There’s a common misconception about marketing that you can tell the truth or you can generate sales … but you can’t do both. In fact, the opposite is the case. As William Bernbach said: "The most powerful element in advertising is the truth." Customers won’t be fooled if you talk about fake fears or nonexistent problems. [...]
When you write property listings, you need to be willing to give up something. Theoretically, every property you sell could be bought by upsizers, downsizers, young people, old people, singles, families; in reality, though, there are going to be only one to three serious buyer types. So you need to exclude the other buyers from your [...]
Your customers are scared. Your marketing needs to reflect that. No matter what your business or industry, your customers are scared: If you sell clothing, your customers are scared of being unfashionable If you sell financial advice, your customers are scared of retiring poor If you sell content marketing, your customers are scared of losing sales [...]
“It doesn’t get better than this!” That was a headline I saw on a property listing, and I loved it, for two reasons. First, the headline evoked curiosity – I wanted to read the listing to find out why the property was so good. Second, the headline immediately differentiated the property from all the others out [...]
The more social proof you can inject into your marketing, the more effective your marketing will be. With that in mind, one way to demonstrate that your small business is in demand is to ask your customers to photograph themselves using your products. You can then publish these photos on your website and on your social [...]
You should tell at least one story every time you write a property listing. These stories should be about the wonderful life buyers will live once they move into your home. For example, you might tell a story about: playing cricket with the family in the large backyard hosting fun barbecues in the shaded courtyard living an active [...]
Whenever you write property listings, you need to follow a three-step process. First, you need to ask yourself: “Who will buy this property?” Because different buyer groups have different characteristics. For example, the personalities and life experiences of downsizers are very different to the personalities and life experiences of first home buyers. Second, you need to [...]
Short sentences are sexy. Like that one. And the one before. Your content marketing should be full of short sentences, whether it’s written or video. There are two reasons why short sentences are sexy: They generally contain just one idea They generally use simple language Short sentences, in other words, are easy to understand. If you [...]
If you want to write persuasive property listings, one of the things you must do is overcome the obvious objections your buyers are already thinking about. Every home has at least one obvious objection – it might be the size, the condition, the location, the price. You don’t overcome obvious objections by hoping buyers magically forget [...]
When it comes to email marketing, more attractive is actually less attractive. A lot of small businesses go to a lot of effort to make their emails look pretty, by building striking templates, choosing lovely fonts and adding alluring images. But this is self-defeating, for two reasons: Your customers’ email systems are more likely to send [...]
