This week our mail carrier delivered a full-color postcard telling us some agent from another town listed 12+ acres in "close proximity" to us. It was on a road with the address of the other town, but who knows? Addresses can be deceiving.
So I had to take a look.
As it turns out, the property is only about 5 or 6 miles from us, but it's on the other side of a mountain ridge - with no road from here to there. Perhaps "close" as the crow flies, but...
The rest of the message was all about him. What he wants, what he thinks, and how much of an expert on N. Idaho property he is. He didn't give any further information about the parcel for sale, so the sellers would not have been impressed with this "just listed" card.
In other words, he spent those dollars to send a message to people who said 
"Who cares?" A couple of my neighbors got them too, but didn't see how self-centered they were because they tossed them without reading.
Then yesterday I got a repeat of a message I'd received a few weeks ago. It began "As a leading home building contractor, I..."
It takes a minute to read on and see that no, the writer is not a leading home builder. He was assuming that I am, and he wanted to sell me software or something to make my business run more smoothly.
This person didn't spend the money that the other one did, but it was still bad marketing, and someone spent time writing that letter.
The conclusion: If you're going to spend time or money on marketing, make sure you're writing to the correct people.
And then - VERY important - make the message reveal what is in it for them if they read on. It must not be all about you and how wonderful you are, because those people who don't know you do not care. Not even a little bit.
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