Mass Marketing Miscues

Thomas Paine and the Boston printers helped propel the Colonies to revolution and freedom. The ability to convey ideas to the masses through printed words ensured that the ideas holding the seeds of freedom could be disseminated quickly and easily.

Desktop publishing--and now web publishing--has had a similar revolutionizing effect on remodeling companies. Small businesses have long lagged behind their more sophisticated and funded brethren who have been able to market through newsletters and other printed materials. Advertising departments and in-house communications personnel churned out promotional pieces by the thousands. But with the universal acceptance of computers, simpler and more user-friendly software, and the convenience of 24-hour-a-day printshops such as Kinko''s, even the smallest of businesses can put together a newsletter for distribution to clients and prospects.

This has enabled remodelers to build brand recognition and referrals. It''s helped raise the awareness of individual companies and the industry as a whole. But as it increases professional marketing techniques, it threatens to lessen the level of professionalism. How? Typographical errors, grammatical miscues, and run-on sentences without a verb cause readers to question the message. If the company can''t catch those mistakes, how can it be trusted to manage my project?

I read a lot of remodelers'' newsletters and websites; they contain great information. But what must a client think when he reads a newsletter containing errors such as these: