The Foxy Marketer Blog

The Importance of Truth In Grammartizing

Proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar are CRITICAL to a successful ad campaign. Nothing pulls your plug faster than a faux-pas like an apostrophe where it has no business being or using the wrong homonym. Take this example that’s on a billboard along a heavily trafficked road I drive past every single day: “See why our competitor’s cried about our last ad”.

If you’re wondering what my problem is, read the sentence again in the context they put it in: “See why our competitor is cried about our last ad”. I have been seriously considering contacting the company and gently cluing them in. Unfortunately, that small minor, teeny misstep may be costing them business, A LOT of business. They are in a fiercely competitive industry that is based on 100% commission. Who would want to buy from a place let alone work for one that is willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a big, eye-catching billboard with this big goof-up on it? Does that scream “trust us with your $30,000 because we’re experts” to you???

Not convinced yet? Ok, read on. Did you know that 387,090 people are in a Facebook group called “I judge you when you use poor grammar”? While that may sound like a staggering figure, trust me when I tell you that they are not alone! These are only the ones willing to admit to their judgment on a social networking site. There are more, so many more willing to judge.

You’ve heard the phrase “measure twice, cut once” before, right? With advertising, even measuring twice is simply not enough! Whether you’re investing $1200 on a radio campaign, $4000 on a billboard, or blogging about your biz, how you communicate MATTERS. Triple check, have someone else check, read the thing backwards if you have to. Thank goodness for spell-check, it’s saved many a job for sure. Right before launching this website, I sent it to a friend to preview for me. He thoroughly enjoyed busting us with 2 blaring grammar mistakes my partner and I missed. It’s easy to miss when you look something over again and again, so pull in a fresh eye. Where spell-check falls short though is context, so while there is spelled properly, you may be going for the possessive their.

Yours in proper grammar, spelling, and syntax

-Joy

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 9:56 am and is filed under Small Business Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.