Thoughts on Marketing…

Although I always preach against using jargon when talking to customers – I realized tonight that I’m just as guilty as everyone else.

When I talk about the text that you use in marketing letters, ads, brochures, etc. I call it “copy.”

That’s why they call people like me copywriters – we write copy.

But… for someone starting out in marketing the term may be unfamiliar. They might think I’m talking about making a copy on a copy machine – or even copying someone else’s work.

Oh – oh. That wouldn’t be a good impression to give.

I should have known better.

This is a small town, so when I go to the grocery store or the post office – or anywhere in town – I’m apt to run into people who used to be real estate clients or (to go way back) grocery store customers. When they ask what I’m doing these days I used to say “I’m a copywriter now”… and those who didn’t just get a blank look would answer me with a question about getting rights to a song or a book they were writing.

Even though many of these folks own businesses, they had no idea at all what a copywriter did. So, I created an “elevator speech” that tells them I write marketing materials to help businesses get more customers.

So… my question for you tonight is this: Are you guilty too?

Do you use words that your customers don’t comprehend?

It can happen in almost any line of work. For instance, do your real estate customers know what “escrow” means? Since it means different things in different parts of the country, even experienced buyers and sellers may not know.

Give a little thought to the words you routinely use in your business – and whether those words really are commonly used by people outside of your industry. If they aren’t, then it would be a good idea to re-phrase what you mean in more common terms, or just go ahead and give the definition.

Communication is too important to let it be ruined by jargon.

If you own a home, you’ve probably received real estate letters suggesting that you list it for sale. And in all probability, most of them began with one of two words: “I” or “We.”

This is the number one mistake made by marketers of all kinds, and real estate agents are at the top of the list of offenders. But they’re not the only ones. Marketers in all kinds of professions make the same mistake.

There’s some kind of misguided notion that the person receiving the letter wants to know about you – who you are, how long you’ve been in business, how proud you are of your new facilities, etc.

They don’t want to know. They don’t care in the least.

And that’s why a letter that’s all about you is on the fast lane to the round file… or the junk folder on the computer.

Those folks want to know two things:

• you recognize their problem
• you can help them solve it

Whether it’s finding the perfect new home or creating a beautifully landscaped yard, or assuring themselves that they have proper insurance coverage – they want to know what you’re going to do to help them reach their goals.

There are only two places where you should be talking about you: The “About” page on your website and your personal brochure. Other than that, everything you say should be about your prospects and their concerns.

A good letter takes a bit of time and thought – because you do have to weave your offers to help into the copy, and you do have to show that you are the person who will keep your promises, show up on time, charge a reasonable rate, and generally solve their problems.

One way to put yourself on the right track is to write a rough draft before you try to write the actual letter. In that rough draft, begin each paragraph with the word “You.”

You’ll probably have to come back and edit and remove some of those “you’s,” later, but beginning with that word will move your focus to your clients – and their wants and needs.

When you need a good marketing letter and don’t want to write it yourself, get in touch!

Your real estate letters can do more harm than good if you send them to the wrong people!

People – all of us – want to be seen as individuals. And your prospects are people.

If they’ve taken the time to sign in at an open house or ask for a special report on your website, they’ve given you some insight into who they are. So if you send them a message that shows you didn’t pay attention, they’re more apt to be insulted than intrigued.

At the very least, you should be able to figure out if they’re interested in buying or selling.

A few months ago I signed up for messages on a website – as part of some research I was doing for a client. I immediately got ten (yep, ten) messages from this agent. That’s something for another post – but because I was doing research, I skimmed through all of those messages.

I found letters written to first time buyers, distressed sellers, expired listings, move-up buyers, seniors who were moving to a care facility, and more. This guy took out his shotgun and figured that one of those ten letters might strike a chord. It sure did – it made me think he was nuts.

The next day I got 4 or 5 more of these goofy messages – and that continued on every couple of days for about a month.

If you web capture form tells you nothing more than “buyer” or “seller,” then write your real estate letters to a general audience. Talk about subjects that would be of interest to any buyer or any seller.

