There are several fuzzy words that people use in marketing far too often.  By fuzzy words, I mean words that have a vague meaning or many meanings, or perhaps just are so overused that they’ve become ‘ho-hum,’ so that no one pays attention.  Whether you’re writing a Friday ad on an email list, an ad in a magazine or newspaper, doing some marketing on the radio, or writing a flyer or brochure, the point of writing advertising copy is to get your point across.  You must get it across so clearly that the reader knows exactly what you are offering and what it does for them¾and in an interesting way. 

Fuzzy words make your message ambiguous or unclear, hard to understand or just boring.  Let’s look at a few examples.   

Great.  There are 18 or more definitions for the word great.  Besides which, it’s used all the way from something was ‘just ok’ to something is phenomenal.  There are better words to choose from.  Use a dictionary or use the synonym feature in MS Word.  You do that by putting your cursor on the word, right click and go to ‘synonym’ at the bottom of the menu. 

Style.  What kind of style?  Do you mean couture style or punk style?   Is it stylish in the way of business casual or black tie?  Do you mean an animal fits in a current preferred trend or has it some specific conformational traits.  Does style mean a technique for doing things or does it mean chic?  Get specific. 

Proven.  Do you mean she has demonstrated fertility or won certain awards, or do you have some scientific studies to back up a particular claim?   

Quality.  Overworked and overstated so often, no one believes it anyway.  Also, quality means different things to different people.  It needs to be defined narrowly.  Are you talking about food quality that is correlated with scientific requirements (bacteria count in milk, for instance)?  Is it about the sturdiness of the workmanship?  Is your quality about winning recognition (blue ribbons) or about the décor on the wall (fiber artwork)?  Quality is one of the fuzziest of words.  Find a different way to get your idea across. 

Important.  Overworked word, and besides just who is it important to,  you or the customer?   

Hand made.  Another cliché sort of term that’s very overworked.  It can also mean amateurish, so find a better way to say it, like hand crafted (slightly better) crafted carefully by hand, made by artisans, one-of-a-kind,  artistically distinctive, irreplaceably memorable …there are a thousand ways to say it.    

Unique.  Unique is a little like hand crafted above.  It’s a word that’s over used  and often used in reference to things that are not actually unique.  It means one-of-a-kind, no other like it.  Not many animals or products truly fall into that category.  Besides the tonal quality of the word might not have pizzazz enough for what you want to get across.   If you really have something unique, find other ways to say so.  No other like it, exclusive, limited edition, matchless.   

Super.  Too, too overused from Super Bowl to super size and super star.  Find some other words that get your idea across. 

My friend Elizabeth Fischer says in her book, “What’s in it For Me?” to pretend every word you use in your marketing costs you a hundred dollars each.  If you think about words that way, you’ll probably be more careful and be sure they mean something clear, to the point and interesting to your customer.  Get specific and do not use clichés!