Every so often I have a fight with a client over language. Or verbage, as I often hear (and shudder when I do).
They want to use words like “quality” and “value” and “consumer” in their copy and I get itchy. First off, can anyone define what “providing value” actually means? And why would anyone care? If you tell a prospect your company provides great value, what exactly are you saying? If you say you’ve been providing quality service for 37 years, what are you saying other than you’ve been around for 37 years?
These are shortcuts. Cheap shots. To me, they’re a sign that you’ve given uptelling true stories about how good you really are. You’re saying “we’re good” and expecting your reader to accept that JUST because you had the audacity to say it.
Tell a story. Give your readers a reason to think you’re providing value and quality and all those other buzzwords. Let THEM believe it from getting to know you. Dig in deep into your offering and find what actually matters to your audience. Ask them why they chose you and take those stories and share them. We all get attached to stories and learn from them.
Imagine you’re good looking and charming and you walk into a bar, grab the mike from the band and announce “EXCUSE ME EVERYONE. I’M REALLY GOOD LOOKING AND CHARMING!”
All they would believe is that you were a moron.
But if you really ARE good looking and charming, your looks will draw them in and your charm will keep them there.
By the way, that awful “Quality in Action” graphic was floating around the web. I did a search for “quality” in Google images and found hundreds, no thousands of awful graphics like this peppered on sites everywhere.
An Ad Guy wept.
