B2B jargon: problems and solutions
B2B: a linguistic Wild West
In France, there's an organisation called the Académie Française which is sometimes described as a ‘language watchdog’ or even 'the French language police’.
Established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the Académie consists of 40 people called ‘les immortels’ who meet regularly to maintain the rules for the French language.
They have a particular focus on preventing too many English words from entering common use in France. Here is a list of ‘banned’ English words and terms:
- “ASAP” – banned: January 6th, 2014
- “Deadline” – banned: December 3rd, 2012
- “Hashtag” – banned: January 26th, 2013
- “LOL” – banned: December 4th, 2014
Despite many in the profession hoping that a regulatory body might intervene to ban the use of terms like 'synergy', 'deep dive' and 'leverage', there is no B2B Cardinal Richelieu, no Académie, and no 40 'immortals' presiding over the correct use of jargon.
Instead, we have a lawless semantic frontier, filled with inconsistent meanings and usage, as well as the constant creation of new words and concepts.
Like a Wild West saloon, this anarchic atmosphere can be fun, but it can also pose problems.
Problem #1: People use the same terms but mean different things
Take the following common B2B terms:
- lead
- nurture
- demand generation
- opportunity
- prospect
- prospecting
- account-based marketing
- growth marketing
- revenue marketing
Depending on who is using them, they can mean significantly different things.
Factors like the company, industry, or geography that someone works in, or someone's level of experience, or someone's agenda, can all affect what people mean when they use a particular B2B term.
When people use the same term but mean different things, we end up with confusing conversations.
Every day, thousands of LinkedIn posts containing jargon are written, and people may agree or disagree with what's being said. However, because so many of the terms used have such broad or differing meanings, people may not be agreeing or disagreeing with what the author meant. Often if you read comments below jargon-heavy posts, you'll get the sense that many of the people are talking about different things while assuming they're talking about the same thing.
More significantly, most B2B companies will work with external vendors who provide products or services to support their go to market efforts. Today, it's likely that hundreds of companies around the world will be kicking off work with a new agency, and agreeing targets and setting expectations together.
These may be based on very shaky ground as a result of the client and agency using the same terms but meaning different things. For example, the client and agency might be talking about an initiative aimed at generating opportunities. The agency might consider someone meeting with sales to be an opportunity; the client might consider an opportunity to be when a defined project has been scoped and there is a clear sense of the potential financial value.
A six month initiative might get underway and the results at the end may look far better or worse based purely on how terms are being defined.
Problem #2: Jargon creates barriers
When people say things like:
- “how can we drive more engagement?”
- “how can we generate more MQLs?”
Instead of saying:
- “what can we do to encourage more people to read our blog?”
- “how can we increase the number of people who attend our monthly webinar?”
It creates a distance between what’s being said and what’s being done. This distance and an avoidance of talking about tangible, specific and real stuff, makes it harder to empathise and connect with the customer or audience, and therefore do good work.
The use of jargon can also alienate people who are not familiar with certain terms because they’re arriving into a situation from a different context, or are new to the profession. For example, if someone changes industry, company or geography, they may not know some of the jargon being used, or will have a different understanding of what it means. It then takes longer for people in this position to become productive, and to feel at home.
Solutions
The solution isn’t to stop using jargon entirely.
Many of the terms, despite being confusing, are valid concepts. For example, much as ‘account-based marketing’ is a very broad concept that can mean vastly different things to people, it does describe a form of B2B marketing that is defined at an account level. And it is the most simple and appropriate term to use. Some jargon is the best (or only) way to describe something.
Within companies it is sometimes helpful to create and use labels for things that are complex, and that would be inefficient to say or write literally every time. For example, many companies have various acronyms that act as labels for different stages of the marketing and sales funnel (eg MQL, SQL, SQO). As long as everyone knows what each of these acronyms means, it can save a lot of time and make measurement and reporting easier.
The fact that anyone in B2B can see marketing and sales in a new way, and create concepts and terms to share that vision with the profession, is invigorating and fun. If a little confusion is the price that needs to be paid for interesting or playful notions like Stein IAS’ "Post-Modern Marketing" or The Marketing Practice’s “The Long and The Quick", then it’s probably worth it.
The solution is to use jargon responsibly, which means following these two golden rules:
- Use literal language unless there’s a good reason not to
- If you use jargon, make sure that everyone involved knows what you mean
