Not everyone who works at a marketing agency is a copywriter.
Most of us might like to think of ourselves as a dab hand at the odd stanza or even a voracious reader with an OK vocabulary, but more often than not first drafts of creds decks and proposals are often cluttered with tired lines and clichés
... And despite drastic editing, one or two trite phrases always seem to creep into the final drafts too. How can you avoid it? Or should that be, what words should you be deleting from your linguistic Armada?
The situation you could say is worse for time poor agency-side staff, who write pitch presentations and case studies while suffering from the same problem- they're not copywriters.
So, imagine you’re a client-side marketing agency director reading through agency proposals on a Sunday afternoon (because your conference call schedule is too cluttered to allow for thoughtful consideration during the week).
Let us guess...
The first line of every agency sales pitch starts with something like, ‘We’re a top 100, award-winning integrated agency delivering unique and effective idea-led creative solutions to real life business problems.’ Yes, this really is the type of line we all write. Let's admit it. This is why having a good copywriter on my team is always so critical.
And while it’s impossible (and a bore) to capture every single phrase that lacks meaning here, we have made a start.
Words to avoid:
- Synergy
- Brainstorm
- Dedicated [to client success]
- Friendly
- Knowledgeable
- Integrity
- Mindshare
- Outside the box
- Quality
- Professional
- Unique
- Award-winning
- Innovator
- Best practice
- Breakthrough
- Turnkey
- Disruptive
- Social media expert
- ‘Top’ _____ agency
Bleugh. No thanks.
For those of you client-side, help to enlighten us and our agency friends, which words and phrases do you find tiring? And what kinds of phrases get agencies noticed?
