If you spend an entire first date talking about yourself, you likely won’t have a second date. The content marketing world is no different. You won’t continue to court a potential customer if your company talks endlessly about its products and services right out of the gate. To develop strong customer relationships, companies need to find out who their customers are, demonstrate an understanding of their pain points, and share appealing content at the right time.

Has your coworker ever stopped a long meeting so the attendees could take a “bio break?” Offered to run something “up the flagpole?” Encouraged you to seize the “low-hanging fruit?” If so, you’re not alone. We hear those bits of jargon all the time—and although it’s painful to admit, we’re guilty of spouting them off, too. In our ongoing quest to abolish meaningless jargon and encourage clear communication (e.g., getting back to brass tacks), we bring you another edition of Jargon Watch.

Reaching and engaging an audience remains the biggest challenge for marketers. In a landscape with an ever-increasing number of channels, devices, and other distractions, the task has become tougher than ever. That’s why it’s critical to look for innovative ways to make your content more compelling to your audience. Interactive content can help. 

Ten years ago, when people referred to “content” they meant words. Most of the digital work we did at Tendo back then focused on words; images and graphics were secondary. Today, nothing could be further from the truth—both in the work we do and the digital content we see every day. But why?

Thought leadership content is not just about sharing ideas. It’s about offering a credible, well-reasoned, and occasionally provocative point of view on topics your audiences care—or should care—about. Not for the purpose of making the quick sale, but to start conversations, impart a vision, and engage others. You can use it to position your company as a potential valued partner or your executives as influential authorities in their fields, but in the end, it’s about building trust and relationships. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

When you work at an agency—and a marketing agency, no less—your exposure to a range of companies and industries puts you in a perfect position to discover words and phrases that have entered the lexicon (or in some cases, re-entered the lexicon). Given Tendo’s roster of technology clients, we get an extra dose of tech slang, making us feel like we’re at the jargon epicenter sometimes.