Your press release will not be effective if it doesn’t make sense to readers. Avoid jargon and get your message across.
A large corporation put out a press release which included the following “quote” from an executive:
“(This acquisition) will enable us to accelerate significantly our existing information technology strategy. It will enhance our capabilities and critical mass in systems integration, widen our IT skills and create revenue synergies in many of our core competencies.”
“Accelerate significantly?” “Create revenue synergies?” Does anybody really talk this way? I hope not.
The “core competency” (sheesh!) of marketing is communication. Often, writers use jargon because they think it sounds more impressive than simple language. But readers won’t be impressed if they can’t understand what you’re talking about. Do you think it makes you seem smarter? Isn’t it more intelligent to make sure your message gets through to its audience?
A professor once published a scholarly paper in a journal in which he proved that the universe does not exist. It was a joke, loaded with a bunch of meaningless buzzwords and overworked phrases. No one noticed that it was a joke. They were so used to seeing page after page of jargon, that apparently no one even read it or tried to figure out what he was saying. They just published it.
Do you want people to read and understand your message? Communicate it in simple language and keep it short.
