In this dream, I was thinking about the keywords for the post and writing things about potatoes. Then suddenly I thought “What am I doing?” This post isn’t about potatoes!

No, what it was about was customer satisfaction, customer service, and delivering what you promise. It was about consumers being able to have some faith in the quality of the merchandise they buy. Maybe even about integrity in marketing, since those bags of awful potatoes are labeled “#1.” (I don’t want to think what #2 or #3 look like.)

So, when you write a blog post (or any other content) stop and think about the “core idea” of your message.

For instance: You may be writing about a celebration coming up in your community, but what you’re really writing about is the fact that your community is a good place to live. Here you’ll find good things to do, involved citizens, etc.

Whatever your core idea, be sure to include it in your copy – and in your keywords.

Image courtesy of Dreamstine.

That means instead of writing “large kitchen” you should write “12 X 14′ kitchen offers space for friends and family to help with holiday meals.”

And instead of saying “surrounded by trees” you should write “tall Pines surround the property, assuring privacy.”

I know – some places on the web you don’t have room so you have to be boring and uninspiring. But some places – like your own website – offer all the space you need. So use it!

Just yesterday I spent nearly an hour on the phone with a client who was trying to decide on the best word to describe an offer he was making.

It can be a long process, pondering each word and trying to decide how it might affect a reader’s perception of the offer.

Most copywriters and marketers go through this same process… and sometimes they come up with words that are just plain annoying.

At least, they annoy me. Once I see them in copy I am stuck with the feeling that the person is “All hype and no substance.”

The problem, of course, is that the words that annoy me might not be the same ones that annoy you.

But for what it’s worth, I’ll share two of the words/phrases that turn me away…

Both of these are used by marketers who are promoting their expertise and asking you to buy their program or listen to an audio or video – which you know will only promote what they have to sell.

One is “drill down.” They say “We’re going to drill down and …”

The other is “grill.” Just yesterday I got a promotion for a teleseminar, “In which XX will grill me until he discovers my secret for…”

Yeah sure. Delete.

Before you send your promotion out to the world, check to see if any of the words you use make you sound like “All hype and no substance.”

If they do, choose better words.

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.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how that applies to each and every business in the universe. And the fact that there’s more to it than that.

People may know about you, even want to do business with you, but if they can’t find you easily, they’ll go elsewhere.

You have to make yourself “Easy to Get.”

Just the other day I needed to find an acquaintance that has a small side business. I knew the name of the business, but it wasn’t listed in the phone book. I knew her first name… no help there. Finally her last name popped into my head and then I only had to remember her husband’s name to find them in the phone book. I persisted because I knew she was the only person nearby who could provide what I wanted. But if there had been someone else in the Yellow Pages…

You get the idea.

So what can you do? First of all, if you have a local service business, hand out your cards all the time. Never assume that since you gave them out once, people still have them. They probably don’t. Or if they do have one, they won’t remember where they put it when they need you. Give your cards to friends and ask them to pass them along. Give them to every new person you meet. Post them on the bulletin board along with the others at the local cafe’. If you leave a great tip after dinner, leave your card with it. When you pay a bill with a local merchant, include your card.

When you do a mailing to prospective customers, include your card. They might not keep the whole letter, but the business card might go into their card file. At the same time, make darn sure that letter has all your contact information on every page. That includes your phone, fax, e-mail, and mailing address. If you use your cell phone often, include that too.

The same goes for e-mail. Never assume that everyone wants to communicate electronically. Add a signature to all of your email that shows what you do, along with your phone numbers and your postal mailing address, as well as your return email address.

Then there are print ads. Every once in a while I see a newspaper ad that was a complete waste of money. The ad might have gotten my attention, but they forgot the address of the business and/or the contact information.

In short, make it easy for anyone to find you … no matter which method they prefer.

Never hide from people who want to give you money.

If I was more ambitious, I’d send that childhood chant to a few websites I visited today.

But I’d better begin at the beginning…

This morning at 6:23 a.m. my telephone started ringing. It took me a few seconds to wake up and realize what that noise was, so the answering machine came on. No one left a message, but the caller ID gave me a phone number.

So I decided to find out who had called.

Do you know that there are dozens of “FREE” reverse look-up sites on the Internet? One of them even gave me the initials of the person who owns that phone number. They all told me it was a cell phone in Palm Beach, Florida.

ALL of them demanded a subscription before they’d give me a name.

I don’t know about you, but if someone tells me something is free and then demands money for it, I’m not buying.

If the ad said “Reverse phone book – Find any name for only $4.95,” I’d do it if it was important. But when they lied to get me there, I wouldn’t consider it. And I also wouldn’t consider clicking on any of the affiliate banners on their sites.

Would you?

What do you think of this practice?

And… there’s nothing new about that, for here’s what Benjamin Franklin said:

“If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.

