Hannah Meadows wakes up in a panic.
It’s wrong. It’s totally wrong. I’ve messed up.
During the previous days, Hannah had reread her collection of copywriting books. She studied sales pages to figure out what makes content sleazy, and what makes it persuasive.
Yesterday, late at night, she decided she had to stop procrastinating. She grabbed a bowl of salted peanuts, and poured a glass of whiskey to loosen up and make her words flow.
And yes, at last, her words flowed.
But were the words right?
In her nightmare, Hannah tries selling her new ecourse to passersby on Oxford Street. She tells them how fantastic the course is. That the videos follow industry-standard formats. And there are cutting-edge quizzes.
As the early sunrays peek through a gap between her curtains, Hannah wonders whether she’s losing her soul. Why does she impersonate a pushy salesman when writing her copy? Why is her copy full of gobbledygook?
What is gobbledygook?
In marketing, gobbledygook refers to catchphrases so overused they’ve lost their meaning. They make your writing sound hyped up. A tad untrustworthy.
In 2007, David Meerman Scott published The Gobbledygook Manifesto (pdf), in which he berates marketers and PR people for using gobbledygook. Based on an analysis of 388,000 press releases, he lists the most commonly used gobbledygook phrases including “flexible,” “robust,” “world class,” “scalable,” “easy to use,” “cutting edge,” “mission critical,” “market leading,” “industry standard,” “turnkey,” and “groundbreaking.”
Gobbledygook sneaks into our pages when we forget who we are, when we forget why we’re in business (to help!), and when we write for a faceless crowd rather than our favorite clients.
Gobbledygook makes a writing voice sound corporate rather than human. And what’s worse, gobbledygook doesn’t help buyers understand why they should buy from you.
How to spot gobbledygook
These three questions help you determine what’s gobbledygook:
1. Can you interpret this word in different ways?
Think about, for instance, the word “market-leading.” What does market-leading really mean? How do you define the market? And in what way are you leading it? I could easily claim to be the Dutch market leader in business writing education for solo service providers in the English language. But how meaningful is that?
Phrases like “high-quality product” and “excellent customer service” are also difficult to interpret. How do you visualize excellent customer service? A call center guy with a smile in his voice? A call center girl who actually solves your problem? Support by email 24 hours a day?
You and I can visualize service excellence in many different ways. And the same is true for phrases like “industry-standard” and “best-in-class”—they lack specificity.
When phrases lack specificity, they’re often gobbledygook.
2. Does the word sound hypey?
When is something truly “groundbreaking?” When is a new feature truly “innovative,” “world-class” or “awesome?”
If you’ve discovered a cure for cancer, go ahead and call your research groundbreaking. If you’re the first person to land on Mars, yep, that’s pioneering.
But if you’ve polished your product or fine-tuned your service, let customers do the talking for you. Get testimonials and ask them what they think of you and how your service has changed their life.
To avoid gobbledygook, be clear about what your product or service does for your customers, and illustrate with specific examples. Skip hyperbole.
3. Would you use the word in a conversation with a friend?
I don’t know about you, but when I talk to a friend about what I do, I don’t tell them I teach pioneering classes on business writing. I explain I teach business people how to write more persuasively; or I might say I help business people become more confident writers, and I help them find their voice so they can attract the right audience to their business.
When we’re among friends, we tend to use real words. We don’t use words to impress, but to express our ideas.
To eliminate gobbledygook, choose meaningful words and be so specific that readers can picture your content.
Want to write to impress and bamboozle your readers?
Use the gobbledygook generator from the Plain English campaign to add gobbledygook to your content. To impress your soccer friends, try their dedicated football gobbledygook generator.
Prefer to write gobbledygook-free content?
Try Unbounce’s Dejargonator (a chrome extension) to spot marketing speak in any online content.
Examples: How to turn gobbledygook into persuasive copy
Persuasive copy is specific, and it helps readers understand what you can do for them.
