You Talkin' To Me?

Unless you really are a rocket scientist, and you're discussing the combustible properties of oxygen with another rocket scientist at the lab, you'd do well to remember the K.I.S.S. rule. (In order not to contradict the very subject of this post, I better say, in the most politically acceptable way possible, the acronym KISS stands for "Keep It Simple, Sir.") If you want customers to pay attention to what you're saying, you must speak their language. Jargon, acronyms, slang and techno-speak mean absolutely nothing to people who are not your industry's insiders.
The only people who appreciate sesquipedals are sesquipedalians. Using a fancy-pants vocabulary to address your customers, prospects and even friends, will not make them feel warm and fuzzy about you or your business. Instead, it will more likely serve to make you appear more as a pompous bag of self-important hot air.
That string of initials after your name? They don't mean squat to most people unless they carry a fairly universal level of recognition like M.D. Acronyms? Shoot, even those who use them often forget what they actually stand for! I once asked someone who had just injected it into a sentence what the acronym SNAFU stood for, and he retorted, "What acronym? It just means messed up."
At a recent networking event, a woman exchanged business cards with me. Her card included no fewer than six groups of letters supposedly representing her credentials. Not recognizing a single one, all I got out of them was the feeling she couldn't decide what she wanted to be when she grew up, so she was accumulating titles until she found one she really liked. Perhaps to an industry peer, the list might have evoked an internal "Wow." For me, they may as well have been the formula for nuclear fission, for they left me wondering, "Are these supposed to mean something to me?" If it's worth taking up space listing MSM in your credentials, it's got to be worth actually telling people you're a Master of Smoke and Mirrors. In other words, if I don't know what it means, it means nothing.
It's not necessary to talk down to your audience - that's equally insulting. Just be sensitive to the possibility you may be using terminology as foreign to them as Portuguese to an Eskimo. (My apologies if my analogy offended the Eskimos out there who speak fluent Portuguese, but I think you get my point.)
In advertising and marketing, the most effective content is written to sound like a conversation. The rule of thumb is to keep your marketing message simple enough for a 10-year-old to comprehend. Unless, of course, you really are a rocket scientist discussing the combustible properties of oxygen with another rocket scientist.