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Welcome to Trendy Words, the podcast about words and phrases that are popular in business and marketing, but are often misleading, meaningless, or outright bullshit. We talk about these words and what we could be writing or saying instead that is more effective.
Andrew Monro (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Trendy Words, the podcast about words and phrases that are popular in business and marketing, but are often misleading, meaningless, or outright bullshit. And what we could be saying instead that might be more effective. My name is Andrew, copywriter and recovering Canadian, and I'm joined today by my guest, Sarah Catherine Jones. Hi. How's things going?
Sarah Catherine Jones (00:22)
Hi!
Good, busy but good and excited, very excited.
Andrew Monro (00:29)
great. So why don't we start by you sharing a bit about yourself?
Sarah Catherine Jones (00:34)
Of course, so I am Sarah. I run a copywriting firm called SCJ Copywriting. I've been doing that for just under five years now. Before that, I was in various digital marketing copywriting roles, so have quite a broad breadth of knowledge in the copywriting game.
I primarily work with organisations in B2B and digital marketing agencies. A few clients kind of slip through that net sometimes, but they're always fun ones to have as well. And I also do a little bit of food and drink writing on the side as and when I can.
Andrew Monro (01:17)
That's really nice, a nice sort of diversity of work.
Sarah Catherine Jones (01:20)
Yes,
I like to do a lot of different things. I think I get bored quite easily. So it's nice to have that variation and be able to stuff my face on occasion as well.
Andrew Monro (01:32)
Yeah, that doesn't sound like a bad life. Great. Our word today is innovate. This is a word that Sarah chose. So what do we next go for? Why you chose innovate as our word for this episode.
Sarah Catherine Jones (01:34)
No priorities.
Hmm, so sorry, my eyes are already slipping back into my skull when I hear or say this word. So that probably tells you everything you need to know. Basically, I have chosen this word because it is used within an inch of its life in B2B especially. You can't move for innovation, but there's just, there's almost too much of it. And therefore the word is meaningless because it is saturated so heavily and
It almost seems like a bit of a lazy word to use because just because your competitors are using it doesn't necessarily mean that you should be using it as well.
Andrew Monro (02:32)
Definitely, feel like in B2B, we could probably get that on a shirt just because your competitors are using it doesn't mean you should. Yeah, maybe we should. That's the next business idea after we're done with this one.
Sarah Catherine Jones (02:39)
Maybe we should.
Hahaha
Andrew Monro (02:46)
So why do you think it's used so frequently? Where do you think that it came from that suddenly like every B2B, especially in tech, feel everything has to be innovative or at least making a claim to innovation.
Sarah Catherine Jones (02:56)
Yeah.
Agreed. So not that I'm trying to sort of take this too broad, but I think current climate that we're in, there's a lot of economic instability, potential global downturns, et cetera. And because of that, I think a lot of marketing teams and businesses are very much hoping to play it safe and they want to minimize risk. Because of that.
A lot of businesses are therefore using the same kind of language to describe their services or their products. And they want to just maybe sound like everybody else. They don't really want to kind of go against the grain too much because that could hit profits, reputation, et cetera. So there is that element of playing it safe with marketing at the minute and also to kind of capitalize on your point, Andrew, with technology.
There is this enormous pressure on businesses to basically prove their worth, that they are moving with the times, that they are aware that they need to keep moving forward and pushing with technology. And that's another kind of reason why I think it is so particularly prevalent at the moment.
Andrew Monro (04:13)
Sort of a of pressure to feel that what you are selling or offering is supposed to sort of change the world in a meaningful way.
Sarah Catherine Jones (04:24)
Yeah, it's almost like they want to be seen doing that even if it's not necessarily true to that business.
Andrew Monro (04:30)
Mm. Yeah, especially again, because it's always a bit of a sort of a risk to say, well, what if we didn't do that? What do we do instead? And yeah, especially maybe if you don't have like a maybe a solid background and being like, well, what have other people said that might be outside of the space or where have people made where people showed up in a way that's unique, which is sort of difficult, especially I feel with them.
a lot of marketing teams being driven by data and data, especially sort of aggregate data won't show you outliers or ways that you can break or bend rules. They will generally just show you like that middle average, which doesn't really leave a whole lot of room for sort of creativity, first of all. But yeah, like how else could you like
Sarah Catherine Jones (05:06)
Mm-hmm.
Andrew Monro (05:29)
alternatives for defining what your product is and who your product is for.
