I was at a networking meeting the other day and received a marketing piece that was a little different than the usual business card. I thought what a clever idea.
The business owner had created a bookmark with a photo of one of her products on the front along with her name, business name, and contact info. On the back was a brief but dynamic description of her business along with a small map showing where her store was located.
It had been professionally printed in full color and stood out from all the other bookmarks. But as I read through the description (which was very well written), a grammatical error was so blatant that it immediately caught my eye. There was another spelling error as well.
By not catching these two errors before her marketing materials were printed, the business owner gave the impression that the small things don’t count. Since I’ve known this business owner for a long time, I know that is the furthest thing from the truth, but in marketing, perception is often reality. Catching grammatical errors or typos before producing marketing materials will not only make sure that the impression you are creating, with the person you give it t, is a positive one but it can save you the time and monetary costs of a reprint.
It is always a good idea to not just trust your own eyes but to have it proofread by someone else. We try to prevent errors in our magazine, GiftRetailersConnection, by having two different people proof it after I have completed it. But even then, errors do get past all three of us. But there are far fewer errors than if I were the only one producing and then proofing the manuscript.
To be on the safe side, try not to depend only on your own pair of eyes when producing marketing materials. You only get one chance to make a first impression, so you want it to be your best.
Joyce, I agree totally on this. I see words spelled incorrectly on other gift basket websites. I am always wonder if I should inform the business owner. I know I would want to to be informed right away, but I don’t want to offend another person by pointing this out to them. I recently found one on my website (the web designer had misspelled a word) that I hadn’t seen previously. It was corrected immediately!
Hi Joyce, I couldn’t agree with you more. There is nothing worse in our industry when you are handwriting a card to find that names have been spelt incorrectly. I think also becoming aware of words that you commonly make little errors on, such as “you, your, you’re” are ones that I have to constantly be careful with when I write or type them out.
I do like the bookmark idea Joyce, that is something that could very easily be put to great use. Thank you for sharing this.