Good Grammar Matters
Effectively-worded business communication is imperative. The message/s become purposeful, professional and easily understood by the target audience; without guessing at the writer’s intent, transposing misplaced words or deciphering poorly-constructed sentences.
Messages that are error-riddled
often feel off-putting. Poor grammar is often associated with ignorance of, or
disregard for, established rules, as well as laziness or rushing. Businesses
should strive to create thoughtful, polished messages that represent their
commitment to accuracy and thoroughness, and reflect the effort put in to all
dimensions of their branding.
Errorists are killing business.
Their unkeyboardinated mistakes should be taken seriously and make sure that
they practice proof-reading. This is to ensure that the business doesn’t fall
prey to Grammar Nazis, and ending up immortalised over the net.
Cyberspace has given
us access to witness many failed marketing efforts, from small to big business
- thanks to content-hungry netizens. One of the most infamous was the Samsung
Galaxy Note 10.1 billboard incident in 2013; which pretty much broke the
Internet. We all came to realize that the billboard typo was fake and tampered
with. There were no kerning mistakes, autocorrect error or a broken space bar,
but it certainly got us judging all the same.
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The “tampered” billboard at Cromford Road, London
Though unrelated (and faked), the
Samsung kerning issue should serve as a precaution. Good grammar should be
everyone’s business. Over the weekend, we came across an article that might be
worth reading. The article - written by Amy Gesenhues - explains why poor
grammar is killing your content marketing. Have a read, and let us know what
you think in the comments below.
Is Poor
Grammar Killing Your Content Marketing? Study Says 69% Of Brands Fail to Make
The Grade
Using linguistic analytics software
to measure grammar and style, Acrolinx finds most content marketing lacks
quality.
While marketing teams continue to
create more and more content marketing materials, a new study from marketing
software provider Acrolinx claims brands are not spending nearly enough time on
the quality of their content marketing efforts.
Using linguistic analytics software
to evaluate grammar and style, Acrolinx leveraged a 100-point scale to score
marketing, corporate, technical and customer support content from companies
with $250 million or more in annual revenue.
When attention to quality is
overlooked, things tend to fall apart quickly.
The report analyzed 20,000,000
sentences pulled from 150,000 web pages for 340 global companies, and found
only 31 percent of the brands exceeded an “impact score” of 72 or higher – with
the remaining 69 percent of companies earning below Acrolinx’s target score.
“To assess a company’s grammar
usage, we examined its content against best practices for standard grammar
conventions then calculated how many errors it contained on average per 1,000
words,” says Acrolinx.
Content Impact Score Distribution
To drive home the importance of
quality content, Acrolinx referenced a 2013 UK poll conducted by Global Lingo
that reported 74 percent of survey participants said they noticed the quality
of spelling and grammar on company websites, with 59 percent claiming they
would not use a company whose site included poor grammar.
The report also noted the importance
of correct grammar in terms of search marketing, referencing a quote from Bing
webmaster Duane Forrester. “If you struggle to get past typos, why would an
engine show a page of content with errors higher in the rankings when other
pages of content exist to serve the searcher?” asked Forrester.
The report did not attach any
specific company names to content marketing scores, but it did call out Kohl’s,
Caterpillar, the National Australia Bank and European mobile carrier EE for
their high scores.
Looking at industry-specific
content, the retail industry led with a 73.2 impact score, while the telecom
industry came in last with a 66.2 score.
Earning a 70.2 on the 100-point
scale, the US and Germany tied for highest regional scores.
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Inspiration: Is Poor Grammar Killing Your Content Marketing? Study Says 69% Of Brands Fail to Make The Grade
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