January 26, 2010

Ten Tips for Proofreading Marketing and Advertising Copy
by Carrie Chase, CTI Paper Group, Inc.

A young copywriter was humiliated as he walked into his boss's office, fearing for his job. He had just finished producing a television spot for Chevrolet, his prized account. "If you want me to leave, I will," he said. "I'd understand."

Hard to believe, but his job was on the line because of a teeny-tiny typo. He spelled "jewelry" wrong on a graphic in the master spot. The typo made it all the way through production and was tagged into 20 different Chevrolet dealer spots. It cost his agency $12,000 to fix!

Amazingly, the copywriter didn't lose his job. He went on to have a very successful career in advertising and is now a fanatic about proofreading.

Ideally, we'd all have someone else proof our advertising and marketing copy. Let someone else — anyone else — be responsible for signing off on that final proof before it's forever set in print. Unfortunately, there isn't always someone else, and even when there is, you should proofread your own copy carefully.

Don't find out the hard way whether or not your career can withstand a $12,000 mistake.
Follow the ten tips below, and sign off on that final proof with confidence.

1. Minimize distractions. Shut your door if you can. Turn off the radio. Tell people you're proofreading and don't want to be disturbed. Distractions cause you to lose your place and miss things. Not to mention, they make the process take longer.

2. Proof a hard copy. Proofreading on screen can be tricky. Proofing a hard copy is easier on your eyes and also makes it easier to proof changes from version to version.

3. Use reference materials. You don't have to know every grammar and punctuation rule or be a perfect speller. Just know that if you're not sure about something, you should look it up.

4. Proof for different things. Read once for revision and a second time for proofreading.

5. Proof once backwards. Proofing your copy backwards helps you focus on every word and catch things you may have overlooked such as duplicate words and misspellings.

6. Don't rely on spell check. Spell check will catch the misspelling of common words, but it won't know if you misspelled proper names, newly coined words or industry jargon. It also won't tell you if you've used the correct word. Is it "color pallet" or "color palette"? If you're not absolutely sure, look it up.

7. Triple check prices, phone numbers and contact information. Think about what the omission of one zero in a price could cost you. Enough said. The contact information within advertising and marketing copy is often the call-to-action and the most important thing that will be read. Often we give this copy just a cursory glance. Pay attention to those email addresses and 800 numbers you've looked at a hundred times! One transposed number could be a big embarrassment. Think adult hotlines only use 900 numbers? Wrong!

8. Ditto for brand names and trademarks. There's no quicker way to make yourself look bad in front of your client (or boss) than by butchering brand names. Make sure you spell brand names correctly and follow company communication standards if there are any. If a client always capitalizes part of a brand name, make sure you do the same. Make sure you're using the trademark and registered trademark symbols when and where they should be used. As a general rule, using the symbol at the first appearance of the brand name is sufficient. Using it every time can be distracting.

9. Proof copy in the final layout. When you proof copy that's been laid into the design, you should pay attention to new things. Here are a few:

-Proof for legibility. Don't forget the overall goal is to communicate. Make sure type is big enough for your audience. If type is reversed out or on top of an image, is it readable? The color of the type can make a difference as well. For example, sometimes red type on blue can look almost psychedelic, which may not be the effect you want.

-Keep an eye out for funky spacing — between letters, words, lines, etc.

-Avoid widows, a single line separated from its paragraph at the top of a column or page, and orphans, one word on its own line at the end of a paragraph or one line at the bottom of a page when the rest of the paragraph continues at the top of the next column/page. Also avoid hyphenating to leave one- or two-letter syllables hanging at the end of a line.

-Make sure there's only one space after periods. When using a typewriter, two spaces after a period is the accepted norm. In desktop publishing, one space after a period is the rule.

-Even when you make minor changes to copy in a layout, do a quick proof to make sure nothing shifted or dropped off the page. A quick way to do this is to compare the first and last words of each line.

10. Sleep on it. You lose perspective after reading the same thing again and again, especially if you wrote it. If possible, come back to your copy the next day with fresh eyes. You may read something that sounded wonderful yesterday but doesn't sound so hot today.

As you probably know, marketing and advertising copy doesn't always follow the rules. Sentence fragments are popular. Grammar isn't always correct. Words are made up by marketers. But when you know what is correct, you'll know when things are done incorrectly for effect. Use these ten tips, and hopefully you'll never have to ask your boss if she wants you to leave.