Strategically Speaking: A Blog by Denha Media Group
I was Googling places to have my daughter’s 9th birthday and I came across a fun party place for kids that would entertain more than 20 kids for nearly three hours. I read only a few lines at first. They would also order the pizza and provide two people to assist me with the party.
I had attended a party for my nephew at the same place a few months earlier and was quite impressed with the service. I called them on the phone and planned my daughter’s party. They emailed me a confirmation with a link their website. If I had started there, my communication would have ended on that page.
I started to read more closely and was shocked by the errors.
The page was filled with typos including the word “party” and “guarantee”. One paragraph alone had about five typos in it.
I reached out to the owner whom my husband happened to know and politely pointed out the mistakes on his website and offered a free 30-minute review of his site.
At the end of the day, no one cares about your story if you don’t know how to tell your story and part of telling that story is using proper grammar and correct spelling.
It’s about professionalism.
I know most people think they can write. Sorry to break the news — most people can’t write for marketing and public relations.
I once worked with a team of the lawyers who believed just because they had law degrees and did a lot of legal writing, they could easily write for marketing materials and for the media.
They couldn’t.
Not all writing is the same. Content marketing requires a specific type of writing and that includes writing for a website. This platform is a significant part of your marketing. When people search for your company on the internet, hopefully your website pops up. That should be part of your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
In this case, not only did this company need its place to pop up using words like “kids”, “birthday parties” or “kids entertainment”, their website should include clean and creative content.
When someone writes for content marketing, they are skilled storytellers, investigators, a wordsmith, and historian.
A website that is dazzling with high quality pictures won’t sell your service or product if the content is not creative and current. The aesthetics might get their attention for a few seconds or more but once they start to read the actual words, you could lose them.
Potential customers don’t just look at the website, they will eventually read what you offer and a typo or the wrong word could have those customers searching elsewhere.
Some companies will pay thousands of dollars for a web designer and then completely neglect the content. It’s an afterthought.
What many companies don’t realize is that those wrong words or terrible typos could ruin a possible winning website.
Vanessa Denha Garmo is a communications strategist and the founder of Denha Media Group.
