We’re all in marketing, and the devil’s in the detail

14th February 2009

You spend effort (and money) on putting together targeted, relevant campaigns, you've got a website generating prospects, the phones are going with in-bound enquires.

You and your team are out there presenting your business to clients.

You spend time and energy ensuring that the text in your marketing collateral is ‘just so'.

But remember - it's not just pre-prepared material that reflects on your company. Every communication generated by your organisation is a marketing message. It has an impact on how you're perceived, whether it's your marketing, sales, customer service or finance department interacting with the outside world.

This means any letter, fax, proposal, press release, telephone call (see our Top Tips for using the Telephone) - and more commonly these days email - impacts on how your business is perceived, and after all that's all part of marketing!

A hurried email or sales proposal, a communication to the press with mistakes or typos, or something written to a customer when the composer is having a bad day, can have a negative effect on the recipient. And once it's sent, it's sent!

Getting the basics right, like spelling and grammar, can go along way in projecting your professionalism. So having a set of guidelines can help maintain consistency and uphold your company image - whilst still allowing for the personal touch and individuality - and can assist you in reaching your marketing goals.

Below are some guidelines on the use of grammar and style. These are neither definitive nor absolute, but may help you when developing a company wide communications policy.

 
Tips on writing style and grammar for today's business communication

• Keep it simple and to the point, and make every word count
• Use short words rather than long words
• Write plainly with familiar words as you would speak. Your email, letter or fax should sound natural when you read it aloud to yourself
• When writing email, style is informal. This means that sentences can be short and to the point.
• Avoid clichés, slang words and expressions, and very technical jargon
• Don't use abbreviations unnecessarily - it is always better to write the word out in full, eg SEO is wrong, Search Engine Optimisation is correct
• Use short sentences, and see how many words you can cut out when you re-read it
• Write clearly, being concise and specific. Avoid being vague, and find out facts which are missing. Check dates are accurate, and phone a company to check the spelling of someone's name or the address, if you are unsure it is correct
• Remove redundant, weak and meaningless words, eg 'at this moment in time' can be replaced with 'now'
• The word etcetera (etc) should be used with caution
• Make definite statements, and don't be evasive
• Stress the positive. Say what you can do and not what you can't do
• Write from the reader's perspective
• Use the second person (you) whenever possible
• Make your emails and letters sound warm and friendly, but not too familiar
• In addition to using the spell checker, proof read it. To proof read an important document or piece of text, a) read it forwards aloud pronouncing each syllable, eg" Cust-om-er Rel-ation-ship Man-age-ment is suit-a-ble for ev-er-y com-pa-ny" (this checks for sense), then b) read it backwards word by word, starting at the bottom; eg "company every for suitable is Management Relationship Customer". You will then 'see' each word for what it is, and not in the order you expect it to be (this checks for spelling mistakes)
• Avoid using the same opening word for successive paragraphs
• In a letter, don't split paragraphs at the end of a page
• Spell out abbreviations and contractions the first time they are used
• Companies and collective nouns are singular, so ABC Company is launching, but the Government has launched ... the two exceptions to this rule are sports teams and the police - England have won, and the police are investigating
• As a general rule give names before description of job or position - Denis Matthews, managing director of ABC Company
• Spell out single digit numbers (one to nine). Use figures for 10 and over. Exceptions to this are where the number is the first word in the sentence, when a number is followed by the words 'per cent', eg 2 per cent or 2%, when fractions or decimals are involved, or in conjunction with units of measurement (7cm, 5 miles)
• Avoid using capitals where possible - the fewer the better. Sentences, names, brand names and proper nouns begin with a capital, eg Denis Matthews, managing director; ABC product name
• Use as few full stops apart from punctuation marks, as possible - UK, mph, Dr, Mrs, ie, eg
• A dash has a space either side of it; a hyphen doesn't. For example
  Mrs Foskett-Smythe has been caught out - but then all of us are fallible
• Speech quotes use " at the beginning and end of a quote. To emphasise a word or title single quotes (') are used
• Use a dictionary and / or thesaurus to check meanings and spellings, as well as a spell checker
• Let common sense prevail.

Comments

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By Zeeshan on 11th March, 2010

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