We were just reading a marketing blog geared towards small business owners on Long Island, NY. This particular entry was written by a local marketing company looking to advertise its article writing, press release writing and blogging services.

To our surprise, the blog as well as the entire website was filled with spelling errors and an overwhelming amount of grammatical mistakes.

Would you pay a company that was unable to write properly on its own marketing blog to create marketing communications for your business?

This experience made us appreciate the connection between spelling / grammar and building relationships with customers and prospects. Here are some reasons why writing correctly is still very important, especially in customer-facing materials:

•    People form opinions and assumptions about your business based on what they read
•    Spelling correctly imparts credibility and professionalism
•    Spelling errors annoy people
•    Spelling errors can influence attitudes toward you and your business
•    Spelling incorrectly shows a lack of attention to detail
•    Errors can be perceived by readers as a result of carelessness and  laziness
•    People expect consistency and accuracy from you
•    Typos and errors leave the impression that the organization does not care

The bottom line is that we would all like our readers to absorb our marketing message and act on that message. When mistakes are made, we distract and confuse people. The worst types of spelling / grammar mistakes are those that lead to misunderstandings e.g. errors in phone numbers, addresses etc. and lost business opportunities. Less serious errors still impact your business because they impact perceptions and buying behaviors.

In our opinion, 90% of mistakes can be avoided when you stay customer-oriented and make quality a priority. Here are some of the questions we ask ourselves to stay focused and as error-free as possible:

1.    Do our readers care about proper grammar and spelling?
2.    What do we want readers to feel when they have finished reading what we have written?
3.    How would a reader describe our communications to others?
4.    What steps have we taken to ensure that our readers will form positive attitudes about us after they have read what we have written?

Happy writing!

Feel free to comment below to the Long Island marketing blog, contact a Long Island communications consultant at Upside Business Consultants with your comments, or join up on Twitter @upsidebusiness.

Reference Terms: typos, grammar, spelling correctly, marketing communications best practices, long island small business marketing, what customers care about, how proper grammar impacts your customers