

Environmentally conscious consumers and manufacturers choose (our company) to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming. Our hemp-based products and patented technologies replace polluting, crude-oil-based manufacturing processes with clean solutions that help to save the planet. 

I won’t rewrite the whole thing. But you get the idea. 

Simple lessons here: 

Drop the lingo. (If your audience needs a dictionary to decode your message, they’ll tune out and move on.)

Know your target market (“The planet” is NOT a target market).

Focus on your prospects and WHY they should care (“…reduce their carbon footprint…save the planet.”).

By the way, I know a manufacturer who implemented environmentally-friendly solutions not because he thinks he’s saving the planet, but because the government mandated it. 

“We can make the world better together” won’t move this guy. 

He’s all about cost-savings and efficiency. So there’s a different story for him: Meet government mandates on time, with greater efficiency, and less cost. 

You have to know your prospects and the journey they wish to take if you want to get the story right.