A common marketing mistake, is using the wrong language with clients.

An example of wrong language is the flight information provided by the captain over the intercom: “Our aircraft is flying at 625 knots Indicated Air Speed“ Knots? I can barely convert miles to kilometres. Air-speed? I would rather know the aircraft speed.

I would recommend not to use techie jargon with your clients. Fit with your client’s measurement system, or s/he will continue to nap.

I was wondering whether software advertisings tell about customer benefits or not. Ads like: “Our software is flexible, it integrates with other software tools,..” seem more just senseless buzzwords.
Our customers are mostly engineers. They pay attention to the words we use more than we might think.

If saying “Our software is flexible” means that it adapts to changing requirements – like hardware requirements, then you could better say: “our software supports the A, B, C platforms and X, Y, Z operating systems”.

As persons, our “Positioning” is the place in the mind of our friends and parents. We are all defined by the perceptions the others have of us. The same happens with products. An example of product positioning is: “Software3.0 is [the] [most] advanced and easy to use Optimization Tool [for desktop applications].”

Product Positioning statements use the definite article [the] to put the product in a given, unique place in mind of the market. The superlative feature [most] places the product at the top of your category. Last, the statement defines the target market segment [for desktop applications].

Example of a clear positioning statement:

“EDEM is [the] world’s [first] general-purpose CAE tool [for the simulation of particles]“.

People use either “Code” or “Software” as if they were synonyms. Sales-engineers often use “code“. Sales-non-engineers always use “software“.

The distinction between Code and Software is subtle. Programmers write codes, the list of statements that give instructions to computers. The software is the end product: what the users perceive.

When demoing the software, the above difference can be significant. It’s software what our customer is buying.

Seth Godin listed 36(!) things we should consider before emailing a colleague.

Here are my add-ons:

1. In case your email is more than 500 words long, give him/her a call
2. In case you’re replying to more than three colleagues, you better set a meeting

And the last, If you had to pay 50 cents to send the email, would you?

How do you call your customer?

Consumer companies refer to retailers as direct customers. I think this may create a mindset where satisfying the intermediary matters most. B2B companies refer to accounts.  Though account is synonym of client, it also means: “a record of debit and credit entries”. Account is misleading too, as it figures a relationship mainly made of formal business arrangements.

Boss. Why not calling your customer boss. You can call me boss manager, then.

Naming a company is important when starting a business.

A company name should sound different. Claris, Claritin, Claria, etc. are similar, although belong to different businesses. A Company name should also sound logical e.g. Fluent Inc. -fluid flow simulation company. Fluent’s competitor is Scryu, a Japanese company. Because the brand is what the company stands for, and Scryu definitely does not sound well in English, I’m afraid it might be not as effective as Fluent outside Japan. Another example is that of Toyota MR2, which is known by a different name in France. Rather than the MR2, it is called “Coupe MR,” because “MR2″ in French sounds like “merdeux,” which means “shitty.”

When naming a company, check what the name sounds like in the most widespread languages.