A retail clothing company has pixie pants on sale, the company is letting me know, in an email.
Why businesses with (I’m assuming) robust market research capabilities, would be marketing various products and services that may not align with my particular demographic, is hard to figure.
Other emails I’m getting are congratulating me – actually the contemporary spelling, ‘congrats,’ is featured in the email, rather than ‘congratulations’ – for an opportunity to purchase some product or service, and for some reason, ‘congrats’ is really bugging me.
Maybe, I’m just getting crusty, perhaps like others in my demographic group.
So, if it isn’t some marketing email saying ‘congrats,’ or an email trying to sell me pixie pants, I’m getting communication from a number of businesses and organizations that’s about as clear as mud.
I remember, years ago, a colleague on our corporate PR and marketing team spending months cleaning up product information, disclosure communication, and all the other pages-among-pages of communication, in pamphlets and brochures. For hours on end, he was on his computer, editing and rewriting, and putting — what do they call it, ‘sweat equity?’ — into making communication make better sense.
‘Sweat equity,’ by the way, is bugging me, too.
Now… to be fair, getting communication together can be complex as all get out… with a business’ or organization’s, legal staff and others looking over PR and marketing writers’ shoulders, making them all too aware of legal concerns and potential issues. But could that simply be an excuse for burdening people — customers and such — with obtuse communication?
One thing I’ve come to realize, from writing lots of words, is every word counts.
Each and every word can play some role in communication that’s either entirely clear or totally confusing… in communication that either pleases the heck out of folks, or totally tees them off.
And lately, I — and people I know — are getting pretty much teed off.
Maybe we’re all getting crusty.