Trendy Words

Far too often, "exclusive" isn't exclusive.It's a word that *sounds" good, which leads some to thinking that sounding good is all that is required to sell something.That probably worked at a time when exclusive usually carried meaning. But if that that time existed, it's long past. It's slapped on every marketing email, flyer, and phone pop-up, and there is almost never anything exclusive, nothing to feel special about.But that doesn't mean exclusive can't be rehabilitated.I sit down with email marketing strategist Sarah Stiffin on where it all went wrong for poor little 'exclusive,' and what we can do to restore real meaning to the word.Sarah's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahstiffin/Sarah's Instagram: @sarahstiffin

 2025 has been a right year for absolute nonsense. We name things using marketing words that aren't factually accurate. Critical thinking across the industry is at all-time low. Things that aren't marketing are being called marketing. And what's left is being used to focus on things that marketing often has the least influence.Jon McGreevy and I round out 2025 with a highlight of AI, digital literacy, and the realities of businesses in the B2B and tech sector, and what we think needs to change if 2026 is going be better.SaaSy as Fuck Podcast: https://saasyasfuck.substack.com/Jon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thatwriterjon/Jon's website's: jonmcgreevy.com 

So much of our culture and formal education has encouraged and rewarded us to use "fancy" words when explaining things -- words that show off our education, make us feel sophisticated and important. But almost all of this notion fails when it comes to marketing, and it's a challenging process to unlearn that way of thinking about words. Olga Pope has raised picking fights over this kind of overly ornamental language to almost an art form, and today she's taking aim at one of the common and bland words you see, especially in ad marketing: "Elevate." It sounds elegant, but in usage, often means almost nothing more than "better in some kind of fuzzy way" Olga's website: https://www.olgapope.com/ Olga on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olga-pope-436b...

Best Practices in marketing are often a lie. At least, they are far less useful and relevant than best practices in other professions and disciplines. Samar Owais, known for her stellar writing and penchant for picking fights with people online over how to compose an email, explains how, more often than not, marketing "best practices" are usually nothing more than herd behaviour, at best a starting point for developing marketing and content, but are so often used while avoiding listening to customers and using real data to make your message effective. How to find Samar: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samarowais/Emails Done Right: https://emailsdoneright.com/

Personal Brand.This might one of the silliest and most pointless phrases in modern marketing. It means almost nothing beyond "things about myself" and it's questionable if committing to the idea has helped anyone market or sell anything. In this episode, I talk with copywriter Jo Watson CMgr MCMI (the extra letters are important) about why personal brand is mostly irrelevant and how to better approach the challenge of marketing oneself to the world.Jo Watson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-watson-agoodwriteup/Jo's website: https://agoodwriteup.com/ 

 For this episode, we wade into the (somewhat nice) jargon and empty words of cybersecurity with "Human Firewall."Cybersecurity has a knack for creating turns of phrase that are hard for outsiders to understand. Human firewall has sprung the the idea that it is people, rather than tools or technology, is both the first and last line of defence against cyber attacks, and while this is accurate, it is regularly weaponised into fear rather than empowerment.Sara Carty is one of the co-founders of cybersecurity marketing studio, Unboring, and Ph.D candidate in Cyber Diplomacy.Sara's reading recommendations:- Sizing People Up, by Robin Dreeke- The People Hacker, by Jenny Radcliffe- The Psychology of Spies and Spying, by Adrian Furnham and John TaylorUnboring: https://www.unboring.digital/Sara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saracarty/ 

"We are passionate about what we do" has been a tired, overused cliche in marketing for nearly 20 years now. We continue to be regaled with how much businesses want to tell you how much they like the things they do. It needs to go, and a return to showing your customer why they should care that you like your work, rather than talking our ear off about it.This episode's guest, Anna Gunning, has been marketing and writing copy for even longer than passionate has been overused. She explains why passionate is rarely a good choice in your marketing language, especially when you're trying to differentiate yourself, and how it's better to "show, not tell" when it comes to passion in business.

Marketers and clients have a fundamental misunderstanding about what "safe" means when it comes to creative ideas.Copywriter Jim Compton-Hall sits down with me and talks about his experience of "safe" in marketing, and how that comes across on an emotional level when clients hear it. We discuss why this actually leads to really weak and risky marketing, and what we can do to change the language of risk in our client relationships, and hopefully make more effective campaigns.

 "Content" is one of those words that's so buried in how we make things on the internet that it's hard to see how empty it has become as a word. It does no one any favours: not the creators, not the brands, and not the distributors. In this episode, listen to copywriter Ed Callow give a takedown of content and we can rethink this pervasive, vapid word we use in modern business marketingEd's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ecallow/Ed's Substack: https://substack.com/@edcallow? 

If there's one thing that marketers and consultants love to preach, it's the death of something: brands, SEO, content marketing, social media, sales funnels, programmers... the list goes on, and not a single proclamation has been right (with the possible exception of the Blackberry smartphone).Jon Harrison, co-founder of Birmingham-based brand agency, One Black Bear, unleashes all the anger and annoyance we all feel at these silly pronouncements, sharing his own experience from several decades as a marketer, and what you can to do to see past the noise when you hear of the death of anything in marketing or business.