The Importance of Good Grammar

The Importance of Good Grammar

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.

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.

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.

Inspiration: Is Poor Grammar Killing Your Content Marketing? Study Says 69% Of Brands Fail to Make The Grade

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