Updated April 22, 2021

Want to know a few scary truths ignored by too many content creators?

Editing and proofing are not the same. And you can’t adequately execute the two simultaneously.

And if you think the same person can write, edit, and proof their own work, you should be afraid, very afraid of publishing that content.

Even the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recognizes proofreaders as distinct from editors. Its description of proofreaders’ duties includes: “Read transcript or proof type setup to detect and mark for correction any grammatical, typographical, or compositional errors. Excludes workers whose primary duty is editing copy.”

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I’m not a handy guy, but I know how to use a tape measure. If I use the tape measure to figure out the height of my fence, I can determine the value of my house, right?

Well, no, of course not.

Yet when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of marketing, we often make these kinds of leaps. We look at some arbitrary measurement – like page views or downloads – and try to link it to a return on investment.

In the latest episode of Marketing Makers – the series for those who make marketing work, I delve into the sometimes-mystifying process of measuring the return on investment for marketing – and, more specifically, the content that feeds the marketing machine. I walk you through the art and science of putting together all those arbitrary numbers to tell a story about helping business performance.Continue Reading