It’s so easy to forget about semantics when you’re sending out multiple emails a day, printing marketing collateral, sending Tweets and updating Facebook, segmenting your database and crafting crafty subject lines…but the truth is, how you write what you write matters.

As an editorial gal at heart, I have a specific affinity for good grammar and yes, I am one of those people who sees an error-ridden subject line and immediately deletes the without remorse (Ok fine not really). Surely that’s extreme, but I swear, there are others like me out there who will not be forgiving when they see a promotional email rife with embarrassing errors.

So my tip for you today is: make sure to read, re-read, proofread, and proofread again before sending anything out on behalf of your company. Something I’ve found to work time and again is reading copy aloud (quietly and to yourself if you’re in a cubicle situation, as most of us are these days.)

I recently flipped through a catalog from a furniture company who shall remain nameless. This furniture company is one of my personal favorites, but I was appalled to see not only bad copy (i.e. copy that didn’t really sell me and instead made me cringe), but incorrect copy too – misspellings, punctuation errors and downright silliness in written form. Did it make me say, “I will never buy from this brand again?” Of course not. But it certainly made me feel, as a marketer, that they could have spent a little more money and/or time on hiring an editor for such a hefty, and surely, pricey, mailing.

So before you put your marketing copy out there in the world, take a moment to make sure that what you’re writing is good, and that your marketers are writing well. And yes, that is the correct use of those two adjectives 😉