To turn hypey content into persuasive copy, follow these two steps:
- Make your feature concrete. For instance, how can your reader visualize high-quality service? What’s new and different about your groundbreaking app?
- Think about your favorite reader, and ask yourself: What does this mean for her? Why does this help her?
Here’s an example of gobbledygook:
Pioneering software from the market leader. Schedule your social media updates with our award-winning all-in-one app.
Why is this snippet gobbledygook?
The only real information in this fragment is that this app helps you schedule social media updates—this is fine as a feature, but the text doesn’t explain why this matters to readers. Moreover, the text features buzzwords like “pioneering,” “market leader,” and “award-winning all-in-one app.”
Here’s an alternative:
Save time with our new app. Schedule all your social media updates in one go.
Why is this better?
- The text is benefits-driven; “save time” is a powerful benefit.
- The feature is clear: “schedule all your social media updates in one go.”
- It’s plain English without gobbledygook.
Here’s another example of gobbledygook:
Make your life awesome with our world-class widgets
Why is this sentence gobbledygook?
Because it doesn’t tell us anything. We can’t visualize it. The only thing this sentence tells us is that it’s about widgets. So, let’s imagine what this widget might do for us:
Get more email subscribers with our drag-and-drop signup forms for WordPress
Why is this better?
- The text is benefits-driven; “get more email subscribers” is a specific benefit.
- The feature is clear: “drag-and-drop signup forms for WordPress.”
- It’s plain English without gobbledygook.
How to Write Persuasive Copy
Using gobbledygook is a sign of laziness, a lack of creativity, a way to bamboozle readers.
To write honest sales copy, give readers a real reason to buy from you and use concrete language.
Don’t impersonate an imaginary sales person.
Instead, tell people how you help them, and skip the phrases that don’t sound like you.
Be your good self.
Helpful. To the point. And engaging.
Recommended reading on an engaging writing style
How to write conversationally
How to avoid wordiness
How word choice influences your voice
I find these emails so helpful. Thanks Henneke
Thank you, Regina. That makes me happy 🙂
“We don’t use words to impress, but to express our ideas.” “Don’t impersonate an imaginary salesperson. Wow, powerful! With all these insights, I’m becoming a confident writer and my writing will definitely not be ‘groundbreaking” 😄but concrete and benefits-driven. Thanks a lot, Henneke. Looking forward to more inspiration from you.
Thank you! I’m glad you’re not planning to become a groundbreaking writer 😄; writing concrete and benefits-driven copy sounds much better. 🙂
Henekke, you are the Dale Carnegie of our generation.
Dale was on public speaking, you are a genius at persuasive writing.
Thanks for all your writings.
I think you should begin organizing conferences, tours and events on this you know how to do best.
In the 1960’s or 70’s, a Federal Government cabinet member, I think under Reagan, came from the business world and encountered significant government acronyms and gobbledegook he commissioned a book given to all managers in the agency on eliminating Gobbledygook. As a budding government internal auditor, I read about it, and ordered a copy not from the still non-existent internet, but from the US Government Printing Office. I found this article while searching to find a copy because mine disappeared years ago. Thanks for the article and the linking to the pdf on marketing gobbledygook. As a retired audit manager and watchdog blogger, I now encounter goggledegook in the school district meetings where academics talk about “rigor” and “high performing” related to Common Core. I also have written a white paper on marketing hype terms used by local political candidates.
Gobbledygook is everywhere! Getting rid of gobbledygook is a never ending struggle.
Thank you for writing this as it is tempting to write gobbledygook and no one will know what we are doing.
It happens so often that websites are full of gobbledygook!
Hi Henneke,
What a great reminder and thanks for sharing those tools. I wasn’t familiar with them so I’ll be checking them out.
Gobbledygook is present in a lot of online content. From the first time I heard that word here on your site, I looked up the meaning and have been seeing it more and more. I even point it out when watching TV and the commercials.
