Before you sit down to write, think about the people you want to reach. Then narrow that down to just one of them. Picture that person in your mind’s eye…

What will they be doing when they get your message? What will they be thinking / worrying / dreaming about? That’s what you want to discuss with them.

Now pretend that you’re sitting across the kitchen table from them, sharing a cup of coffee and perhaps a plate of cookies – and just talk.

The message you write will be much more natural. Your words will flow easier and you won’t be tempted to throw in any “$40 words” for emphasis. (You wouldn’t do that in person, would you?)

The best part – people will enjoy reading what you write, and they’ll respond… What could be better? (The cookies, maybe??)

The rule is: Remember that it isn’t about you.

Your marketing, if it’s to be effective, HAS to be about your prospective customers/clients and what they want or need.

Test each of your marketing messages (including web pages) by checking to see what the first sentence is about. If it says “we” or “I,” rewrite it.

Then count the number of times you say “we” or “I” or any variation thereof. Next, count how many times you use some version of the word “You.”

Unless you’ve used “you” at least 3 or 4 times as often as you’ve used “I,” – rewrite it.

But here’s another way to get more recommendations:

Make the first move – recommend them first.

If you’ve done business with someone whose work pleased you, take the time to write a testimonial for them.

Send it to them with your permission to use it in their marketing materials.

Then, go one step further and find them on LinkedIn, Active Rain, or any other site that allows you to comment. Then write a good, specific recommendation.

You know what will happen? They’ll get an email letting them know – and suggesting that they return the favor.

Would YOU fail to write something nice about someone who recommended you first?

But now… I’m reconsidering that thought.

Why? Because yesterday she wrote a persuasive email introducing her followers to one of her colleagues.

She wrote quite a build-up about this person, then invited us to download a free report guaranteed to contain some of the same kind of good information that she’s been providing.

Well… she was wrong. She was either being deliberately deceptive or she hadn’t read the report herself. Either way, her credibility with me is ruined.

Now I think she was just doing some affiliate marketing to earn an extra buck – and hadn’t even looked at the materials she was promoting.

The report consisted of 30 pages – in about a 24 point type. But the only “information” it contained was several reasons why we needed to buy what the man was selling.

I have nothing against someone trying to sell me what they have to offer. That’s what commerce is all about. But when they promise information and only give an advertisement, then I feel like they stole my time.

So what’s my point?
If you’re going to recommend something – be honest about what the person is offering. And always read it first, just to make sure it delivers on the promise.

Unfortunately, many of them are “shooting themselves in the foot” with the way their messages are presented.

If you’re using these methods to reach and expand your audience, stop and think about how you present your message – you need to pay attention to both the words and the visual appeal.

The headline is important, of course. Without a good headline, no one will click the link to read the message. But that’s not all that matters.

The message has to immediately tell your reader that he or she will get some value from reading. In other words, that first sentence and first paragraph has to be about them and their concerns – not about you.

Never, ever begin your message with “I” or “We.”

Next, Looks Do Count!

So stop and think about how your message looks.

Back in school you learned that you need to start a new paragraph when you start a new thought. But when you’re writing for customers, especially on the Internet, you need to break it down a bit more than that.

If your thought goes on for ten or twenty lines, it’s way too much. It turns into a “wall of words” that simply looks like too much work. As a result, many of the people who might benefit from your message won’t bother to read it.

So find breaking points and split that message up. Make reading it easy for your audience.

Do remember to add a blank line between the paragraphs, and use bold or underlines in some spots for emphasis. And do vary the length. Ten paragraphs all with the same number of lines looks boring – so strive for variety.

In fact, try putting some of your most important points in one-line paragraphs for emphasis.

Add some sub-heads

The other point to consider is that everyone today seems to be in a hurry. They want to quickly see if your message is worth reading, so they skim. Have you ever tried to skim when there are no breaks in the message?

So in addition to breaking up the copy, try to add some sub-heads. They make it easier for your readers to see what your message is about.

If you have several sub-points to your message that will lend themselves to being in a list, use bullet points as well.

Make it easy.

The bottom line is that no matter how important your message is, if you make it difficult to read, it won’t reach your audience.

Now that anyone can have a website and/or a blog, there’s not even an editor to convince. Anyone can write anything they please.

That’s why it’s a good idea to apply a bit of common sense to any advice you’re seeing. For instance, take the blog I came across on Monday.

This one offered up 9 tips to improve your blog posts. Some of them were good, but one was absolutely wrong.

The writer suggested that you learn a new word each day – one that you had to look up in the dictionary. Then use it in your blog.

That’s some of the worst advice I’ve ever seen.

A blog is for communicating – for letting people get to know you and the service or product you offer.

It’s NOT for trying to impress anyone with your huge vocabulary. It’s definitely NOT for trying to show your readers that you’re smart and they’re dumb.

The rule of thumb in copywriting is to gear your words toward a 7th grade reading level. Any time you have a choice between a big word and a small word, use the small word.

Of course, if English is your second language and you need to learn more words that fit into that level, fine. Learn them and use them.

But unless your blog post for the day is all about learning new words, don’t say “commensurate” when you mean “equal” or “rapacious” when you mean “greedy.”

Use words that everyone in your audience can comprehend – without going to the dictionary.

Apply this same thinking to industry jargon…

Just because you know the meaning of common industry words doesn’t mean your customers do. So do try to avoid them.

The first step is to pass the “glance test” and to create a friendly feeling in the minds of your readers.

