Yesterday, I got an email from “verizon wierless” with the subject line: “By tomorrow, review your points to keep them.”
Although my spam filter didn’t catch this, I certainly did. I didn’t have to look further than the sender’s name to know this wasn’t legit, not to mention I don’t have a Verizon account. With two typos in the sender’s name and a clumsy subject line, this was not written by anyone who cared about accuracy, wording, etc. It seems spammers don’t have the budget or the inclination to copy edit or even to proofread.
Did you know that having spelling errors, typos, and even improper capitalization impacts the trustworthiness of your written information? Research has proven this. Check out this research article, “Spelling Errors and Shouting Capitalization Lead to Additive Penalties to Trustworthiness of Online Health Information: Randomized Experiment With Laypersons” published on the National Library of Medicine website, which states:
The mean trustworthiness ratings of the control excerpts ranged from 32.59 to 62.31 (rating scale 0-100). Compared with the control excerpts, excerpts containing only misspellings were rated as being 8.86 points less trustworthy, those containing inappropriate capitalization were rated as 6.41 points less trustworthy, and those containing the combination of misspelling and capitalization were rated as 14.33 points less trustworthy (P<.001 for all). Misspelling and inappropriate capitalization show an additive effect.
Basically, the more mistakes, the less trustworthy the information.
The obverse is true: the fewer mistakes, the more we trust the information.
Can you imagine if spammers were more careful with their work?
About Deborah Brody
Deborah Brody writes and edits anything related to marketing communications. Most blog posts are written under the influence of caffeine.