Sarah Catherine Jones (05:33)
Yeah, I think it's almost that there's no kind of room for consideration of alternative words. It's just kind of become so familiar to people that that is the first thing that will come to mind, which is almost ironic because you're not then actually innovating. You're not doing anything to, you know, challenge the status quo or bring anything new to the table because you're just doing what everybody else is doing, which is quite funny and quite sad, I think, in equal measure.
Andrew Monro (05:58)
Let's do it. Yeah, it's.
Yeah, it's what soon as you're.
following what everybody else is doing, you are by definition not innovating. Yeah, definitely. That's something I think that people feel to trap for. And as well as like, I think that everyone needs to believe in a way that like maybe for internal communication sake that what they're doing is special. Because if it's might feel, I guess, maybe a bit demoralizing if what you're doing is just like, actually what we're doing is pretty much the same as what
the other 30 companies in my market segment are doing, even if, you know what, it's really successful, there's a lot of demand for it, but it's not terribly innovative.
Sarah Catherine Jones (06:47)
No, I think it's maybe a case of how businesses perceive themselves because I suppose in the same sense that all of us like to perceive ourselves in the way that we're doing something good and business is no different to that, that we all want to be seen that we're doing something good and contributing even if that's not necessarily true. So with businesses though I think there really is that desire to want to do something but not necessarily the awareness that what they're doing is not actually challenging.
Andrew Monro (06:51)
Mm.
Mm.
Sarah Catherine Jones (07:17)
anything in any particular new way.
Andrew Monro (07:20)
So in terms of when ... in your experience, what impressions that word actually gives when it's used in practice, what do you actually find? How does that actually end up showing up?
Sarah Catherine Jones (07:31)
think it, as a copywriter, it comes across as quite lazy. But actually, when you try and think about it and break it down more, you have to almost second guess how that business is trying to use it because the word innovation is almost too subjective and too broad at the same time because it's not necessarily saying anything, but that business will...
clearly have their own view of what that word actually means. So, you know, your customer may also have their own perception of what that word means as well. And if they don't align, that's going to make it more difficult to establish that connection with customer, if that makes sense.
Andrew Monro (08:18)
Yeah, I find that like it's also really telling that if you went to like a trade show, especially for B2B, no one's going up to you and saying, "come look at my innovative product." That's that would sound like a really weird way for someone to introduce something that they were selling or offering in a physical setting.
Sarah Catherine Jones (08:39)
Absolutely. mean, nobody talks in real life how B2B businesses actually talk. I also get that, you know, there's a lot of momentum behind you should write as you speak, but at the same time, you don't want to take that too far because then it's going to be full of ums and ahs and sentences that don't quite align. So you do obviously need to take a common sense approach to this. But like you said, someone comes up to you to say that, I don't know what you want from me. like...
Andrew Monro (09:04)
Mm.
Sarah Catherine Jones (09:09)
Okay, well, that's not impressed me. You might need to do a little bit more than that. So it's quite testing as a copywriter to then come up against clients that do want to use those words. And you then have to kind of break that down as to why it's not necessarily the best of ideas.
Andrew Monro (09:15)
Yeah.
In a way, it would be almost a bit like it's not don't write the way that you speak, but write in a way that's sort of a more polished version of the way that you speak almost.
Sarah Catherine Jones (09:43)
Yeah, I think that is a good way to measure it really is make sure that you are clear and direct, but make sure that you just cut the fluff from day to day language.
Andrew Monro (09:54)
When you talk about what the words often meaning like the use of word innovation when it's used internally, like for these companies, I guess I'm interested to know from your perspective, especially maybe from clients that have done this previously, what do you do you find that those are common theme as to what that word symbolizes internally to these companies?
Sarah Catherine Jones (10:02)
with me.
I think the most common form of the meaning behind this word is just coming up with new ideas. I think that is actually the definition of it in itself is, you know, coming up with changes and new ideas and that's absolutely fine. And I respect that earnest desire to do that. That's great. And in that sense, a lot of businesses do tend to do that, they'll do it without really registering the...
they're changing things or, if you're doing a re-brand, for example, then yeah, that is changing things and coming up with new ideas. So I think it does come from this earnest place, but true innovation is not like that. So for me, my sort of idea of innovation would be to doing something that has really meaningful seismic changes on, or so say, for example,
trying to find a cure for cancer. Like that is innovative work. Like that is good work, but it's not innovation for businesses. That's not innovation. They might think that what they're doing is innovation, but the reality of it, I think is quite different. So it's just kind of trying to bring things back to, again, what we mean by using this word and what our version of innovation looks like.
