Abridged and reprinted from his blog Web Ink Now with the author’s permission.

David Meerman Scott is pleased to announce a partnership with Dow Jones and HubSpot to leverage and focus on innovative solutions for new and improved, next generation, cost effective, world class, high performance, value added outcomes.

Does the sentence above suck or what?

That’s how so many PR people write — using gobbledygook-laden phrases that are so overused to have become meaningless.

I conducted an analysis of all 711,123 press releases distributed by North American companies in 2008 through Business Wire, Marketwire, GlobeNewswire, and PR Newswire. The project used Dow Jones Insight to tally the uses of 325 gobbledygook phrases collected from a variety of sources.

Here are the top 25 most abused:

Rank Phrase # uses in 2008

1. Innovate 51,390
2. Pleased to 48,762
3. Unique 48,095
4. Focused on 40,964
5. Leading provider 33,101
6. Commitment 29,621
7. Partnership 28,969
8. New and improved 20,167
9. Leverage 19.243
10. 120 percent 16,916
11. Cost effective 15,454
12. Next generation 15,371
13. 110 percent 13,659
14. Flexible 13,656
15. World class 13,407
16. Robust 13,309
17. High performance 13,049
18. Scalability 11,929
19. Proud to 9,877
20. Optimize 9,547
21. Outcomes 9,329
22. In terms of 9,217
23. Value added 8,725
24. Easy to use 8,398
25. Metrics 6,851

So how do you avoid using gobbledygook?

Easy! Write using the words and phrases your buyers use. You can also run your press releases, Web site text, brochure copy, resume or any other document through the brand-new Gobbledygook Grader {http://gobbledygook.grader.com} from HubSpot. The Gobbledygook Grader will give you a score based on how many over-used gobbledygook phrases you use and suggest ways to improve.

David Meerman Scott is a marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader, and the author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, a BusinessWeek bestseller. He is on the board of advisors of HubSpot and provides coaching services to Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group.

Posted in Marketing and promotion