Turn tech jargon into clear copy [3x WHYs & HOWs]

Feeling foggy? You, fellow marketer, and I struggle with information overload like never before. At the same time, we pour our budgets into multiple channels to get our brand voices heard.

Whether that voice is outrageous or very mindful, you will need clear copywriting to succeed.

Imagine you would see two article headlines about effective brand messages:

• “Text approachability as a competitive advantage – Minimizing cognitive processing through clear copywriting”
• “Stand out from the crowd – How to write copy that delights your customer’s brain”

Now ask yourself: which one was easier to digest?

Even though they’re talking about the same topic, most of us would go with number two. And there are some good reasons for that.

In this article, I’ll walk you through powerful ways to tweak that tech copy on your website, other marketing platforms, or sales materials. Wherever you want to leave a memory stamp like no one else – and turn that into your strategic weapon.

What is wrong with jargon, anyway?

In B2B marketing, audiences are educated, and decision-makers are experienced. Text accessibility might not be the first value that pops into your mind when you try to tune into their minds.

Jargon, in its core definition, has its virtues. The use of special words, expressions, or even abbreviations gives a clear message: this story is for me; this is the language my work peers speak. 

Jargon might be a shortcut to shared understanding. If everyone knows what an agile model is, it’s precise to talk about “scrums” instead of “weekly short meetings where we share status updates and bottlenecks”. Or if your cybersecurity audience knows their “NIS2”, they don’t need anyone to specify “new EU regulation regarding cybersecurity” at every turn.

Then to the downsides:

• Your ideal audience might not know the words, even if your experts use them daily. Unfamiliar abbreviations and tech terms add distance between you and the reader. If there is a chance that anyone in your ideal target group sees “scrum” or “NIS2” as gibberish, it’s reasonable to treat them as potential gibberish.
• In tech B2B marketing, we often sell a new tool to fix traditional problems. But instead of speaking directly about those problems, we get thrilled by the hype. If we use tech-savvy but too vague wording to shout our gospel to the world, we end up shouting into the wind. (The same old wind of change we knew as “digitalization” in the 2010s.)
• Even the highest C-level decision-makers have human brains, and brains have a whole lotta things to do these days. The worst forms of jargon don’t even lie in single words or mystical abbreviations. The hardest nonsense for our brain is the way we form our sentences and text walls when we talk about something abstract and technical.
  

When we want to create damn good B2B content around complex tech topics, we need to make sure the copy is as clear as possible. The message must stand out. And this is how you do it.

1. Write copy to see, hear, and feel

Our brain loves context. Storytelling is one classical way of building that. We’re still not that far from the stone age and long evenings around campfires, right?

Simplified, storytelling works because it connects something new to something familiar in our brain. We quickly glance at our daily information flood, and something sets off a trigger.

The shorter the text, the more you create context through word choices. 

• Use tangible items or sceneries in your text. An example: “Stand out from the crowd” immediately creates an image of what is happening, while “competitive advantage” remains abstract and fluffy. In B2B tech copywriting, focus on benefits instead of features. Features easily contain jargon, but if you clarify the value of the feature in concrete terms, you are closer to everyday life.
• Appeal to senses, emotions, and pleasures. Does your audience hear crickets when your competitor is around while your tool crashes down the wall between generations? Is your digital solution smooth like butter?
• Use metaphors and references familiar to your audience. Your ideal customer has their job to be done, but they also have their mental meme-stack. Or if they represent pre-meme-generation, they certainly have some favorite songs you could play with. (I know my memes, but as a Finnish old soul, I’d fall into any tech product that would localize their message with a hint of Katri Helena.)

However, don’t get too playful with multiple metaphors. They should not run the show. Find the core benefits of your product or service and put them in the spotlight.

2. Write like you speak

Let’s say your marketing team needs to build a multi-channel campaign around a very complex theme, such as cloud infrastructures and their CO2 emissions. 

You’ve gathered many background insights from in-house experts and topical whitepapers. Now, you need to raise a new audience’s awareness of the topic. What would be my best advice for you?

Explain it in a conversational way. Think of everything you’ve read and heard. How would you explain it on the phone or over a coffee?

I guess you would use less passive, more active language. You would avoid abbreviations or very complex words and open up their meaning instead, just to keep the conversation flowing. You would use short sentences and leave space for pauses.

When you imagine a one-to-one talk, it’s also easier to put yourself in the other person's shoes. If your chatting buddy hasn’t ever heard of cloud infrastructure emissions, you need to start from a very practical challenge they certainly know, right? 

This role-play helps steer your message towards your customer. You will focus less on “our services” – and reduce tech jargon along the way.

It turns out that ChatGPT tends to overuse certain words and phrases, including “delve”, says Philip Shapira’s analysis.

AI and conversational copy

Conversational copy is not only a way to ditch jargon but also the way to go in future search engine optimization (SEO). It serves voice searches and GenAI tools that crawl information. 

If you find it difficult to simplify things, try sparring with AI to get some perspectives and alternatives to start with. But remember to use your own voice in the final versions. 

AI is super good at explaining things to average Joe, or even to average CIO-Joe, but it’s not very aware of the downsides of buzzwords and jargon. It might use them even more generously than your experts do. (Even Claude, the witty one, still hasn’t provided me with a single unexpected reference to Katri Helena!)

Furthermore, search engines judge the content by its helpfulness and develop technologies to detect purely AI-generated texts. Even the most relaxed robot copy might end up on the SEO blacklist.

Sources: NN/g, FinancesOnline

3. Write copy that doesn’t require reading

The human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than it processes text. We scroll content more than consume it. 

No wonder that successful tech marketing teams invest in clear, appealing brand looks. Design guidelines ensure that all content is easy to digest.

Or is it?

If you tick all the design boxes but still ask your audience to “leverage our robust, omnichannel solution to ideate innovative strategies and drive mission-critical outcomes”, you’re not there yet.

UX is more than brand visuals or intuitive paths. The comprehensive design approach also includes text that is free from buzzwords. As a UX-oriented copywriter, you would:

• consider the classic F pattern and put the most significant messages on the top and in the beginning of each section

• remove all extra fluff

• highlight the most significant parts

• use bullet lists when you have more than two things to say

• keep your paragraphs short and mobile-friendly

• make sure all copy helps the customer to proceed further and fulfill their jobs.

UX writing principles push you to question every headline and sentence. They bring you back to word choice and the engaging tone we discussed earlier but also remind you of the crucial role of content hierarchy.

Your target audience will only glimpse your content for 1–2 seconds – they don’t read it yet. If their brain says this is something distant and abstract, they never will. This, if anything, forces us to cut out the extra jargon.

In other words: to get your message read, you need to reduce the effort to jump aboard.

The shift in B2B marketing means more demand for clear copywriting

B2B tech copywriting is not as it used to be some years ago: just pushing that blog post out and waiting for organic traffic to flow in. 

AI search habits turn the focus from single SEO keyword play to brand building. Best-performing marketing teams conquer multiple platforms and use audio and video to deliver their messages. They multi-purpose every content piece to the max. 

But at the heart of copywriting, there are skills that have remained. Actually, clear copywriting is a more strategic part of any marketing plan than ever. Whether you write taglines or script for a new video clip, you want to build a winning B2B tech brand that stands out from the crowd.

And there, ditching tech jargon is the first thing to do.