How to Fix Content With Meaningful Language: A Step-by-Step Guide

The need for meaningful language in content was high even before AI made it a make-or-break skill for human marketers to remain relevant.

AI didn't create the problem of bland marketing copy, it's just exposing it. After all, when AI pulls information from the internet to write content, it’s pulling from a massive pool of generic human-written material.

And because marketers and businesses tend to copy what they see others create, the web is overflowing with overused and uninspired language. Meanwhile, your customers, clients, prospects and consumers are numb to it.

However, if humans are going to truly differentiate themselves in the workplace or online, they'll need to make their language more meaningful to their audience.

This is why Meaningful Language is a part of the S.T.A.M.P framework. So, how do we evolve that content to be less generic, repetitive (and maybe robotic) and become more human-to-human?

Let's focus on FOUR key steps in the process:

1. Become the Audience

2. Spot the Problem

3. Reframe the Connection

4. Test the Medium

Now let's create an example of generic content you see everywhere (and the type companies could easily automate) and see how to transform it into something more meaningful to your audience.

Our example is inspired by Christopher Penn, who pointed out the irony of marketers defending the need for humans while their companies publish copy so generic that AI could have written it for cheaper.

Before we start, let's make up a company and audience.

Let's make them a company in the tech/SaaS space.

Let's say they provides a centralized platform for large enterprises to monitor, manage, and optimize global infrastructure assets — combining cloud-based analytics, asset tracking, and performance monitoring across physical and virtual systems.

Or the normal person version: They provide a centralized platform for large enterprises to monitor, manage, and optimize global infrastructure assets — combining cloud-based analytics, asset tracking, and performance monitoring across physical and virtual systems.

Let's call them..... SysSightz.

I know, you can tell I spent about five seconds on that, so let's move on.

Let's say they have this paragraph on their homepage.

“We partner with enterprise IT leaders to deliver innovative infrastructure solutions that accelerate growth and ensure operational excellence. Our trusted insights help organizations make strategic decisions and navigate what’s ahead with confidence. The SysSightz platform unites a diverse portfolio of capabilities to provide end-to-end visibility fueled by advanced, data-driven intelligence. Backed by a proven track record and a team of experts, we are the leading turnkey solution for infrastructure management across global operations."

So, let's run this through STAMP's Meaningful Language process:

FIRST : Become the audience and spot the problems. Scan it like your audience would. Does it feel clear, relevant, and worth their time? Or does it sound salesy, vague, or forgettable?

Highlight the words and why they might be an issue.

For many decision-makers seeking high-tech solutions, key considerations include solution specifics, cost, and proof that the solution will effectively address their problems.

As they look around, they see a lot of the language featured in this paragraph. Such as:

• We partner (Starting with copy that makes it about the brand)

• Innovative infrastructure solutions (Does this mean anything to the audience?)

I asked ChatGPT to give me an estimate about how often phrases like "Innovative infrastructure solutions" are out there today. It said:

Exact Phrase: “Innovative infrastructure solutions”

A Google search today returns about 3,200 results for that exact phrase in quotes.

These include engineering firms, infrastructure consultancies, SaaS providers for infrastructure, and government contractors.

Many are homepage headers, About page intros, or marketing copy.

Variants & Close Matches

If we expand to common variants such as:

“Delivering innovative infrastructure solutions”

“Providing innovative infrastructure solutions”

“Offering innovative infrastructure solutions”

“Innovative solutions for infrastructure”

…we add tens of thousands more results — likely in the 25,000–40,000 range globally.

They're probably not the only words in our example paragraph that are overused - and every industry has words like these.

You can probably guess this brand's audience has seen that word a few times. It gets repeated because marketers see it too, and the brain defaults to words like that, and you become just the latest brand to use them. There's so much of it, your audience be like:

Let's move on.

• Our trusted-insights (About the brand, not the audience with the problem)

Also, what exactly is a trusted insight?

If Robin Williams were alive today, he might say a trusted insight sounds like what fortune cookies would be called if they went to business school!

• What's ahead (Huh? Is that how the audience explains what they want? Kind of general?)

• the leading ("leading" isn't a reason to buy)

• turnkey solution for infrastructure management across global operations and unites a diverse portfolio of capabilities to provide end-to-end visibility fueled by advanced, data-driven intelligence

  
  

So, by identifying potential problems, we can determine what could break the connection - robotic phrases, buzzwords, or generic language.

NEXT: Reframe the connection

Now we're making simple changes in this example to demonstrate the process. In a real work situation, this could be even better with additional knowledge about the specific industry and audience.

I've worked with tech companies and seen scenarios where marketing spends time and money writing content that doesn't align with what customer/prospect-facing departments, such as sales, are hearing about the needs and concerns of their audience.

Other challenges included language barriers like internal "in-the-weeds" tech talk that didn't translate to digestible content.

Let’s start with the first sentence:

We partner with enterprise IT leaders to deliver innovative infrastructure solutions that accelerate growth and ensure operational excellence.

1. "We" immediately makes the content about the business when the goal is proving value to the audience.

2. Since "innovative infrastructure solutions" is overused, replace it with specifics—but keep those specifics audience-focused.

3. The language should focus on solving actual pain points rather than just offering a more detailed company-centered spotlight on solutions.

