Have you ever noticed? Most real estate copy doesn't say much. Compared to other kinds of products, you'll see no big promise, no appeal to the prospect's emotional hot buttons - mostly no nothing!
My suspicion is that Realtors are afraid of the one big promise they believe they need to make: "I'll sell your home for full price or more within 2 weeks." Of course they're afraid to say that - only a fool or an insane person would say that. Unless, of course, they had something devious going on, but we won't go there.
So... as a result of this fear, most Realtors pay good money for marketing materials that say little more than "I'm here." Some of their web sites don't even say that. In my travels through the internet searching for good real estate sites, I've found more than a few that kept the agent's name almost hidden.
One of those agents wrote me to ask how she could improve her site - and I had to write back and ask if this was her site, or a company site.
What a Realtor web site should include is a topic for another day, but if you want to see what I provide to my real estate clients, and why, visit www.copybymarte.com.
Today, let's think about the promises you CAN make. For instances, promises about your service. You can promise:
- Complete and detailed listings on your site and in MLS - with emotion-evoking copy that showcases the benefits of each of the house's best features.
- Beautiful photographs for web site and flyers
- Flyer boxes kept full - with flyers that entice readers to ask to see more
- Speedy response to all buyer inquiries, and to all calls from your clients
- Regular communication from you, letting your sellers know about buyer feedback, changes in the market, and anything else that affects their listing
- Assistance with staging
- Immediate notification to your personal buyer list
- Timely broker open
- Your reputation with other agents - making you someone whose listings they want to show because you are easy to deal with
If you stop and think about what you really do for your clients, I'm sure you can double that list.
Then, since so many transactions fall apart in that period of time between agreement and closing, you can promise to stay on top of it - keeping in touch with the buyer (or the buyer's agent), the lender, the closing agent, the inspectors, and anyone else who might throw a monkey wrench in the works.
Those are just the promises you can make to a seller. There's an entirely different list for buyers - one of the most important being a promise to let them know about new listings.
When my son was house hunting, we found one agent out of about 12 or 14 who took the 5 or 10 minutes to enter his wish list into the MLS system so he'd get regular notification of new listings. They all had the same opportunity to do that, but only one bothered.
Of course it paid off. He began calling her instead of the listing agents when he saw an interesting ad, and after a few months he bought a house through her. In addition, I have referred 2 or 3 people to her, so those 5 or 10 minutes were a wise marketing investment.
If fear of the big promise has kept you trapped in a cycle of wimpy marketing copy, stop and give some thought to the promises you can make and keep.
You may believe that all agents do what I've listed above, and you will sound silly for mention those things. Since you care enough about your career to read posts like this, I can understand why you think so, but it isn't so. There are potential clients out there who would love to find someone who would do those things.
I already mentioned the trouble my son had getting an agent to let him know about new listings. I also have friends who tried to sell homes. The indifference and incompetence in the majority of agents is baffling, to say the least.
I might venture to guess that less than 10% of all agents do even one thing on that list.
How does it feel to already be in the top 10%? Since you care, you're there!
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