Before you start to write your next business letter, or any kind of marketing material, think about that. Then think about what emotions will drive someone to purchase your product or use your service.

Appeal to those emotions first, then show them with logic why the choice they’ve made is a good one.

So… they make statements that contradict, or are just untrue.

For instance, tonight I was doing dishes and started reading the labels on the bottle of dishwashing detergent. At the top of the bottle there was a sticker that read “New! Now gets more dishes clean with every drop!”

Farther down, the label said “Original formula.”

So… which was it? New or original?

They do the same thing with offers for something “Free.” They use that word to get you interested in whatever they’re offering, but later in the promotion they’ll happen to mention the shipping and handling charges. And generally, those charges are more than the cost of whatever the free item might have been.

Another one I thought was strange…

Sometimes I get emails with links to free samples. Since it’s fun to get silly things in the mail, if I have a little extra time, I order these samples. Not long ago one of the promotions was for a free bottle of shampoo. That sounded good, so I ordered it.

What I got instead was a coupon to take to the store. It said it was good for a free bottle – and in small print “Up to $1.79.”

Guess how much the shampoo cost? Just under $3.

Now, maybe they intended it to be free. Maybe if I lived in a big city with discount stores I would have found it for $1.79. But I don’t know, because I’m not going to drive an hour to look for a dollar off on a bottle of shampoo!

Here’s something that actually is free…

If you happen to sell real estate, you can get some free letters to use in your prospecting. You’ll find them at Copy by Marte.

All you have to do is put your name and email address in the box, and the letter you want will be on its way to you.

Do you ever think about the emotional effect your words carry?

Some are obvious – like love, hate, anger, etc. But some are not so obvious.

Sometimes words that seem to convey your meaning actually cause an emotional effect on others that you don’t intend or want.

For instance, consider the word “anxious.”

You might say “I’m anxious to meet you,” or “I’m anxious to tour your home,” or “I’m anxious to begin landscaping your property,”or “I’m anxious to help you find a new hairstyle.”

And when you say it, you mean that you are looking forward to it. In fact, you can hardly wait!

Unfortunately, the hidden emotion behind the word “anxious” can subconsciously tell people that you’re afraid, worried, apprehensive, or dreading it.

Obviously, not everyone will pick up that vibe. But since some will, it’s better to replace “Anxious” with “eager.” “Eager” says you’re “rarin’ to go!”

Another troublesome word is “Expert.”

That one can convey a feeling that you think perhaps you’re better than anyone else. It signifies a bit of arrogance.

You can replace that one with “Specialist” and create a warmer feeling in the people who read your messages.

When you think about all the emotions that words carry, and how important it is to choose just the right ones, don’t you feel sorry for people who are trying to grasp English as their second language? I sure do!

Right now there’s an ad for skin cream running on TV. I’ve been noticing it for at least the last two or three weeks, and every night it says the same thing: “This offer ends at midnight tonight.”

You can see the same false urgency tactic used on Internet sites. Just a small bit of script changes the date in the copy so that no matter when you visit the site, the offer ends at midnight on that date.

If the ads were true they’d be effective. But they’re not true, so they make the marketers look like exactly what they are – liars.

They also make them look like fools – or people who think their customers are fools. Do they seriously think that each potential customer will see their ad or their website only once and hurry to take action?

Another false urgency tactic I’ve seen has much the same effect.

In this scheme, the marketer sends an email offering a special price on their product for a few days – usually a week or so. Then each day they send a reminder email telling you that the deadline is getting closer so you’d better hurry to order. And then – on the last day they come up with some reason why they’re going to extend the deadline.

Maybe it was on Sunday and they know many of their customers only access the Internet at work. Maybe they had some kind of computer glitch. Maybe there was a snow storm in Florida.

But a couple of companies have used this tactic so often that everyone knows their deadlines can’t be taken seriously.

Again, it erodes their credibility and causes people to trust them less and less.

False scarcity is just as bad.

If you really do have a limited supply of an item, scarcity is a good selling point. But don’t make the mistake that one Internet marketer did.

He used scarcity to promote an e-book! Perhaps if he’d used different words it would have worked. He could have said “I’ll only sell 10 copies.” Instead he said he only had 10 copies left to sell. And that, of course, exposed him as a liar.

If you’re selling a physical product that you’re going to ship, your customers aren’t likely to know if you tell them you only have 20 and really have 2,000.

However, they’re likely to be suspicious if you keep advertising the same 20 for days and days. In fact, they’ll either assume you’re lying or they’ll decide that since nobody else wants what you have to offer, it probably isn’t worth buying.

Use urgency and scarcity carefully, and only when its true.

Unless you want a very short career in marketing, your reputation is one of your most important assets, and you’ll destroy it by telling obvious falsehoods.