Our fake company might know that clients are continuously frustrated by overwhelming alerts and data that drown out what actually matters. So, we could use that to lead with something like this: When your teams are buried in system alerts, the wrong ones waste time, drain budgets, and hide the problems that matter most.

Let's move on to the next two sentences:

Our trusted insights help organizations make strategic decisions and navigate what’s ahead with confidence. The SysSightz platform unites a diverse portfolio of capabilities to provide end-to-end visibility fueled by advanced, data-driven intelligence.

There are a lot of generic, sensationalized and common words in this sentence that can't generate an emotional response, a mental visual of a problem being solved or an attention-getter that stops the scanning.

James I. Bond, author of the book Brain Glue: How Selling Becomes Much Easier By Making Your Ideas "Sticky," points out that your audience is in autopilot while scanning and skimming. It's like driving home and ignoring the same neighborhood houses...

Unless one is on fire! 🔥

Then you snap out of it and do a double take.

That's what you're trying to do as your audience scrolls, scans and makes quick judgements.

It's easy to stay in that mode when you see the same things over and over again.

Hence why copy that can trigger a visual or emotional response (or both) can be a game-changer.

What do I mean by emotional or mental visual response to copy?

In Using Behavioral Science in Marketing, Nancy Harhut talks about working as a creative director at a large U.S. ad agency. At one point, she oversaw the development of multiple creative concepts for a B2B software campaign.

Her team tested these concepts to see which one would resonate most with the audience. The option with the emotional, relatable approach outperformed the more rational, feature-focused ones.

The winning concept didn’t just list features, it spoke directly to the real-world weight of the audience’s daily decisions. It recognized the stress, responsibility and pressure to be right every time.

Then, it positioned the product as the tool that gets rid of that stress.

The headline?

“The delete button for that voice in your head.”

If that "voice" was causing your stress at work - it's not hard to imagine how copy provided the audience with more than words to read.

So, how could we apply something like that to lines 2 and 3?

Instead of drowning in misleading and unhelpful alerts, you're able to pull yourself on deck with a clear view of what matters. The SysSightz platform brings your cloud, servers, and networks together in one view - making you ready to steer toward the right fixes, preventing costly downtime, and maintaining smooth operations.

Now, let's look at the last sentence:

Backed by a proven track record and a team of experts, we are the leading turnkey solution for infrastructure management across global operations.

Let's just make this a little more meaningful by reframing the quality of help people get and how the business approaches the work in a meaningful way. Maybe we evolve it to something like this:

Built by engineers who’ve managed complex infrastructure at scale, our team works alongside yours to keep systems stable and identify risks before they become disasters.

Here's the complete before and after:

BEFORE

“We partner with enterprise IT leaders to deliver innovative infrastructure solutions that accelerate growth and ensure operational excellence. Our trusted insights help organizations make strategic decisions and navigate what’s ahead with confidence. The SysSightz platform unites a diverse portfolio of capabilities to provide end-to-end visibility fueled by advanced, data-driven intelligence. Backed by a proven track record and a team of experts, we are the leading turnkey solution for infrastructure management across global operations."

AFTER When your teams are buried in system alerts, the wrong ones waste time, drain budgets, and hide the problems that matter most.

Instead of drowning in misleading and unhelpful alerts, you're able to pull yourself on deck with a clear view of what matters, . The SysSightz platform brings your cloud, servers, and networks together in one view - making you ready to steer toward the right fixes, preventing costly downtime, and maintaining smooth operations.

Built by engineers who’ve managed complex infrastructure at scale, our team works alongside yours to keep systems stable and identify risks before they become disasters.

FINALLY: Test the Medium

The last phase of Meaningful Language is ensuring the content adapt to the space it's in. In this scenario, the content was on a homepage, but it could've been seen in other places - or the approach to language could spread into other content.

I've seen this - especially in tech companies.

Make sure your blogs are useful, posts valuable, and emails helpful - so it feels like a real person wrote them.

This was a challenge to create from the ground up without being in a real client situation where I would've known a lot more.

However, if you're a brand who wants to make similar changes to your content, I would advise that you:

Talk to customers, clients and prospects to learn what matters to them, what doesn't and how they talk about their business and pain points.

This includes conducting surveys, getting testimonials, having conversations at events.

Talk to sales, customer service, and other public-facing departments or people.

This is becoming critical if you're serious about meaningful connection through content.

As Kelli Schutrop recently pointed out on Mandy Walker's podcast sales and marketing need to work together to understand each team’s motivations, blind spots, and language.

She said:

"The customer becomes the center, not the team function."

You could also put your content in front of friends, family or colleagues that might fit with your audience personas and ask questions like, "If you were looking for a solution, would this mean anything to you?"

Think about how people read content.

If it reads like something that sounds like a commercial, your audience may read it with that TV commercial voice in their head.

Take time to research those buzzwords, marketing words, and repeatable phrases are saturating your industry and break away from them.

If you're just the latest brand to use them, you're not helping your audience or your business.

And yes, AI can help.

Learn how to use it to improve clarity, find gaps in emotional intelligence, craft content that speaks the language of your customer (after telling it who that is), etc.

I hope this scenario is helpful. If I can do more, reach out to me, and we'll talk.