We've all been there.

The copy is winding its way through the marketing group and is now on its fourth revision. The CEO didn't like the photo at the top of the e-mail so it's back to the drawing board, design-wise. The marcom director wants to change the headline so it conforms to the "approved company message". And you need to broadcast by the end of the week.

When you're this close to a campaign, there comes a point in the process where it's no longer easy to evaluate the creative objectively. You just want it out the door and off your desk. But it's also times like these when your campaign is most at risk.

Creative development can be an insular process. Even the best of companies tend to evaluate copy, message, and other creative elements against their own internal set of standards, usually standards based on how the "powers-that-be" have decided your product or service should be positioned in the marketplace.

It's also at the end of the creative process, with deadlines at hand, that changes can so often be made with these internal factors in mind, particularly when it comes to language. Sometimes we get so used to our own "marketing-speak" that we think everyone talks that way. Well here's news: they don't.

Take the time (and the process could take just a few minutes) to run your copy, your e-mail, your landing page, whatever, by an independent third party. A customer, for example. Your spouse or significant other, even. (Don't laugh - sometimes the best way to evaluate technology marketing is to show it to a layperson.)

Whomever your victim is, make sure he or she is someone outside the review process, immune from office politics, brand guidelines, magic quadrants, PowerPoint presentations, and other internal factors. Call it a "reality check." It could be the one thing that saves your campaign from imminent disaster.