A popular post reported on a survey of 120 major American corporations. The firms estimated they spent $3.1 billion on employee deficiencies in business writing.
- Spelling errors
- Grammatical problems
- Simply put – poor business writing skills
It bothers me that the survey dates back to 2004.
- Business writing needs have exploded since then
- I keep searching for something more current
The closest thing I found was across the pond with our UK friends.
Is That One T or Two?
As reported in the BBC News, an online entrepreneur claims spelling errors are costing the UK millions of pounds in lost online sales revenue.
His analysis found the following.
- A single mistake can cut online sales in half
- The errors impact the company’s credibility
- Customers suspect spam at sites with spelling mistakes
- Employers report having to invest in remedial literacy lessons
There may be some creative math going on here. The entrepreneur used a single company for analysis and made assumptions from there.
Content is Still King
Whether you believe the statistics or not (and I often do not), writing skills still reign supreme when it comes to your business.
- Professional writing fosters credibility
- It enhances your message – rather than detracts
- It promotes sales – not losses
With the volume of business writing created by the online world, good writing skills are worth millions – maybe billions.
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In a recent post, 10 business blog ideas were sitting right in front of my face. I looked at 10 items sitting on my desk and used them for blog post ideas.
To demonstrate that I practice what I preach I decided to do a 10-part series, using each one of the 10 main ideas.
- You’ll have the list of ideas
- Plus a specific post using those ideas
All yours for the stealing – uh, make that – yours for your own unique post.
Idea #1 Recycling
This post is #1 in the 10-part series.
- The first item from my desk was a water bottle
- That made me think of recycling
- Post idea – looking through past posts for updating or adding a new spin
I hope you enjoyed the recycling of this post. My thanks to the BBC for the inspiration.
Have you read any similar reports on revenue lost due to poor business writing?
I haven’t seen any specific articles lately, but it definitely makes sense. A typo in an article is mostly forgiveable, but it’s so true that when you read posts that have consistently poor spelling or grammar, it’s very off-putting, and certainly makes me suspect spam. Similarly with respect to job ads -one of my favorites is when I see ads requiring “…..expert writers with excellent “grammer”…..”. It makes my teeth grind on their own! (And we won’t even get into the fact that they want to pay you $1.50 per 500 word post!!)
Hi Nicky: I keep looking. I’m not entirely sure why as I tend to be skeptical of statistics, but it would be interesting in this age of sooo much content.
One of the things I did find interesting in the BBC article was the idea that companies more or less had an attitude that anyone could write the online content. I wonder why that line You get what you pay for keeps running through my mind. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by, Nicky.
sigh… my readers have to put up with auto-spell checker misses on my blog, and mostly they do. My spelling has always been creative.
The speed of blogging just doesn’t allow for real copyediting… hiring someone else to do it.
Texting is also changing things, again. Will be interesting to see where we are in another five years. I’ve got a granddaughter at comiccon right now… she’s teaching me the abbreviations of texting – a whole new language.
Hi Anne: I would be the last person to criticize typos in a blog post. Just writing about it is a recipe for attack.
Maybe it’s wrong of me (or self-serving), but the occasional typo or misspelling in a blog post doesn’t bother me. Unless, of course, I am writing it for a client.
This report focused more on sales pages so I understand the need for being less tolerant about errors.
Thanks for sharing your POV, Anne. (like my text-inspired acronym)? 🙂