But don’t risk insulting a well-to-do seller by talking about his need for a short sale specialist, or telling a seasoned investor things only a first time buyer needs to know.

When you’re ready to write to specific sellers… save yourself time and effort by choosing one of my pre-written real estate letter sets.

Instead of staring at a blank paper for the next hour, get a pre-written set. An hour from now you can have these
real estate letters personalized and ready to send to FSBO’s, Expired listings, short sale sellers, and many others.

September will be here in a couple of days – and if your summer has been as busy as mine, you may have let your marketing slide. It’s easy to do when you’re running around trying to take care of summer business. It’s especially difficult to keep up if you have kids and summer activities with them.

(No, I’m not suggesting you ignore the kids. They grow up too fast to give up any time you could spend with them.)

But… if you haven’t been marketing consistently, now is the time to kick it into high gear. Why? Because what you do now will dictate whether you have money to put presents under the tree come Christmas.

It’s true. Some of our marketing efforts get fast results, but for the most part, setting up a marketing project, implementing it, and following up on the leads it generates will take up to 90 days.

Last month I wrote that Email Bundle had “slammed” my phone bill with a charge for internet service I had not ordered and didn’t want.

I called Frontier and they removed the charge – and SAID that they were placing a block on 3rd party billing so it couldn’t happen again.

But… I opened my phone bill yesterday and there it is again. A $14.97 charge from Email Bundle.

Last month I had also contacted them, and they said they would refund my “payment” immediately and “discontinue my service.”

This time, although I really don’t have the time to fool around with this kind of thing, I will report them to the FTC.

Today we have a guest post from my friend Debra… A lady who decided she no longer wanted to be in debt, and did something about it.

Here’s her message:

Now is the time to get serious about getting out of debt (debt here refers specifically to credit card debt and other unsecured consumer debt). There are at least three good reasons to take action toward becoming debt free.

To begin with, having a lot of debt causes stress. When you’re carrying debt, a good amount of your thinking is preoccupied with figuring out how you are going to make the payments and worrying about making ends meet. Face it. Being in debt takes up lots of energy, and that is energy that could be used in other, more productive ways. Studies show that debt is also hard on relationships largely because of how the stress changes how you relate to others. Financial problems are often cited as one of the main reasons why couples divorce. If for no other reason, this justifies getting your debt paid off.

The second reason that now is a good time to deal with your debt is because you will have more money freed up to use in other ways. All of the money that you are currently paying in interest is going into someone else’s pocket when it could be going into your pocket. That money could go into savings or be used to buy cash for something you need instead of buying it with credit. One other advantage of having more money available is that your debt to income ration will improve which will result in your credit score going up. This can save you money on interest, for example, if you plan to buy a home. Many employers are starting to look at potential employee’s credit scores before hiring, so this is another way improving your credit score could be beneficial.

Another good reason to pay off your debt is because of the uncertainty of the current economy. Right now, with the high unemployment rates and ballooning national debt, one of the smartest moves you can make is to have as little debt as possible. When you are indebted to the credit card companies, you are at their mercy. They can change the terms of your agreement as long as they notify you within a certain time frame, and you can be sure that they will look out for their own profits first. In other words, they don’t have your best interests in mind. Don’t take the chance of being caught off guard with changing terms or conditions that leave you in an even worse situation.

Once you make the commitment to get out of debt, your first step should be to sit down with all your statements and calculate exactly what you owe. Making a list of everything you owe is a good starting point.

But don’t stop there. Make a commitment to go all the way to become 100% debt free. I know you can do it. How do I know? Because I did it, and I know you can too.

If you want to know what I did to get out of debt in a short time, you might want to check out my guide, Drop Your Debt Fast: A Guide to Getting Rid of Debt. My guide explains exactly what I did to become debt free once and for all. Visit my website, www.DropYourDebtfast.com to find out more and to sign up for my free monthly newsletter.

Tonight I got another goofy email:

“Hi Marte,

Place an order today and we will build 50% Bonus Links For Your Order For Free! Offer ends on August 21. Order now.”

Ummm… who are these people, and what did they offer me? I have no idea.

