Do typos, missing words matter online?

By Jack Burke
Mistakes, I've made a few...There was the time when I was laying out the front page of newspaper and used "bare" instead of "bear" in a headline. The only saving grace was the fact the story was from the wire and not about a local resident.
I thought about that slip-up after I received an email invite to a webinar. The topic of the webinar was interesting, but the text of the invite was rife with errors. In the first paragraph, I counted six mistakes--typos, syntax and style. How unprofessional, I thought.
But then I wondered: Do the errors matter? The webinar isn't about grammar and style; it's about mobile apps. Would people react the way I did--that the invite showed a glaring lack of professionalism--or would most people shrug ( or even notice)?
In the end, I don't think companies can risk alienating potential customers with ham-handed content. If you feel you can't generate solid marketing content in-house, find help. Concentrate on your core capabilities and let someone else take care of the message.