Jargon Killed the White Paper Rockstar

In B2B technology marketing, it’s easy to slip into jargon like a well-worn pair of jeans. After all, the audience is already well-versed in technology, so it seems like all those big, fancy words are all familiar friends to them, too. But with the alphabet soup of technology already swirling around in their heads, the last thing these decision makers need is a hearty helping of marketing jargon in the white papers they read.Most B2B technology companies and their marketing departments don’t even realize they’re doing this, peppering white papers and case studies with words like “scalable,” “robust,” and “solution.” Some of these words are so reviled that technology journalists are forbidden to use them, and for good reason.What, exactly, is a robust, scalable solution? It sounds awesome when a white paper writer uses it, but it doesn’t tell the reader how being “robust” and “scalable” will actually make the product a “solution” that the reader can install in his* already strained IT system.

Of course, he’s excited to find something that would make his job easier; most IT managers are. But he won’t know how it will make his job easier, unburden his already bare-bones staff, and let him get home in time for dinner and his daughter’s t-ball game if we don’t explain it to him. How about calling the product what it really is, e.g., a cloud-based data analytics software package that sits on top of your existing Oracle or SAP database, extracts data thoroughly, and enables near real-time processing so you can view reports on a simple, customizable dashboard? It’s a longer description of the software as a service (SaaS) offering, but it tells our IT manager what it actually does, rather than stringing together a bunch of buzzwords.

“Hey, this is intriguing!” he’ll say. And then he’ll keep reading our jargon-free white paper to learn that the product also can be deployed in 10 business days. “Oh, my goodness! I won’t have to pull a whole bunch of programmers off the database upgrade!”

You’ve just made his day, and he’ll email or pick up the phone to schedule a demo because he understands what you’re trying to tell him.

*I used the male pronoun in this example because most IT decision makers today are male. I fully expect this to change as more women enter STEM fields.