But even with all that, I know there are times in my writing, that I use gobbledygook. This isn’t on purpose but it’s something that I need to keep an eye on in the editing phase.
Thanks for this.
– Andrew
The tools are just for fun to play around with 🙂
And I’m glad you’re joining my mission to stamp out gobbledygook. None of us is perfect. But we can try!
Perfect article. Gobbledygook, ugh, it’s everywhere. Thank you so much for yet another inspiring article. I only had a few minutes to respond and wanted to be sure to send my congratulations on your 4 year anniversary. I look forward to reading your posts for many years to come. Have an awesome day.
Thank you so much for your anniversary wishes, Donna! I’m looking forward to many more years of writing and enchanting conversations in the comment section 🙂
Hi I am a Muslim (the reason why I put this is because I love my religion, and we are not terrorist as people think)
Next..
Thank’s Henneke, I’ve following your post about 1 month, and I really enjoy reading it and help me a lot in writing skills. Keep up good work.
Thanks
Happy writing, Andre. Thank you for stopping by 🙂
This is definitely one of those routine checks we business writers have to do.
Your article is a great checklist. Belongs on the wall, close by my computer.
Thank you also for recommending Metaphoric Selling in another of your recent posts. I got it, read it and have been applying it to great benefit.
I’m glad you enjoyed Metaphoric Selling! It’s on my list of favorite books for business writers 🙂
“Be your good self” summed this up beautifully for me. Gobbledygook be gone! Happy Birthday Enchanting Marketing, here’s wishing you a lifetime of Enchantment.
Thank you for your birthday wishes, Joan, and for turning up year in year out! 🙂
Yes, my first draft are always a nightmare (a second, too).
I also find that leaving it percolate for a couple of days is helpful. Makes me read it in disbelief—is it really mine?
I didn’t know about your website anniversary. Congratulations and many exciting years to come. ?
Today, it’s exactly 4 years ago since I published my first blog post here. Thank you for your anniversary wishes 🙂
And I know the feeling of disbelief—usually, have I written something this bad? And where do all these typos come from?
Happiest of Anniversaries!
Amazing how time flies, 4 years. Thank you so much for knocking the gobbledygook out of our writing for all that time.
Here’s to many more years of the same.
Cheers!
Note to self: whiskey & salted peanuts. 🙂
I was wondering whether people would comment on the whiskey. It’s not a tactic I’ve used, but I know some writers do. 🙂
Thank you for your anniversary wishes!
Hi Henneke – great reminder not to confuse readers with gobbledygook . My pet hate is “World best practice” used by people delivering “World worst practice”.
Yes, that’s a good addition. I’m not a fan of best practices either.
(I guess that’s because I like finding my own way 😉 )
I love your three simple questions to flush out the gobbledygook, the fun tools, and (always) your examples to illustrate the method. (Before reading this post, I was going to write “This post is awesome.”)
Happy 4th Year Anniversary to you and Enchanting Marketing, Henneke.
Thank you for your anniversary wishes, Gay. Isn’t it crazy how fast Enchanting Marketing is growing up? I still remember the day I launched as if it was just a few months ago!
Always good to see you again! 🙂
Hi Henneke,
It’s all too easy to slip into ‘gobbledygook mode’ when we become complacent in our writing.
Your third point about using these words in conversation with a friend is a real test. If we write as we speak, then we have a chance of writing some decent content.
Thanks
– David
PS – those Fun Tools made me laugh, especially the football jargon. I always cringe when I hear the pundits speaking like that 🙂
I like the football gobbledygook generator, too. I know some people (not pundits!) who talk like that 🙂
Thank you for stopping by to comment, David. I appreciate it! 🙂
Hihi, a mission critical post, I would say 😉
Great pamflet by Meerman Scott.
Yes, I did wonder … why has it taken me four years to write this post?!? 😉
Timely, to the point, and well penned, as usual.
Way to go! Happy Birthday, Enchanting Marketing. You’ve bypassed the average 4-year-old, you genius you!
