So the Ontario government sent me a brochure the other day about electricity prices and how they will be changing. This is in response to the new time-of-use pricing model they will be putting in to effect.
It's a very simple, full-color, five-page brochure which is mostly images (if you live in Ontario you've probably seen it). Well, it's actually 10-pages with five in English and five in French.
Ontario has just over 13-million people so (and I'm totally guessing here) this brochure probably went out to say four-million households - let's be ultra conservative and cut that projection down to two-million households.
Now, let's say each of these pamphlets cost 50-cents, which I think is a very conservative figure for 10-pages of full color - that would put the cost at a million bucks. This doesn't include the cost of mailing it all out (even if it only be man-hours).
So while receiving a pamphlet in the mail might seem like no big deal, in this case it is. That little pamphlet is over a million-dollar deal.
Ok Rob, get to the point already you might be saying.
The point of this blog entry is how PR (and marketing) is not easy and one of the easiest things to mess up is the little details. The pie charts below is the first thing you see when you open the brochure...
As you can see, in the middle pie chart the percentages add up to 101 per cent.
Now, keep in mind, on a million-dollar project this brochure (which takes about 2-5 minutes to read, it's not big at all) was probably proofed at least a dozen times by a dozen people. And yet, no one picked up that the percentages added up to 101 per cent.
This is a perfect example of how hard PR/marketing is, how easy it is to make a mistake. And it's almost always the most simple errors that occur because when proofing people think that there's no way someone could have gotten the pie chart numbers wrong, so they just glance over the figures (clearly not a single person bothered to add the numbers up).
In the age of twitter and facebook people think that content creation only takes a few minutes. But the reality is that content creation takes time and effort and focus and it truly is a skill.
Had this been a brochure for a business pitching services to a customer, they very well might add up the figures, see that there was an error and choose the competitor instead figuring that if the figures are wrong then what else that is being said isn't accurate?
Is this is the end of the world? Of course not.
But it's a great example of how the little details matter and people do notice them. The editing/proofing process is often rushed simply because it comes at the end and deadlines are usually rushing people along. But it's essentially that when you think you have a final product, that you stop and really proof it before you send it to the printers. Tell yourself that there must be at least one mistake that you've missed and then search for that mistake like you are playing 'Where's Waldo?' - because trust me, it's there.
What's always frustrated me is how people generally fail to appreciate good proofing. I use to work with a guy who was an excellent proofer. I mean, he would catch the smallest of mistakes, it was great. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, that I was putting out the door would go out until I had him read it. Which was kind of him, because it wasn't actually his job to proof content, he was just good at it and cared about what we were putting out.
And yet, I don't think people ever truly understood or appreciated how valuable his gatekeeping was to the company.
So while it may be a thankless job at times, you still have to make it the highest priority to ensure that what you put out there has no mistakes. Because a simple mistake is a message in itself... it says 'We make simple mistakes' ... which is not what you want your stakeholders thinking.
So to all PR folks, find yourself a good proof reader. Consult your colleagues. They don't have to work in your department to help you out. But whatever you do, find that one person in your organization who has an uncanny ability to spot errors. Odds are they won't mind helping and will save you from simple errors such as pie charts that add up to 101 per cent. Don't trust that just because you and ten other people have proofed it that it's good to go... odds are the people proofing it are thinking the same thing! Find that person who has a laser focus for details, they are worth their weight in gold.
It's a very simple, full-color, five-page brochure which is mostly images (if you live in Ontario you've probably seen it). Well, it's actually 10-pages with five in English and five in French.
Ontario has just over 13-million people so (and I'm totally guessing here) this brochure probably went out to say four-million households - let's be ultra conservative and cut that projection down to two-million households.
Now, let's say each of these pamphlets cost 50-cents, which I think is a very conservative figure for 10-pages of full color - that would put the cost at a million bucks. This doesn't include the cost of mailing it all out (even if it only be man-hours).
So while receiving a pamphlet in the mail might seem like no big deal, in this case it is. That little pamphlet is over a million-dollar deal.
Ok Rob, get to the point already you might be saying.
The point of this blog entry is how PR (and marketing) is not easy and one of the easiest things to mess up is the little details. The pie charts below is the first thing you see when you open the brochure...
As you can see, in the middle pie chart the percentages add up to 101 per cent.
Now, keep in mind, on a million-dollar project this brochure (which takes about 2-5 minutes to read, it's not big at all) was probably proofed at least a dozen times by a dozen people. And yet, no one picked up that the percentages added up to 101 per cent.
This is a perfect example of how hard PR/marketing is, how easy it is to make a mistake. And it's almost always the most simple errors that occur because when proofing people think that there's no way someone could have gotten the pie chart numbers wrong, so they just glance over the figures (clearly not a single person bothered to add the numbers up).
In the age of twitter and facebook people think that content creation only takes a few minutes. But the reality is that content creation takes time and effort and focus and it truly is a skill.
Had this been a brochure for a business pitching services to a customer, they very well might add up the figures, see that there was an error and choose the competitor instead figuring that if the figures are wrong then what else that is being said isn't accurate?
Is this is the end of the world? Of course not.
But it's a great example of how the little details matter and people do notice them. The editing/proofing process is often rushed simply because it comes at the end and deadlines are usually rushing people along. But it's essentially that when you think you have a final product, that you stop and really proof it before you send it to the printers. Tell yourself that there must be at least one mistake that you've missed and then search for that mistake like you are playing 'Where's Waldo?' - because trust me, it's there.
What's always frustrated me is how people generally fail to appreciate good proofing. I use to work with a guy who was an excellent proofer. I mean, he would catch the smallest of mistakes, it was great. Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, that I was putting out the door would go out until I had him read it. Which was kind of him, because it wasn't actually his job to proof content, he was just good at it and cared about what we were putting out.
And yet, I don't think people ever truly understood or appreciated how valuable his gatekeeping was to the company.
So while it may be a thankless job at times, you still have to make it the highest priority to ensure that what you put out there has no mistakes. Because a simple mistake is a message in itself... it says 'We make simple mistakes' ... which is not what you want your stakeholders thinking.
So to all PR folks, find yourself a good proof reader. Consult your colleagues. They don't have to work in your department to help you out. But whatever you do, find that one person in your organization who has an uncanny ability to spot errors. Odds are they won't mind helping and will save you from simple errors such as pie charts that add up to 101 per cent. Don't trust that just because you and ten other people have proofed it that it's good to go... odds are the people proofing it are thinking the same thing! Find that person who has a laser focus for details, they are worth their weight in gold.
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