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O P I N I O N
Buzzwords and buzzkills Marketers in the AEC industry fall into the trap of using buzzwords to create momentum, toot their own horns, and give the impression they are ‘moving forward.’
M oving forward is an extremely tricky business. Sometimes, at the expense of doing what is best for the situation, we take steps just because they are the ones that are supposed to happen at that particular junction. Finished college and had the same girlfriend for the last three years? You need to get married. Been married for five years? You’re ready to become parents. What can go wrong with those scenarios, right?
Javier Suarez POP MARKETING
As a professional group, us marketers in the AEC industry fall into the trap of using buzzwords to create momentum, toot our own horns, and give the impression that we are “moving forward.” Big data, content marketing, blah, social media engagement, branding, blah, persona-based marketing, B2B e-commerce, account-based marketing, blah, blah, blah. Not that these are unimportant, irrelevant, or inconsequential. But we get hung up on these buzzwords and in essence we turn them into buzzkills. In an effort to, dare I say it, create trends, our conversations revolve around the latest fad and we forget the root of the issues that led to the buzz du jour. Do we really want, and are we ready for, children, or are we becoming parents because it’s “the thing to do now?” Do we need to debate ad nauseam the particulars of account-based
marketing or should we remind ourselves and our technical staff that we need to move away from pursuing opportunities and focus on being true consultants and cement long-lasting relationships with our clients? This is nothing new. We are reinventing the wheel, spending the majority of our time mixing the frosting while forgetting to review the recipe for the actual cake. Maybe we are victims of our circumstances. Our industry has been buzzkill-heavy for a long time, too. Who can deny the warm and fuzzy feeling “We get hung up on these buzzwords and in essence we turn them into buzzkills.”
See JAVIER SUAREZ, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER June 13, 2016, ISSUE 1156
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