The old adage, “quality over quantity” really comes into play when you’re talking about content marketing. Over the last few years, big brands began to see the value of content marketing, and subsequently started to generate a lot of it. While fresh content is vital to a brand’s online presence, content containing poor grammar can actually hurt your online reputation.
Big Grammar Woes
According to a recent Marketing Land article, a new study has revealed that big brands aren’t taking the appropriate time to share quality content with their customers. While more and more companies are turning to content marketing, it seems that they’re not all taking the appropriate measures to ensure proper grammar and style. The recent research performed by marketing software provider Acrolinx evaluated the grammar and style of 340 companies worldwide with at least $250 million in annual revenue.
An impressive 20,000,000 sentences were analyzed for grammar using modern linguistic analytics software. The research took conventional grammar into consideration and then calculated just how many errors copy contained on average per 1,000 words. The result was dismal. A mere 31% of the companies analyzed exceeded a score of 72 on a scale of 0-100, which means that a whopping 69% of companies scored below 72%.
Why Grammar Matters
While the number of grammatical faux pas is impressive, what do they really mean? Acrolinx answered this question by referencing data from a 2013 survey performed in the UK, in which participants explained they do notice the quality of spelling and grammar on company websites, with 59% saying they would not do business with a company that had poor grammar on their website. Think about it; if you spotted typos in a company’s content, would they still earn your business? The article also references the ability of poor grammar to negatively impact search engine rankings.
When executed properly, content marketing is a marvelous way to market your business online; but as the research suggests, quality will beat quantity every time. If you’re interested in learning more about how fresh, quality content will improve your online presence contact our team here at Black Tie Digital Marketing today.