Inbound marketing humor is surely a distinctive taste. We marketers like a good digital pun or funny animal GIF, and we dream in keywords. We laugh at bad blog jokes, too. Example: “As a blogger, I constantly feel cold, probably because I’m surrounded by so many drafts” (that one’s courtesy of our friends at HubSpot).
We also tend to use the same words and phrases over and over and over again when writing blog posts. Yes, it’s a tone thing, but it can still make our oh-so-clever writing as stale as the week-old bagels in the office kitchen.
Raka writer Kelly Glista-Anderson reached out to the Inbound.org community (now the Growth Hub community), asking which overused inbound marketing phrases they never want to see in a blog post again. The responses gave us a little chuckle, to say the least, but it was also helpful to hear from other inbound content writers who find themselves using these phrases just out of habit. Cue the comments of “Yup, used that” and “Oh yeah, used that one too.” We’re all at fault for this one, folks.
“17 ways to do X, number 8 blew our minds,” @benjratner wrote. First of all, why were there 17 ways? Could there have been 18? And why did you pick No. 8 as the golden one?
@cjmcmahon_NH cited “totes, profesh, amazeballs, awesomesauce, cray and fave” as some unbearable ones. Come on, the millennials know you’re trying to reach them. No need to over-do it.
Several users mentioned “nowadays” or “this day and age” as being overused. What other day and age would we be talking about, people? Unless the title of this blog post is a history lesson, I’d assume we’re talking about the present day.
Raka team member Dave Choate even admitted to some of his own fouls, ending posts with “what do you think?” or following up a semi-aggressive sentence with “okay?”.
And for those of us at digital agencies, our favorite may be “In today’s digital landscape…”
Other honorable mentions:
The inbound.org thread gathered more than 140 responses, proving that in addition to bad jokes, inbound marketers also like to complain about writing clichés…even the ones we find ourselves using all the time. We’re going to try for more unique content in the future. What do you think?
…Well, maybe next time.