I’m sure glad I didn’t forget today!

Seeing that my Active Rain profile was in sad need of updating, I took the time this morning to do it. Then I checked to see what it looked like.

I have no idea why or where it came from, but at the top of each section there were at least 100 lines of “gobbledy-gook.” I went into the HTML editor and got rid of them, but if I hadn’t checked, all a visitor would have seen was – yuck.

After that was repaired I checked all the links and they’re fine.

But earlier this week, one of my links wasn’t fine. When I posted the blog about the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, I included a link for agents to use in requesting a letter I’d written. For whatever reason, the first attempt at creating a link didn’t work – it led to an error page.

So… Check and double check. Sometimes strange things can appear when you upload – and links you thought were fine can be broken.

“Excessive Adjectives – too Much of a Good Thing.”
Blame Your English Teacher
Blame Your Mom
Blame Fear of breaking the law
You aren’t addressing your prospects’ concerns”

Now that you know where to place the blame, you can start to do something about it.

That starts with taking the time to write. No good copy is written in an instant.

Begin with getting it all out on paper, then sort, re-arrange, and delete anything that doesn’t add to your main topic.

Next, tighten it up. That means getting rid of “fluff” and extra words that serve no purpose except to fill space. Replace long words with short ones and long sentences with short ones.

Eliminate any words that any person in your target audience might not understand. Even if you use terms like “experiential,” “protracted,” and “tertiary” in real life – get them out of your copy.

And if you can’t overcome the reasons why or don’t have the time to write effective marketing copy, get in touch.

Writing to help you succeed is what I do.

And yet, amateur marketers still pay too much attention to the rules their High School English teacher taught. The result is dry as a bone, stiff copy.

And you know, nobody reads dry words until they’re required to do so.

At the same time, being too casual makes you sound a little demented. And I HAVE seen it done. In fact, I’ve received emails with a subject line that went something like: “Like You Gotta Dig This!”

Uh – no, I like don’t gotta.

I thought that “like” habit had fallen out of fashion years ago – but I was wrong. I not only heard it in the grocery store this week, I heard it on a television commercial tonight.

But there are a couple of other common errors that I’m seeing more and more lately.

One is the over-use or mis-use of commas.

Look how difficult it is to read this:

By now, you know, that following instructions, from your high school English teacher, will cause you to write dry, dull, uninspiring copy.

This one is SO easy to avoid. Here’s the trick:

After you write a sentence or a paragraph, read it out loud. Pause at every comma. If it sounds like normal conversation – great. If it sounds choppy or clunky or halting (as if you were really not sure about what you wanted to say) get rid of a few commas.

The other is the over-use of descriptive words and phrases.

Take this sentence from a property description one of my ezine readers found on an agent website: “Well-favored uncommonly modern kitchen equipped with top-of-the line appliances and unpredicted materials.”
(No, that’s not a typo. It said “unpredicted.”)

Sadly, all those words draw attention to themselves and away from the message they were meant to convey.

Keep it simple – and communicate.

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!

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.

Once again, he was promising the sun, moon, and stars to anyone who signed up for his latest and greatest.

I have no idea why I read the first few paragraphs, but I did, and here is what I found:

“You have to see this new video that me and George just produced.”

I was shocked, so I read on, and there in the third paragraph, he repeated it. “Me and George.”

Now, all copywriters use conversational grammar. But that error is one that everyone should have gotten past in say… 3rd grade.

There’s no excuse for this. If English is your first language, you know better. If it’s NOT your first language, find someone to proofread your materials before you send them out to the world.

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.

A recent Active Rain post posed the question: “Which words make you disregard a marketing message?”

Here are some of the replies:

Paradigm shift
hard-worker
well-respected
“KILLER”
Progressive
Well-respected
Content-rich
Quality
Urgent
Utilize
Typical
Innovative
leverage
A-list

Two of my own favorite “love to hate” phrases are “drill down” and “Hold his feet to the fire.”

These are quite often used when promoting a teleseminar or some kind of training program. And there’s just something about those phrases that make me think the speaker (or writer) is a phony.

Then there are the sentences that attempt to impress, but simply sound pompous. For instance:

Let’s all partner to leverage our passion and proactively initiate a world-class paradigm shift that will optimize enterprise-level interactions.

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!

It was intended for real estate agents, but the principles apply no matter what business you’re in.

So here is the question: Is writing your own marketing materials the highest and best use of your time?

You as a real estate professional must wear dozens of hats. Some of them no one else can wear, but some of them could easily be placed on another head, freeing your time for those tasks you do best, and those that put the most $ in your bank account.

Talking to customers and clients face-to-face, for instance.

If you’re just starting out and not very busy you can probably wear most of those hats yourself for a while – but even then it depends upon where your talents lie. Some things you should never do for yourself, even if you have plenty of time.

One of those is writing. If you love it and you’re good at it, you should do it, at least until you have too little time to spare. If you don’t love it; if you aren’t sure about proper word usage; or if you just don’t do it very well, then you shouldn’t do it at all.

Forget about “should.”

Writing is something everyone seems to think they “should” be able to do, simply because they know more about their business than anyone else. But many cannot, and it has nothing to do with intelligence.

Even while they have no trouble communicating in person, when they sit down to write the words just aren’t there. Some people feel embarrassed over that inability to put their thoughts down on paper in a way that motivates other people, and I’ve never figured out why.

We each have different talents. I yell at my best friend with regularity because she calls herself “dumb” over not being able to write a good letter. This is crazy – the woman is a brilliant accountant!

Your copy precedes you…

The copy on your web pages, in your email campaigns, and in the letters, brochures, and postcards you send is the first impression that many have of you. As such, it should draw attention to what you can do for those potential clients and customers. Sadly, too often it draws attention to a misuse of the word “here,” or one of dozens of other common grammatical/spelling errors.

That’s why, if writing is “not your thing,” you should either enlist the aid of a friend or family member who knows how to write good marketing materials, or hire a copywriter.

Unless your marketing materials make a good first impression, you may never have the chance to make that first “in-person” impression.

I know, writers are expensive. That’s because several hours of work necessarily go into each letter, post card, or web page. Any writer who tells you they can whip out an effective sales letter in 30 minutes is someone you should shoo out your door.

But I do have good news. I can take the price sting out of one piece of the marketing mix for real estate agents.

Professionally written prospecting letters at a fraction of the price…

Now you can have the benefit of professionally written letters at about 4% of the price you’d normally pay. No, that’s not a typo – I really said 4%. You’ll find the details on my prospecting letters page.

There you can choose from 22 sets of letters, each written with a specific target audience in mind. They’ll save you time and money while they help grow your business by showing your prospects that you’re an agent they can trust.

Go see.

If you really want to do it yourself…

If you do want to write your materials yourself, plan on setting aside at least 2 or 3 hours per letter. Write it first, then edit. Then set it aside for a day and edit again. Then read it aloud to make sure it flows well. If possible, have someone else read it to make sure you’ve said what you meant to say. Misunderstandings come easy, even in writing.

To determine if letter writing is the highest and best use of your time, compare the cost of having a good letter written against the income you might realize if you were on the phone or in front of a customer instead.