The first rule in writing a business letter is so basic that I learned it in college - decades before I knew that someday I'd be writing marketing letters and website copy for real estate agents.
It goes like this: Never, ever, ever, begin a business/marketing letter with the words "I" or "We." (That rule extends to all forms of focusing on yourself rather than the reader. So "My name is..." is also a no-no.)
That was one of two rules drilled into our class. The other was to find out the name of the person you're writing to and use it - spelled correctly. In other words, avoid "Dear Sir or Madam."
You can get away with saying "I" if you're the customer - No one in business ever tosses a letter that begins with "I need to hire you..." But when you're marketing your services, your reader's initial reaction to an "I introduction" would be "Do I care who you are or what you want?"
Simple, isn't it? And yet...
This morning I received an email from a SEO person that began: "I would like to setup a 10 minute call with you to go over a competition analysis report that I generated for your website and your niches top 10 competitors."
(Notice that he ALSO used "setup" when it should have been "set up," and he forgot the apostrophe in niche's.)
What really bothers me... here is my rant...
I know there are plenty of uninformed people trying to market their services. They haven't studied the psychology of marketing and they have no clue that an opening sentence like that one is almost an automatic trip to the round file or the trash bin on a computer. And, like this person, they don't know basic grammar and don't hire a proofreader. They're hurting their own chances of success.
What really bothers me is that people who are holding themselves out as experts are selling marketing letters that break this basic rule to real estate agents who are trusting them to BE experts.
To me, it stands to reason that if a person knows nothing about marketing, they'll seek help from someone who is supposed to know. Thus, if they buy a book of letters or a set of letters - or if they hire a writer to create custom letters - they should reasonably expect that those letters will help them, not hurt them.
But that's not the case.
This week I was checking to see how Panda 2 had affected my Google placement, and I saw other real estate prospecting and farming letters for sale, so decided to check out my competitiont. One book for sale on Amazon offered a look at the inside pages, so of course I looked.... and could not beliieve my eyes when I saw letters that began with "I."
Who are the "experts" who wrote these atrocities?
Checking other sites that offered samples, I found the same thing.
And it makes me mad. Agents should be able to trust that what they buy to promote themselves and their business should help them - not hurt them.
Grrrrr....
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