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Recent research puts marketing fourth in the rogues’ gallery of most jargonistic industries, right behind legal. Is it time to clean up? Propellernet’s Charlotte Brown thinks so.
CMS, CRM, SEO, KPI, ROI… the list of acronyms in the marketing world just keeps going. To those of us who work in the industry, these are terms that we use every day. They’re a part of the unique language that helps us to get the job done.
However, new research by Yell Business has revealed that marketing and PR is the fourth-most confusing industry for outsiders or newcomers, shown by the number of searches made to help people understand this marketing ‘language’ on Google. In fact, CRM (8.4m searches) even topped the charts as the one acronym people search for the most, across 27 industries. Other terms like CMS, API and ‘algorithm’ all make it into the top ten most searched-for terms.
Of course, there are a lot more marketers in the world than, say, filmmakers. But the data does back up the stereotype that marketers love a buzzword.
What does this mean for marketers?
Jargon is part of any job and may be seen as the most efficient way of communicating with industry peers. But the reality is that it can make things less clear. This is particularly true for those working agency-side, where clients often aren’t as marketing-literate.
For example, we work with many small and medium-sized businesses where the founder or chief executive plays a large role in our work and is a key contact on a day-to-day basis. While some people in this position may be well-versed in marketing, there’s a good chance they are not. As a result, communicating through a series of acronyms and marketing buzzwords is likely to lead to crossed wires and leave them feeling unclear about what’s being discussed. As a study in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology demonstrated (in the context of scientific articles aimed at the general public), jargon reduced people’s engagement with the…
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