Andrew Monro (11:45)
Yeah, and I think it might be hard when then you have to show them the market research and say, it's like, actually, what you're doing here has already been copied by three other people before you. Yeah, it may be new for you, but not necessarily. It's innovative for your corporate culture, but not necessarily innovative for the market and not innovative for your customer.
Sarah Catherine Jones (12:08)
Yeah, definitely. All you need to do is just pop onto a few other websites. For LinkedIn, for example, you cannot move for innovation at this point. just, it's not that you're necessarily trying to, you know, show them up, but just gently guide them that this is not the best course of action. And what you need to do is take things a step back where you can actually use more human centric-words that will then have a bigger.
more meaningful impact on the audience that you're trying to reach.
Andrew Monro (12:39)
So when you're working with people and they use that word, how do you find that it is a good strategy for addressing what they actually mean when they use the word innovate?
Sarah Catherine Jones (12:52)
So I think it's just better to be direct and just ask them what it is that they think this word entails. Like, is it a new approach? Is it a new idea? Is it a specific product or feature? Just so I can then get to grips with what my job is. You know, what is it that is so innovative about this? Because I need to have that thorough understanding to make sure that then I'm doing the best job that I can for that client. And when you begin to break it down,
you can kind of see the cogs working in their head. like, actually, what is it that we do mean? And then you can just take it down further and further where some clients will think that, you know, it's a case of changing the status quo or challenging our own thinking to find a better way of doing things. And it gives them a little bit more clarity on, you know, what their approach is.
as business and what they're trying to achieve. So it's almost like it's going back to a brand voice and thinking more carefully about who it is that you are and what it is that you're trying to say to who. So it's quite nice to then just sometimes gain clarity because it will then help them have a bit more direction of what they're expecting from the copy as well.
Andrew Monro (14:13)
Do you find that there's sort of common themes, like whether or not like it's a subjective meaning that they're applying to the word or whether they're trying to take that in like the broadest possible definition of it?
Sarah Catherine Jones (14:27)
It can be a bit of both, think. Sometimes it can be a little bit too broad. Other times, if you've got a SaaS client, it will be something specific within the tech that they're trying to promote. That will be the case of we'll have to dig more technically into the product and how it works, what it does, and just then take it back to a client perspective of, OK, well.
this product's all well and good, but how does it specifically solve your client's pain points? So again, it's just kind of one small question can then just take things a step back and help everybody gain more clarity on things. it's easy to just kind of go through the motions and not push back, but as a copywriter, you're not there to just churn out words. You're there to actually provide some strategic input.
Some copyrights won't do that, but for me, think it's important because you know that you're not doing your best work if you take that approach.
Andrew Monro (15:30)
You're there to solve problems, not just make them feel good about everything.
Sarah Catherine Jones (15:34)
Yeah, just I'm not going to nod there and just be like, yes, this is a great idea, even though I know it's terrible. No, that's not how we go about things.
Andrew Monro (15:38)
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel like it's an interesting way to start a conversation. It's like your customer is not going out and thinking, hmm, I need an innovative tech problem or innovative tech products to solve my problem.
Sarah Catherine Jones (15:56)
Like it doesn't
have to just be a tech product. I want an innovative tech product.
Andrew Monro (15:59)
Hmm. Yes, I need I need something innovative,
which I am trying to think about how that actually might show because nobody nobody actually says that or thinks that it's ventured to say like it's probably more along the lines of people have already tried other products or tried other services and found that
you know, especially for something that might be sort of off the shelf or very limited to the finding this isn't matching the very peculiar nature of the way that we operate as a business or that the way that we quite want to tackle this.
Sarah Catherine Jones (16:40)
Yeah, I think it's the sense that if you can do things better that are already on the market, then yeah, you could say that that is kind of innovation because you're taking everything and finding, yeah, making things better and making changes. So I think that stands. But in terms of groundbreaking work, I don't know how many organizations are probably doing that. I mean, if you look at someone like Einstein, I don't think he
probably ever referred to himself as an innovator. But looking back, that's how, that's the language he used to describe him. So I think there's almost kind of, I don't know, do I dare say an air of smugness sometimes of, we're innovators, we do this, we're disruptors. And like, no, why don't you let your work speak for yourself and then the customer can make the decision.
