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 have 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 |
 |
| The actual billboard at Cromford Road, London (credits to Google Maps) |
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.
Amy Gesenhues on March 31, 2015 at 3:36 pm
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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