Avoid Typos and Grammatical Errors in Marketing Communications
11.26.18
Typos and grammatical errors are everywhere! I see them all the time— on LinkedIn, Facebook, in infographics, articles, and email campaigns. There will be less than 12 words in an ad or message and at least one of them is spelled incorrectly— or they don’t make sense. How hard is it to proofread 11 words? How much time can that take? I always think the same thing when I see people (companies) do this. That thing is “this is not a very professional company”. Think about it. It’s part of branding. This is what you are putting out there for people to see— this is the message you convey to them. They will form opinions based upon what they see. It implies that you are sloppy, you do not pay attention to details, you do not care. Is this how you want to be perceived? Doesn’t instill confidence in a potential customer, does it?
If something is important enough to impart to your customer, it’s important enough to do right. Isn’t the goal of communication to actually communicate? That means the message has to be pertinent, appealing, clear— and not riddled with errors. Messages should also never be created with quantity rather than quality in mind. Which, unfortunately, seems to be the trend these days. That is one of the reasons errors are so rampant. People are often in such a rush to send out yet another meaningless message that they miss the point of communication. This can do more harm than good.
At the very least you should be doing these 5 things to avoid making mistakes—
1. Use spell-check! This capability is offered in many programs. It’s free and it’s quick.
2. Don’t double-check the ad— triple-check it (or more).
3. Get more than one set of eyes on it. Have other people proofread it.
4. Read it backwards. It forces you to analyze word by word.
5. Read it aloud. Sometimes errors can be heard better than they can be seen.
Make no mistake. You need branding/communications that shine a favorable light on you. This is done by paying attention to details and caring about reputation. If this is important to you give me a call.
— Brad Carlyle
