This is such a common refrain and completely understandable. No business has access to a magic money tree, so funds are finite. And they are often allocated to big-ticket items – research consultants, launch events, digital marketing – when budgets are set months ahead of time.
But then a draft document hits your desk and you know it needs a serious edit. You also know a funding request will send the finance director into a spin.
Summoning up a few thousand dollars for an editor probably seems akin to extracting blood from a stone. Hardly worth the effort of filling in the business case, right?
Well, we'd argue (of course!) that investing in editing is always worth it. So perhaps what you need is evidence of the benefits.
These go far beyond the world-renowned Fixing Of The Typo. In fact, as this post is all about money, it seems only fair to mention that editing can save you money.
Let's look at some situations that might lead to lost or wasted money for your business, without you even realising it. And how a good editor can help you avoid them, by bridging the gap between you and your audience.
Your annual report is a hodgepodge of marketing buzzwords and financial jargon.
Investors start to wonder whether the company has something to hide.
A good editor will cut through the waffle to highlight the most important messages.
Result: Trust maintained.
Your marketing email about a new service is ambiguous – albeit unintentionally.
Customers don't know what it means so you're inundated with queries.
A good editor will make the email easy to read, understand and act on.
Result: Time saved.
Your online store is hard to navigate and reaching the checkout page feels like a marathon. Shoppers run straight to a competitor’s site in protest.
A good editor will work (with IT if needed) to streamline the purchasing process.
Result: Orders placed.
Your grant application is dense and doesn't properly address the selection criteria.
Reviewers rule you out because they don't understand your business or product.
A good editor will transform the application so your case is clear from page 1.
Result: Grant approved.
These are just some of the benefits you might consider for your editing business case. Then, if you zero in on plain language editing – Goldfinch's speciality – you can add some eye-opening figures.
Joe Kimble has a highly regarded book of plain language case studies, Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please – with a new edition in development. It shows how organisations around the globe have made huge savings by reviewing, editing and rewriting key documents for clarity.
A striking example comes from the British government, who reworked a suite of administrative forms back in the 1980s. One Ministry of Defence form had around 750,000 annual users, and simplifying it cost £12,000. This sounds like a fairly hefty price tag ... until you hear how much money the new form saved the MOD by reducing error rates and processing time:
£400,000 – a year – in staff time.
Even if your business isn't at quite the same scale, bringing clarity and focus to your communications can undoubtedly save money.
Suddenly it’s game on for the cost–benefit analysis in your business case. And that editing project fee of a few thousand dollars is looking like a pretty good investment after all.
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