Andrew Monro (17:12)
Mm.
Yeah,
it almost as if it's more powerful if you don't call yourself innovative. But if your customer, that's a huge win if your customer of their own initiative calls you innovative.
Sarah Catherine Jones (17:38)
Yeah.
Yeah, or just thinks that, you know, they're good because they do things a little bit differently. Because as we said, it's very unlikely they'll probably say to their, you know, partner or friends, I really like them because they're innovative. It's like, no, I like them because they have a different approach to doing things. And that is, you know, if you get that with your customers, then well done. You've absolutely smashed it.
Andrew Monro (18:05)
Yeah.
Yeah. And I feel like that sounds like a more human response. It'll be never been like, it's not so it's innovative. It might sound more like, you know what? We were using this other product or with this other company before. You know what? It was kind of shit. But now that we're with these guys, everything's a whole lot better. We love that this approach that we hadn't been given before.
In a weird way, I'd almost say when I think of testimonials that I've helped sort of massage for brands being like, the customer is often really specific about what it is that they really didn't like about what they were using before and what they like that's fundamentally different about what my customer is doing with them.
Sarah Catherine Jones (18:40)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's really illuminating and this is, you know, the power of testimonials. If you're asking your customers what it is that they like about your service or your products, that will then probably shape your kind of approach to business and how you think about your business. Think, okay, actually we've solved these pain points, but what we've done is make things easier for the client in ways that we maybe didn't.
anticipate. So again, it's just kind of bringing all of this feedback back to the fold and thinking about, you know, how you view your brand, what it entails and what it delivers for people. And if innovation is still there after all of that work, then you need to keep doing the work because that is no, it's not the best way forward. And given the fact that human centricity is becoming even more important with
technology, AI, et cetera. It's something that I think a lot of businesses should be focusing on and doubling down on the language that they do use.
Andrew Monro (19:59)
So if you were, if you realize that one of your tasks in working with a client was that you needed to kind of disabuse them of the word of innovate or help them maybe recognize that the reality of their business and of their customer is fundamentally different, how do you begin to, such as maybe for a listener that's thinking about like, all right, well, how would I actually sort of unwind the...
the loadedness of the word innovate within either their company or with their client, how would you begin to do that?
Sarah Catherine Jones (20:32)
So I would first off, I'd want to analyze when they're using it and how they're using it first, because I don't want to then come to the client with, you're using this word, but not have a clear idea of how they're actually using it and why. At that point, when I have more information, it'd be a case of, you if I'm drafting something, maybe just changing certain things here and there and seeing how that...
work so be like I've done a few alternatives of this particular sentence and see how that unfolds. If it's then still a little bit more push back it would be a case of okay so looking at this particular brief you have explained that you want it to be more human centric etc so how does what does that look like so it would be a case I think of working more collaborative...
collaboratively with that client to find out, right, okay, what does this look like in action? So it's similar to kind of building brand guidelines or tone of voice documents where you do have to work collaboratively together to find out what their vision is, tweak it, go away, bring it back and keep making those amendments. So there is a lot of back and forth. I understand if, you know, clients were...
We'll push back on that sometimes, because it's no, it's just easier that we do this. But if you can then bring some tangible results of actually, well, what we've done here is created better relationship with clients because we've got this data to back it up and we've got these sales here, here, and here, then that becomes easier to convince the client that it's something worth pursuing.
Andrew Monro (22:18)
Yeah, imagine that especially if you can get the direct feedback from the customer is probably a really great way of showing that actually if we can shape our language closer to what the customer actually is saying, that's ultimately far more powerful for marketing than just about anything else.
Sarah Catherine Jones (22:22)
Yeah.
Yeah, especially you say, for example, depending on the platform that you use, you if it's in an email, you can quite quickly check the data on that LinkedIn, etc. Data is so much more manageable now. So there's it's not an excuse to not check that data to back up the new direction that you want to take things in.
Andrew Monro (22:56)
Yeah, and to just give it a quick test being like, does this people does this actually garner like a good response from people? Yeah.
Sarah Catherine Jones (23:04)
Yeah, this is why we
love AB testing. It's just, it's a great way of doing it.
Andrew Monro (23:07)
Yeah, I
honestly I wish that there were more opportunities to do it, but I feel like often the the hustle is sort of a hustle. We need to get this done yesterday. And that means that we don't have a lot of room for testing or experimentation.
