reynoldswriting.com Blog

Now that the holiday season has arrived, many of us will find ourselves reading roadside billboards and other signage to stave off the boredom of the road. We will view countless holiday ads online and in print, and if we own a business we may even create some ourselves. If we’re in a hurry to beat a deadline, we may rush the copy to the printer after a quick pass through a spell checker. Bad idea.

Proofreading matters, if only because the errors you pump out will live forever on the Internet. Even if you’re producing a sign or advertisement in a language most of your viewing public doesn’t understand, somebody out there has devoted a humorous website to you.

Yes, your spell checker catches lots of errors, but what about that misused word it doesn’t recognize or that proper name it doesn’t have in its database? That’s why you must always give your marketing content a once-over with your own eyeballs. If your eyeballs are tired, put the content away and proofread it later. But proofread it.

Of course, you can dot every I and cross every T and still end up with a ludicrous misstatement. Somewhere along U.S. Highway 83 (I forget where) stands a roadside sign for a combination gas station and restaurant. The sign proclaims proudly — and quite seriously — “EAT HERE! GET GAS!”

You may encounter entire concepts that needed one more pass through the marketing department. How about that billboard that always seems to pop up near small towns — the one for the BBQ place that depicts a cute cartoon pig squealing in terror as he runs from a guy with a butcher knife? Sure, it’s amusing if you’re into that sort of thing, but does it really pull people off the highway with their stomachs growling? “Hey, you know that funny pig you were slashing to death? I’d like me some of that with a side of slaw.”

So consider this post a public service announcement. Don’t just run your marketing content through a spell checker and call it done. Use human eyes. And don’t just check it yourself — have someone else look at it for that extra opinion. If you really want quality assurance, you can even have a professional writer proofread and edit it. But I digress. Happy Thanksgiving!

For more about my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.

In keeping with the recent Halloween festivities, I decided to re-watch the 1963 Robert Wise film The Haunting. This film enjoys a reputation as one of the few genuinely spooky examples of the “haunted house” genre. The history of the house in question contributes as much to the air of dread as the mysterious cold spots, horrific banging noises and midnight mutterings inside the walls.

A group of visitors monitor these eerie events in an effort to capture evidence of the supernatural. Hill House has remained unchanged since its deranged owner built it 90 years before; his daughter lived in the same grotesquely-decorated nursery from childhood through old age. And now that its former occupants have all died in it, the house itself has grown a personality, one literally set in stone. Sure, the nursery can be refurnished and repainted, but the source of its gloom lies deeper.

What scares us about haunted houses, anyway? Is it the idea that long-silenced voices continue to ring out, that the wishes of the dead and buried still hold sway there? Perhaps we hate the thought that the ghosts of the past can manipulate the present.

Does your business resemble a haunted house?

Think about it. You’ve grown and evolved over the years, and so has your company. And yet your marketing remains rooted in the world of What Was. Oh, you’ve refined the logo, maybe tweaked the brochure copy a few times, but the face lift hasn’t taken. The Ghost of Marketing Past still runs your house — and the branding that fit like a glove years ago becomes less relevant to your current business with each passing day.

Sometimes small changes yield big results, but merely changing the window dressing on your marketing may not be enough to bring your brand back into alignment with present-day reality. It may be time to call in an exorcist — to pull out the old marketing by the roots, demolishing that old house and rebuilding on a new foundation.

Halloween’s over. Evict your marketing ghosts!

For more about me, my writing services and current package deals, check out my website at www.reynoldswriting.com.