What a lovely comment. Thank you so much, Bernice! I appreciate it 🙂
Happy 4th Anniversary to you Henneke! That’s a major accomplishment – i hope you’re celebrating with something fun. 🙂
It’s amazing how often gobbledygook sneaks into our writing. I think entrepreneurs do it a lot, because they see the big companies do it – and they think it works.
My favorite tip here is to just write the way you would talk to a friend.
It makes a major difference in tone.
Isn’t it crazy to celebrate Enchanting Marketing’s 4th birthday already? I sometimes still feel like a newbie!
I like your point about people using gobbledygook because big companies do it. There’s so much we, as small businesses, can do better than the big boys!
I sometimes wonder if people resort to gobbledygook (isn’t that just such an awesome word?!) because they’re not 100% sure of what their thing actually DOES. If you’re clear on its purpose/use/intention, then you can’t help but be clear on why people need it.
Yes, I agree with you – gobbledygook is a great word. I love the sound and rhythm of it.
I love the point you make about not being sure what a product does. It can be incredibly hard to define exactly what we do for a customer, so gobbledygook becomes the easy option.
Thank you for adding your thoughts, LJ. I appreciate it!
Henneke:
Curious if you – and your readers – may have suggestions for how to handle when the gobbledly gook IS the brand message and how you (subtly) get clients to embrace moving away from it. Of course, nothing ends the ‘argument’ like quantifiable success, but getting LOB marketers or channel marketers to be brave and test departure can be hard! How do you handle it?
In my experience, it’s difficult to persuade clients to move away from gobbledygook if it has become their default language – you may even hear them talking like that, not realizing that outside their circle, people don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.
It’s my experience – it might be that I am too impatient to embark on that task. I chose to work with the clients who resonated with my voice, so it was clear from the start they didn’t want a site full of gobbledygook (even though they might struggle themselves to write gobbledygook-free).
Henneke–Love this post. As content creators, writers and marketers, we forget to use plain language that people understand. When I worked for a major global bank, nothing I wrote sounded like a human being ever uttered the words. BTW–I didn’t know about David Meerman Scott’s manifesto on Gobbleygook. Happy marketing, Heidi Cohen – Actionable Marketing Guide
Banks and lawyers seem to be particularly good at using gobbledygook!
I think I first read the word gobbledygook on David Meerman Scott’s website. His manifesto is still surprisingly current. The same buzzwords are still around today.
Thank you for stopping by, Heidi!
I can relate to all of Alison’s comments. Left to my own device, I sink into gobbledygook as well.
When I read things back aloud, I often laugh at myself, as I would NEVER speak that way in real life. 🙂
Thanks for the fun tools, and a very happy birthday to EM!
P.S. Love the cigar smoking Henrietta! Looks like there should be a used car in the background…LOL! 😉
Ha! Yes, Henrietta seems to do quite well in impersonating a used car sales man 😉 I was surprised how recognizable she still is without her trademark orange & purple (or is that just me?)
Thank you for your birthday wishes 🙂
Good evening, Henneke!
Your 3 tips for eliminating gobbledygook from the copy I write for my clients are useful indeed. I have been guilty of using words such as innovative, novel, first-class, top-notch, and a host of others for the past four years. I intend to stop this! So I have saved your post in a Word file and put it in my “Write Better” folder for ready reference. Thanks for another great post!
That sounds great! Thank you for joining my mission to stamp out gobbledygook 🙂
Thanks Henneke for a timely reminder that “gobbledygook sneaks into our pages when we forget who we are, when we forget why we’re in business (to help!)”.
Getting things down in our clients’ own words seems to be the only solution for me. Left to myself I end up gobbledegook-ing things up. Clearly I read too much over-hyped copy and it has percolated deep inside me. |sigh|
I find it weird how I can spot hype from a mile off in a sales letter or on someone else’s site, but so often need a smack to the back of my head before I realise I am falling into the same trap.
Thanks for the funny tools — I typed Happy Birthday to You into the Generator and got this back:
“Forward-looking companies invest in quality relative time-phases.”
😀
😀
Happy birthday to Enchanting Marketing!
Congrats to you for making it in this crazy online world.
“I find it weird how I can spot hype from a mile off in a sales letter or on someone else’s site, but so often need a smack to the back of my head before I realise I am falling into the same trap.”
Yes, this is such an interesting phenomenon; I have experienced it, too. The solution I found is to let writing percolate for a few days, and then try to look at it with totally fresh eyes, imagining I’d see it for the first time as if it been written by someone else for me. Reading aloud can help, too.
Also, the better we get at detecting gobbledygook in other people’s writing, the easier it becomes to spot our own, too. So, practice helps, too. For some reason, first drafts often become convoluted and full of gobbledygook, so it’s a normal process to eliminate the jargon and filler words, and to rewrite using more meaningful phrases.
Thank you for your birthday wishes. It feel crazy that Enchanting Marketing has survived for 4 years… sometimes I still feel like a newbie!
Reading your article was perfect timing for me! I’m about to re-vamp my site, almost ready to go – and all of a sudden I realized – this is NOT ME. The artwork, the photos, the hard-sell!!! My copy was in the middle – taking advice from others, I was re-doing myself to be Some0ne Else and some of that leaked out into my usually-clear-to-me wording.
Though this is mainly about copy, it’s ultimately about the way we want to express ourselves. VERY USEFUL ADVICE!!!!
For me, a good way to test my work is to think – Would I feel squeamish presenting this to my BFFs, my kids, my partner(s), my private practice clients (I’m a therapist)? Would I have to justify or explain it further? These people are my intimates, with whom I feel free to be Me, in all my power and vulnerability. They are my litmus test.
Big fail with this one … back to the drawing board.
Just in time!
thanks!!!!!!!!
Yes, that’s a great way to think about it… if you feel squeamish presenting it to clients, then perhaps it needs some rework.
Having said that … when I first launched my Enchanting Marketing site, I was so nervous about it, I hoped that nobody I knew would see it!
Good luck with revamping your site, Therese. And thank you for stopping by.
Good morning, Henneke!
I needed this great reminder! Getting ready to re-do an entire site, and these words of yours need to be in my mind the whole time! (Wouldn’t it be grand to fix the site, finally, so I never need go over it all, again?!)
One trouble I think I know how to solve is that I have two ideal clients: the women I would speak to, and the (almost always) men who would actually do the hiring. I foresee two differing sets of gobbledygook, and a leaning to addressing the women’s needs, instead of the conference planner. And vice-versa, of course. I’m thinking of yet another site. Just what I need. 😉 I will figure that part out, but it is refreshing to have clear direction about hype words, and all those links! Thanks.
Yes, Katharine! I’m with you on this edge. So curious as to how you will figure this out! Ha! I’m thinking anima, animus and the connunctio (the feminine aspect of men, the masculine aspect of women, the union of the 2). But that’s my language! Great luck with all this!
Well, I get that, but I write to and speak almost completely to women, so… Thanks for your good wishes! Ha!
Actually, I think Henneke can see the real question, as she has shown, below. If I am popular enough with the women, they will find a way to get me as a speaker. And as I thought about this awhile, I realized they often are the ones who actually do the choosing, so maybe I am worrying about something that does not matter much? I hope!
“Wouldn’t it be grand to fix the site, finally, so I never need go over it all, again?!”
Uhm … I do think websites need to be refreshed and updated from time to time, so it’s probably impossible to fix it forever. There’s a benefit to that, too: if you don’t get it quite right this time (and don’t we all think it’s not quite right?), then you can improve next time!
In your case, do the women suggest whom to hire or do the men do the vetting?
Henneke, I think the women could suggest, ask, or even gang up on the hiring person. 😀 That is a good question! And it helps me see the answer, I think.
Great! 🙂