Ditch these tired marketing clichés now

Perhaps no group of people can overuse a phrase the way marketers do.

That’s unfortunate for a profession in which original thought is vital to success. All the same, we find ourselves adopting sayings and terms—and beating all usefulness and cleverness out of them via repetition.

Thus are born marketing clichés.

At best, the repetition of industry clichés is annoying. At worst, their incantation can undermine your efforts, as many obscure issues require absolute clarity.

Here are some clichés infiltrating our discourse of late:

“The click is dead.”

No, it’s not.

You might think it should be dead. You might even have written a scathing post saying so. Plenty of people are still counting clicks—and selling them and getting paid for them and giving all credit for the sale to the last one.

So, go ahead and continue to decry these facts. Your frustration is justified, but don’t plan the click’s funeral until its heart actually stops beating.

“Content is king.”

Lump this in with the other “so obvious they’re useless” clichés.