First pay attention to the “from” line: Make it clear that the message is from you. Use your name and/or your agency name, not just some address at gmail or yahoo.

Then consider the subject line: Make it interesting, but true, and make it relevant to your message.

Consider your own reactions. When the subject line is clearly an attention getter to make you look at the message…and has nothing to do with the message… doesn’t it make you cranky? It does me!

Take a little information out of your message and turn it into a hook to draw your reader in. If you’re telling about a new listing, say so. The people who are looking for a home will read it, but the ones who are hoping for an offer on their short sale probably won’t. That’s OK, because they’re not your target audience.

If you have interesting news about a political or social development, don’t say “news.” Say something specific like “HR 345 passed! Here’s how it affects you.” You have about 40 spaces, so use them!

Every day my mail… and probably yours… is filled with e-mail from people who are trying to trick us into reading their messages. I get mad. That means that even if I wanted what they offered I’d ignore them.

Now pass the second “glance test.”

What about the look of the copy? How many times have you started to read an e-mail message and stopped because it was too much work?

A long block of copy might work in a book or a magazine article, but on the screen it’s difficult to keep your eyes on the right line when there are too many lines.

Copywriters call it a “gray wall” and it is a wall. It’s a wall between you and your intended readers, because many people simply won’t bother to try.

The answer is to use short paragraphs with blank lines between them. Break it up, make it easy to scan, and use bullets and sub-heads to draw your readers to the most important points. If you want your message read and understood, present it in bite size pieces.

The bottom line is that you need to do everything possible to create trust in your reader, and to make it easy for him or her to read and comprehend your message.

One of the easiest ways to accomplish that is to put yourself in the reader’s place… If you got that e-mail would you read it or delete it? If you’re not sure, ask a friend to read it before you send it.

One of those details is flow… how the words roll through your reader’s minds, carrying them onward through your message.

You know what I mean. Sometimes you try to read something and an awkward sentence acts like someone pulled the emergency brake. You come to a screeching halt, re-read the sentence a couple of times, and then haltingly go forward. The momentum is gone, along with most of the enthusiasm you had for learning what the writer had to say.

When it’s something you’re required to read, research on a subject of importance, or new news that could affect your life, you struggle through it. But when it’s a marketing message, you’re more apt to just move on, deciding your time could be better spent doing something else.

The Rule of Threes:

Copywriters use all sorts of flow techniques that would make their high school English teachers cringe – and hand out an “F.” Things like beginning a paragraph with “and,” using plenty of ellipses and dashes, and writing incomplete sentences. We do that because that’s how people talk in real life. (Probably even that English teacher.)

So what about the threes? When you’re giving reasons why your prospects should choose you as their Realtor, three seems to be the number keeps the copy moving forward while still offering enough information to be convincing.

I know, you may have 15 reasons, but you can probably pare them down to the 6 or 9 most compelling, divide them into logical groups, and space them throughout your message.

If you try to list all 15 in one paragraph, your readers may not make it past number 7.

Note: If you do have a long list of features or benefits that should be placed together, put them into a bulleted list. That sets them apart visually and makes it easy for your reader to skip through and catch the ones most important to him or her. And that’s all any of them are searching for.

Check your work! Before you send an e-mail, print a letter, or send any promotional material off, read it aloud. See if it flows easily. If it does, wonderful! But if you stumble in a spot or two, take the time to re-write that section until it does flow.

The very last thing you want to do to any of your prospects is cause them to disregard your message!

If everyone who might possibly use your services or buy your merchandise was aware of you and what you have to offer, your revenues would increase. But, a whole lot of people who might love you don’t even know you exist.

Unfortunately, “same old, same old” ads in the local news won’t get their attention. But if you do something unusual, you’ll turn into news, and becoming news will give your exposure a giant boost.

What does that have to do with Halloween?

One thing you can do that will get you noticed AND create goodwill in the community is hold a pumpkin give-away.

We did that one year when I had a real estate agency, and we got both a story and a photo in the local news – two weeks in a row. On top of that, we attracted the favorable attention of dozens of people who had only been marginally aware that we existed.

I forget the monetary cost, but it was far less than the price of two newspaper stories!

We contracted with a pumpkin grower to deliver two bins of small pumpkins – you know, the big cardboard bins that sit in the grocery store filled with pumpkins, melons, or corn.

Then we offered one free pumpkin per child. All they had to do was come to our office to get them – accompanied by a parent.

Another time I purchased a few hundred American Flags on sticks (that held our business cards) and we handed them out in the parking lot at the post office a couple of days before the 4th of July. That was a LOT of fun.

Both of those events got people talking about us and our agency for days.

Why talk about Halloween right now? Because if you want to try it, you need to get those pumpkins ordered!

It’s finished now, and you can read all about it at www.promotemyrealestatecareer.com.

In it, you’ll find 107 ways to promote your career, and all but about a dozen of those ways are either completely free or cost only the gasoline to get you out and about.

If you have a different kind of business, I also have an e-book for you. In it you’ll find a plan to keep people coming back to your physical store, or to keep ordering your party plan merchandise or “door-to-door” products such as Avon.

Read more about How to Market a Local Business.

The truth is, you can do a great deal to help yourself by spending your time and using your imagination.

Yes, you need a good website, and yes, your website needs good copy. You also need business cards. But beyond that, a whole lot of what you could get talked into will be a waste of dollars.

The catch is, you do have to spend the time.

Just as there’s no magic pill to give you good health, there’s no magic pill to make your business take off.