— copywriting and proofreading
WORDS ARE FREE. IT’S HOW YOU USE THEM THAT MAY COST YOU.
Copywriting and proofreading are two of the most critical aspects of many modern marketing campaigns. They help your users to better understand what it is you’re trying to say to them, and encourage them to take actions after they’ve read your content.
When you work hard at producing your content, it can be a real discouragement when the first responses you receive are from people correcting your grammar and styling. Proofreading helps to ensure that shouldn’t happen. It means your audience is more aware of the message you’ve written, rather than distracted by that stray apostrophe.
We recognise that there is often a challenge of knowing what you want to say and being able to get it down on paper in a way that is both concise enough to be read and engaging enough to be listened to. Correcting grammatical errors, changing sentence structure and simply giving your content a fresh pair of eyes are all part of the proofreading process – and it’s something that we are always happy to help clients with.
So what actually is proofreading?
Proofreading is the process of reading through content and checking over the spelling, grammar and punctuation. It also involves making sure the tone (or ‘voice’) of the content is consistent and that your message is communicated as clearly as possible.
Proofreading helps to ensure your content is typo-free and that any major errors are tidied up before your audience reads it. It makes sure that your message comes across clearly with no distractions that will detract from your aims. We live in an online age, where a potentially excellent campaign can fall apart because of some awkward typos being trolled by grammar gurus in the comments section. Proofreading will help you avoid this and make sure your audience gets your message and responds in the way that you had hoped.
While some people may feel quite confident with their own spelling and grammar, you might appreciate the chance to have a second opinion – and that’s one way we can help. If you’re swithering over an apostrophe use, or not quite sure if your high school memories of ‘affect’ versus ‘effect’ is entirely watertight, allow us to step in and put your mind at ease. A fresh pair of eyes is undoubtedly a valuable asset in making sure your message is clear, concise and well communicated.
Spelling and grammar make a difference: when they’re done well, no one notices them; when done poorly, they attract the wrong kind of attention. If your message is free from spelling mistakes and missing words, it will be easier to read and understand.
What is the difference between Proofreading and Copywriting?
While proofreading helps to put the polish on your final written content, copywriting is the process that helps to form the content in the first place.
Copywriting is the process of producing written content. Written copy may include longer written pieces of copy such as articles or blog posts, or it may be shorter snappier written content, such as taglines or scripts for advertisements.
With so much information now consumed online – and often in smaller segments – it makes a lot of sense to have your information collated by a copywriter to help better illustrate and condense some of your key talking points.
While you may not need all of your content to be collated by a copywriter, it certainly makes sense to consider having some of your key documents reviewed to see if there are improvements that can be made by a copywriting or proofreading process.
Copywriting is particularly important in a digital marketing campaign: not just to help your users to engage with your content, but also to help search engines rank your written content in the first place.Â
Some of the key essentials you should know about proofreading and copywriting.
Proofreading is the polish
You’ve worked hard on building your business, creating content and growing your audience. Proofreading is the finishing touch, checking through your material and making sure it all ties in together with a consistent tone.
Remember, social media is there to provide an opportunity to engage your audience, not just to be another thing that has to be done for its own sake.
Proofreading is not about being overly critical
Proofreading is not like having a school teacher mark your work with a red pen. Our approach is casting a friendly eye over your content, tidying up and triple checking for anything that should (or shouldn’t!) be there. There are some absolutes, such as spelling, for which we will always use the Oxford English Dictionary definitions (and adapt this for British English or American English accordingly). Then there are areas of preference, such as where to use a comma or how long/short your sentences should be. This can be a matter of taste rather than a hard and fast rule, so we will make sure we work closely with you to get the tone right and ensure your message sounds like you!
What tools you can use to help you
We are surrounded by spelling and grammar tools in almost every device we use, from our phones to our tablets and online documents. All text editors such as Microsoft Word and Google Docs will have their own built-in tools, which can help to a point but it is also worth remembering that they can be subjective at times and won’t always differentiate between Americanised and Anglicised variations.
Grammarly is a useful tool – available as a free version as well as a more in-depth option – which will scan your documents and offer feedback and suggestions on spelling, grammar as well as readability.
What’s the difference between proofreading and copywriting?
Proofreading is the process of reviewing content and checking for errors, whereas copywriting is the process of creating content (or ‘copy’) in the first place.
Copy editing is a combination of the two, where content is checked for errors and edited in other ways too.