Every group, every profession, even every family has its own special words: Lingo. When you prepare marketing materials—email, print brochures and newsletters, web content—be sure you’re communicating in a language that the uninitiated will understand.

What do I mean by uninitiated? When I was becoming a fan of baseball, I was flummoxed by lingo such as Texas-league single, dinger, blooper, the other way, southpaw, and frozen rope. The more I learned about the game (initiated into its finer points by my college pal Jack, baseball’s biggest fan), the more fluent I became in baseball-ese.

Your business uses particular terms:  You know the …

Play ball! I took an afternoon off last month, and spent the afternoon at the Oakland Coliseum watching the Oakland Athletics take on the Minnesota Twins.

The fun of going to the ballpark starts on the BART train, feeling a kinship with the other A’s fans on board. And, at the ballpark, there’s the ritual purchase of hotdogs, fries and soda. For this game, I indulged myself with pricey tickets; I got to sit three rows behind the visitors’ on-deck circle.

Being at the game is quite different that watching it on TV. The whole field was before me! …