Marketing Technology Blog

People who know me know that I can be a bit of a grammar and punctuation geek. While I won’t go so far as to publicly correct people (I just berate them privately), I have been known to edit signs that contain misspelled words, misplaced apostrophes, and generally egregious errors.

So, needless to say, I always try to make sure my writing is up to grammatical snuff.

“Even on blogs?”

Yes, even on blogs.

“But blogs are supposed to be informal and conversational.”

Not as much as you might think. There are more businesses embracing blogging, and they’re trying to project an image of trust and reliability. And believe it or not, customers will judge an entire corporation’s ability to do even its most basic core mission on the grammar and spelling of one low-level PR flunky.

“Oh my God, you dangled a participle! We will no longer buy your products again!”

Don’t believe me? Pay close attention to the comments on any political blog during the presidential elections.

While you don’t need to placate those kinds of people (they need to be sedated instead), you do need to project an image of competence and professionalism. And that means you need to spell words correctly, and use proper grammar and punctuation.

I will occasionally send Doug a DM about some misplaced apostrophe or a misspelled word in one of his Marketing Technology posts (which in hindsight is probably why I’m being punished I was asked to write this article).

There are a lot of grammatical errors that, if you make them, frankly make you look dumb (Copyblogger’s words, not mine). Things like its vs. it’s and you’re vs. your are errors that you should know better than to make.

A lot of people will say that grammar and spelling on blogs just aren’t important. That we’re supposed to be informal and laid back, and that it just doesn’t matter anymore.

That’s fine if you’re writing a personal blog about your own life, and that you’re only expecting a few friends to read. You can be as informal as you want, make errors to your heart’s desire, and even fill your posts with gratuitous-yet-hilarious swearing. (Looking at you, The Bloggess.)

But if you’re talking about your business, your corporation, or your industry, you need to keep everything as clean and error-free as possible.

It’s not a sin if you make a mistake. Many’s the time I’ve made errors on my blog posts, especially ones where I talk about the importance of good grammar and punctuation. But I can always go back and clean it up. That’s the great thing about blogging: nothing is permanent, like a magazine or brochure. It’s a static, living document. Event the posts that are three years old.

So if you make an error or two, don’t despair. Have someone you trust look them over and give you honest feedback. Then go back and fix whatever you missed during your first couple rounds of editing.

Because rightly or wrongly, the nitpickers are out there. And they’re coming for you.

My wife finally had a chance to replace her 8-year-old laptop, which was starting to function more like a Brother word processor from the late 80s, only not as fast. It was a Dell with 512 MB RAM, and a 80 MB RAM hard drive. It was slow, unstable, and the crank-up handle had snapped off the front. She ended up buying a Samsung Netbook from Best Buy.

Okay, that’s not very blog-worthy, but there’s actually a lesson in it.

Because we didn’t start out looking at Best Buy in the first place.

As an enthusiastic gearhead, I love Fry’s. They don’t have the movie and music selection Best Buy has, but they’ve got more electronics than you even knew imagined. Even the Amish will invariably buy something. Didn’t know they made USB-powered keyboard warmers? I didn’t either, but if they’ve got it, I’ll buy it. And they’ve probably got it.

So I took my wife to the laptop section at Fry’s, after she did some research on Patric Welch’s website, and showed her what netbooks could do for her. Since most of her stuff was online, and because she is fairly mobile, the netbook was her best choice.

As we looked around at the more than 12 choices, she got a little frustrated, because there didn’t seem to be any difference between them, other than price.

We flagged down one of the young salesmen in the area, and Toni told him what she wanted. “I just can’t figure out the big difference between any of the—”

“You don’t want a netbook,” interrupted the sales kid. “You want a laptop.”

“Why?”

“Because a laptop is bigger, holds more stuff, and lets you store music and photos.” (That’s right, a woman who wants a computer only needs to store photos of the kids and her Josh Grobin Pilates workout playlists.)

The budget was limited, so we were looking for something around $300. The laptops were $500 and higher.

We said we would think about it, and walked around the store, while my wife vented about how the guy hadn’t even bothered to listen to what she wanted. I talked her into going back and trying one more time. We flagged down an older guy, who at least let her finish her original question.

“I understand a netbook is appealing, but you really should think about a laptop,” he finally said.

“Look,” I told the guy, “I spend all day, every day online, and I use a laptop. I know what her computer habits are, and I know she really only needs a netbook.”

But the guy persisted. He tried to steer us toward a $600 laptop. “Blah blah blah music, blah blah blah photos,” he said. We thanked him for his time and left.

Discouraged, and after a good healthy rant reminiscent of Chevy Chase in “Christmas Vacation,” my wife decided to give Best Buy a try. We had just heard from another Fry’s customer that Best Buy had the same netbooks for sale for a lot less than Fry’s — at least 25% in a couple cases.

I went home and watched the Colts game, and an hour later, Toni came home with her brand new Samsung netbook, that came well under her original budget. This one was $50 less than the very same model they had at Fry’s, and it came with a few extras.

“I walked in, told the guy what I wanted, and asked him which model to choose from. He recommended this one, explained why it was a better choice, and I bought it.”

Simple, painless, and quick.

I was very disappointed in Fry’s sales guys. They could have sold a netbook with a minimal effort. Instead, they didn’t listen to their customer, they pushed their own preferences — twice! — and lost the sale.

However, the Best Buy guy just listened, answered the questions, and sold a computer. Not a big deal, I’ll admit, but he made a $250 sale in less than 10 minutes. That’s a $1,500 per hour ROI.

It’s a basic lesson that anyone who sells products or services to other people: listen to your friggin’ customers. Don’t just assume that what they want is all wrong, and that you know better. At least take the time to listen to their reasons, and see if that’s truly what they want. Ask them if they have considered your option as an alternative, and if they don’t want it, don’t force them to buy what you prefer.

If the Fry’s sales guys had done this, they would have seen that all my wife truly wanted or needed was a netbook, and they could have earned her loyalty just by listening. And if she ever decides she needs a laptop, she’ll buy it from the people who did right by her the first time.

Will we be back at Fry’s? Probably. They have cool stuff. Will we go there when we need to make a major purchase? Maybe, maybe not. But we’ll go in there armed with research, decision already made, and we’ll get the item we want, rather than asking the salespeople any questions.

Or we’ll just go to Best Buy. They at least listen.