How to avoid mistakes that undermine your credibility

You’re probably already familiar with spell checker built into your software. Some work automatically as you type, others only run when you activate them.

Spell checking is just start of your proofreading tasks. Don’t let simple grammatical errors, or text omissions, sabotage your message. Here are some things to check for that go beyond capabilities of your software program’s spell checker.

But, spell checkers are not infallible! Know what yours checks—and what it doesn’t check. Does it check text imported from other programs? Does it flag words containing numbers?

Spell check limitations

Monitor your spell checker’s recommendations. Make sure each suggested replacement is a correctly spelled version of original word, and not an inappropriate substitution. Double-check spelling of proper nouns and industry-specific terms. Use care adding them to your custom spell check dictionary, or they will be misspelled forever!

Grammatical errors

Watch for homonyms—correctly spelled, but misused words—such as to, two, and too, or affect and effect. Most spell checkers are not context sensitive. Watch for singular nouns paired with plural verbs, and vice versa. Make sure you have used correct punctuation, like Em dashes (—) to indicate duration, instead of two hyphens (- -).

Check all dates, times, prices

Have someone else verify dates, times, and prices. It’s both costly and embarrassing to send out information that you have to immediately correct. Pay particular attention to numbers. Transposed numbers, i.e., 1,324 instead of 1,234, etc., are very difficult to notice. Before submitting a proposal, posting web content or distributing a newsletter, call telephone numbers, visit web sites and send e-mails and faxes requesting return confirmation.

Make sure you have included all ordering information necessary for recipients to respond. Order your own product, to check autoresponder performance.

Widows and orphans

http://www.successful-marketing.com

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Are your prices set for success? If you study consumer psychology, you might run across suggestions that prices ending with number "7" can possibly sell more often than prices ending in other numbers,

One example would be to try pricing something at $4.97 to possibly make more of an impact, than pricing it at $4.99. Have you tried this pricing technique? Set up a test and see if it works better for you. Can a difference of only 2 cents really make a difference in sales you stack up?

If you sell higher quality products or services, this could cheapen your product or service's image, so you should avoid this pricing strategy for expensive items. If your brand is solid, your offers can absolutely command and get higher prices.