Sarah Catherine Jones (23:21)
Yeah, it worries me. Obviously, you it can depend on the client and how they approach things. But as you said, if it's the we needed this yesterday approach, it does worry me because obviously, you you as a copywriter do not have the time that you need to fully deep dive into that business and their clients as well. It's not just about, OK, this is what these guys do. It's so all encompassing and
you know as soon as you hear that line we needed it yesterday you know that you're not going to have the space to do that so it's testing one.
Andrew Monro (23:55)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's too bad really, because it's, found like it's often like the difference between being like something that sort of meets requirements and something that actually will move the needle, something that will actually matter and, you know, make their own internal marketing actually look good because now they're beginning to flex the muscle of what they're actually capable of. And I feel like that's a real
difficulty that internal marketing teams have is they're under so much pressure. And really they just, need a little bit of space to really demonstrate to you what they're actually capable of doing for their companies.
Sarah Catherine Jones (24:29)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. It's just this hamster wheel that so many marketing teams are on. If budgets are slashed as well, they're having to do more with less, especially with resources. So I get that the stakes are really high and to then bring a freelance copywriter into the fold. Some of the mindsets that you can be met with is we just need something here now.
which is a shame because then you automatically know that you're not going to get the opportunity to do your best work either. And that's really frustrating because you want to actually make a difference to this client and it's just, yeah, it's difficult.
Andrew Monro (25:08)
Exactly.
On the subject of being able to do your best work, in your experience, when you've been able to successfully tackle this, what are you finding are alternative words or ideas that you're able to plant in the client's mind that are actually clear and honest and effective?
Sarah Catherine Jones (25:37)
So what I can tend to do sometimes is just give them a list of different words or phrases to see if any of that actually lands because if so, we've got scope to change things. things like, you know, we come up with new ideas, we challenge our own thinking, find better ways of doing things, we're not afraid to change the status quo, things like that are really easy starting points because if they don't like those, we can just, you know, continue to experiment with that.
Because at the end of the day, most of the clients do just want to be seen as having new ideas and bringing them to the fold. I think that's not a bad thing to try and do for your clients. So if we can think about it more in the vein of just ideas and different approaches, that's great. To then get all of your team on board, so not just, you know, C-suite or stakeholders.
It's interesting to get the perspective of people at every level of the organization to see what they think actually is innovative and to sort of pull all of that and think, right, OK, again, this can work really well in crafting our brand voice and what we want to sound like. Obviously, going back to testimonials as well, you need to have that kind of clarity across the board of what
the business thinks it sounds like and what the customers think that you sound like. it's, yeah, it's just coming back to experimentation again, but I know that that is a problem with the time limit. But if you're a client that is wanting to truly create an impact with clients and you're interested in building that human relationship and having a good sort of pipeline, it's something that you're going to have to do and put the effort in. You can't just take
shortcuts or churn those words out because it just becomes bingo and you won't be taken seriously in use of business. You won't want those kind of shit results. You know that you can do better.
Andrew Monro (27:43)
Yeah, it hobbles your marketing. means that you'll be putting stuff out, but it doesn't actually making it isn't actually registering at all. It's just there.
Sarah Catherine Jones (27:52)
Yeah,
yeah, it can take it into the kind of like quantity of a quality situation, especially with platforms like LinkedIn, where it's just like, we just need to post out on this. It's not going to land, you're not going to get the click-free that you want, and then it will be my fault because I've not got the results that you want. But it is collaborative. And I think a lot of clients need to realize that as much as you've got a copywriting expert there,
you need to listen to what they're saying and you need to work together to ultimately make sure that you're getting the best out of what you're offering.
Andrew Monro (28:30)
Great. Well, that's about it for our time today. If anybody was interested in reaching out to you, Sarah, how could they reach you?
Sarah Catherine Jones (28:40)
So I am on LinkedIn, obviously, who isn't? It's Sarah Catherine Jones. You can ping me a DM or you can go onto scjcopywriting.com and have a look at my services if you so wish.
Andrew Monro (28:53)
great. I will include those in the show notes.
Sarah Catherine Jones (28:57)
So thank you.
Andrew Monro (28:59)
Perfect, thank you very much. My name is Andrew. Thank you for joining us today. If you enjoyed this podcast, do give us a follow. We're on whichever platform you're listening to. And I will see you in the next one. Bye.