I understand about maybe wanting to hurry up and send a blast out to your list. But unless you tell people what you’re offering and why, there’s not much point in it.

Also, when the message is this short, there’s no excuse not to read it before you send it. This: “that our Summer Special” is a goofy mistake – and the rest of the sentence is a bit strange as well.

I shouldn’t criticize that. I know I’ve missed typos in the past, and I’ve gotten an extra word stuck in when I’ve been revising copy. It happens. But darn… the whole message is only 4 lines!

We all forget things – but we shouldn’t forget that prospects always need a reason why if they’re going to respond. This may be a good offer – but there’s no reason to buy if you don’t even know what you’re buying!

So, even if you wrote yesterday – or this afternoon – take the extra minutes to reveal who you are, repeat your offer, and let those customers know what’s in it for them if they respond.

Everyone knows the list is important – that’s why there are so many dozens (hundreds??) of programs out there telling you how to build a big list.

But what if you have a list but need to switch autoresponders?

The experts say you could lose as much as 60% of your list, and at first I thought that was because people had signed up who were simply no longer interested. Things change, after all. What seemed important last year may be something you routinely delete this year.

But I think I just found another reason – and it’s one you can do something about.

Today I got an email that read:

“To maintain contact with our customers and to ensure the very best email delivery possible, we are switching to a confirmed email list. Please confirm your email address by clicking the link below:”

I didn’t recognize the name in the from line, and I didn’t recognize the URL for the company. So… I didn’t click the link.

Surely if it was something I wanted I would recognize something – wouldn’t I?

Maybe not.

So what’s the cure? For one thing, you can do what one of my clients is doing – send a series of emails over the 7-10 days prior to the switch – informing your readers of the change, and reminding them (with good information) about why they want to continue their membership on your list.

Second, it appears that you can customize the message. All this says is “our SEO company” and the URL, but that leads me to believe that you could say something like:

“In order to keep receiving our timely tips on increasing your site’s SEO…”

The other important thing, if your readers know you by name, is to include the name they know in the from line on that opt-in message.

Losing followers is never a good thing – even though you have to expect to lose a few.

Do all in your power not to lose the ones who want to stay with you!

I have a confession to make. As much as I harp about people learning the difference between here and hear, where and were, and there and their, there are some words that I can’t seem to keep straight.

My usual solution, if I can’t think how to spell a word or which word to use, is to just turn the sentence around and use a completely different word. But sometimes that’s difficult.

That’s why I was tickled when I learned a simple trick to help me decide if I should say “further” or “farther.”

It’s always been easy to remember that a person could further their cause or further their education. But when I wanted to say it was farther from here than it was to there, I could never remember… is it farther or further.

Well, tonight I got the answer. It came from a weekly writing tip from Basic Learning Systems. Most of the time I already know what they present in their tips, but once in a while I find a gem… and this was one of those times. Here it is:

Further refers to a degree or an abstract quality; farther involves space or physical distance. The easiest way to remember which word to use is to think: “FAR” (as in “farther”) is for distance or space. If distance isn’t involved, use “further.”

A few years ago, after I quit selling real estate and started writing marketing copy full time, I decided to write a little e-book about buying unimproved property.

This book was the result of talking to dozens of land owners who had been “burned” when they bought property – and of seeing the dishonest things sellers (and some agents) did to get their land sold.

Thus, the book is all about things to watch out for and questions to ask and have answered before you put down good money for a chunk of earth. My intent in writing it was to save people from the costly errors I’d seen.

I haven’t promoted it heavily, but over the years, people who were thinking of buying land have purchased the book – and I hope have heeded its warnings.

But… when the economic crisis began, sales of that book just stopped. I assumed it was because people were not buying land and building homes. And I have not promoted the book at all for at least the past year.

That’s why today I feel a little encouraged about the future of this economy… Since July 30, 3 individuals have purchased The Land Buyers Guidebook.

Maybe it’s a fluke, but it does mean they’ve been hunting for this kind of information. Either that or they’re agents who anticipate selling more unimproved property this year and want to be sure to protect their clients.