Are you proofing? Or are you proofreading? 

Marketing and design agencies are built around attention to detail. Reviewing campaigns, creative and content is part of the day-to-day — checking spelling and grammar, assessing the overall look and feel, and making sure client feedback and amends have been accurately reflected.

But is that the same as proofreading?

Proofreading is a whole other skill set. Our professional proofreaders ensure accuracy and legibility in long B2B and stakeholder documents by checking for missing or repeated words, inconsistencies in headings and terminology, typos, grammatical errors, and unclear language. We also verify that the table of contents aligns with the content, bullet points are consistent, and captions are accurate. 

10 reasons why Proofreading matters now – more than ever. 

1. Agencies don’t have their own Proofreaders anymore. 

2. Proofreaders can spot mistakes in anything – it’s like a superpower. 

3. People expect perfection – typos and errors can be a deal breaker. 

4. Bad grammar or spelling mistakes make you look like you don’t care. 

5. If you haven’t proofread your work properly, someone will find something wrong. 

6. Designers often focus on style over content – and their output suffers. 

7. As a writer, it’s impossible to proofread your own work – you’re too close to it. 

8. AI thinks it’s perfect – but it’s not. It still need the human touch. 

9. People can tell if ChatGPT wrote it––the massive endash is a dead giveaway. 

10. If you’ve poured your heart and soul into something, it deserves to be proofread. 

Why Design Agencies need a Proofreader 

Design Agencies dedicate the majority of their expertise to making comms pieces look amazing, tightly adhering to guidelines and colour pallettes to produce visually stunning outcomes. Generally speaking, the copy is dropped in and chopped and changed to suit the overall aesthetic of the piece – and then largely ignored.  

A beautifully-designed document with a howler of a spelling mistake will only be remembered for one thing – and could be seriously costly! 

If your Annual Report, or painstakingly-researched Whitepaper contains glaring spelling errors – or even factual inconsistencies – the overall impact can be overshadowed, or even dismissed by the reader, and all that hard work can be reduced to, well, nothing. 

Don’t leave it to chance – get it Proofread! 

A good Proofreader will be able to spot all manner of typos, contradictions, grammatical irregularities (especially in the small print and T&Cs), and add the extra layer of professional polish that your document deserves. 

Why even the best Copywriters need a Proofreader 

When you’re crafting beautifully pithy, deliciously witty and engaging copy, constantly agonising over the tone and style, as well as the simplicity of the messaging, it’s hard not to get over invested in the work. Then, when it comes to the final draft, it’s alarmingly easy to miss things, as you know how it should read in your own mind’s eye.   

Don’t let your pride get in the way of a good Proofreading 

A fresh pair of Proofreader eyes will pick up what your mind’s eye missed, and what even an eagle-eyed Account Manager or Client might overlook. It’s still all your own work – just with a professional safety net thrown in for good measure. 

AI is not foolproof  

Everybody’s using ChatGPT to write their proposals, web content and everything else these days. And while it is getting better, it still lacks that human touch – and does some very strange things with punctuation, as well as assuming we’re all American!  

Give AI writing some HI (Human Intelligence) – show it to a Proofreader 

Getting a Proofreader to give your document a ‘human rinse’ will not only fix up the grammar (and the accent!), it’ll also give it some genuine personality and make it so much more readable.  

We love proofreading. For help with copywriting, proofreading or editing any of your business documents, contact Proof Communications on 1300 PROOFS (1300 776 637) or head to the contact page.