Can you really write more-effective ads in less time? You bet. Just keep a few things in mind...like your audience and their emotions.

If you fall into either of these categories, help is on the way. These five tips will help you get started writing powerful, appealing ads.

by Hal Douthit   Can you really write more-effective ads in less time? You bet. Just keep a few things in mind...like your audience and their emotions.

The simple truth is that to create an ad, you eventually have to sit down and write it. But some agents suffer stifling cases of writer’s block. Others simply list the features of a property and consider the task accomplished.

If you fall into either of these categories, help is on the way. These five tips will help you get started writing powerful, appealing ads.

For better than three decades, I have accepted anecdotal evidence that selling the property was not the primary reason agents advertised a home. Satisfying the sellers, getting other listings, and matching the competition—surely these items topped the list for why agents advertise. But a recent nationwide survey completed by our companies involved in real estate publishing and advertising contradicted this widely held belief. Agents responded that selling the property was the main reason they advertise.

Hurray! I have always believed that agents must advertise properties for the same reason Proctor and Gamble advertises Pringles: to tell people what they have to sell and why they should buy it.

On the downside, and probably no revelation to you, was the overwhelming number of responses on the survey that complained about time stress and the spending of too much time for what an agent earns.

Part of this stress comes from the three hours a week a typical agent spends writing ads. It’s possible agents spend so much time because an ad that will help sell a property must be well-crafted, which takes time. Still, for many, writing ads is one of the worst parts of being a real estate agent. If you’re like most of your peers, you’re a verbalizer, not an essayist.

Further, it costs about $200 a week of your time to prepare ads, not to mention the added stress of meeting ad deadlines, day after day, week after week.

What to do?

Appeal to the heart first, head second

Burn into your mind this simple fact: Writing successful ads begins and ends with emotions. Every good ad—without exception—address first the right (emotional) brain and then the left (logical) brain.

A few years ago, Texas A&M University published the results of a study they had done analyzing the effectiveness of headlines and first sentences in ads in major print publications. This research showed that much higher readership was paid to ads that used figurative language (metaphors, puns, analogies, etc.) rather than literal wording ("Just the facts, ma’am").

With that in mind, here are some tips for writing powerful ads without wasting time.

Five ways to beat writer’s block and the ad clock

1. You can categorize every home—and buyer—into two never-the-twain-shall-meet camps: comfort or status. This is the basic first cut. If you’re stumped and the deadline is near, shut your eyes and ask: Does this house evoke images and feelings of comfort or status? The ad writes itself then, with features and facts filling it all out.

Status
A Perfect Lake-View
Setting in Paisley Park
Imposing 6 BR/5 BA white-brick residence on a tranquil, winding lane in a superb gated community. Gourmet kitchen, baronial living room, large formal DR, and wine cellar make it ideal for entertaining. Guests will enjoy stunning lake views from a beautiful slate terrace. Manicured lawn, beautiful plantings. Three-car garage. $670,000

Comfort
Custom Colonial Comforts
The impressive formal exterior of this 5BR/3BA Colonial residence is belied by the home’s light and airy, two-story foyer with convenient center hall. Other comforts include a big, informal living room with French doors to a covered patio, and a dining room easily served by a pass-through counter. Friends and family will gravitate to the dine-in country kitchen and adjoining keeping room with fireplace glow. Partially finished basement and beautiful, mature plantings. Two-car garage. $600,000

2. Does the home have a style, like Tudor? Zippo! Another ad flows naturally from that starting point.

Simply Tudor-iffic!
Enjoy the warm embrace of Tudor styling, with mullioned windows, beamed, step-down living room and formal dining room opening to an enchanting enclosed terrace. Four bedrooms, 2 baths; updated kitchen; bookcased den. On a quiet, tree-lined street. Terrific tall hedges enclose back gardens. Two-car garage. $295,000

Mais Oui! Superb Single-Story
French Country Home
All the wonderful elements of French styling are present in this sprawling white-brick, U-shaped, 5BR/5BA home—from special oriel windows to imported slate roofing. Two large master suites look out to walled gardens. A large living room, bookcased library and formal dining room also access flagstone terraces: an ultra-gourmet kitchen, family room, and garden room complete the home. Special wine storage room, of course. Four-car garage, with three-room suite above. $1,975,000

3. USP—the universal selling principal. Shut your eyes again. What does this home have that makes it better or different than comparable homes? Aha! Another quickie but goodie.

A Feast of Fabulous Features
Values plus! Unusual two-story residence offering not only a first-floor bedroom suite, but a recently added garden room, new furnace, new A/C and brick terrace. Three other bedrooms, country kitchen; big lot with flourishing gardens. Lots of privacy, lots of pleasures. $178,900

Delightfully Different
This Queen Anne cottage offers a charming small turret and tasty gingerbread trim on its front porch. Two bedrooms and a big bath with claw-foot tub, and an updated kitchen with screened back porch for cool autumn evenings make it a treasure. A pretty, picket-fenced front garden. Parking space in back for two cars. $155,000

4. What’s new? Is it a new roof, a new furnace, a new kitchen? Play it up. New sells.

Owner Hates to Leave
This Lovely Cottage
No wonder! This updated, shaded Bungalow with 2BR/1.5BA and a wood-burning fireplace boasts a nearly-new roof, new water heater, recently re-done kitchen, and living room with original restored built-ins. Pecan trees and a side drive, too. Impressive home for the price. $125,000

5. What does the present owner love best about the home? Noted University of Chicago behavioral scientist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his groundbreaking book, The Meaning of Things, listened to people talk about their homes. If asked, they will tell the style, size, function, and unique features of their home, its age, how orderly it is, how light it is, and above all, whether it is comfortable (see first tip above).

View-Oriented Soft Contemporary
Drink in lovely country views with your morning coffee on this unique wraparound deck! Superbly-kept two-story home where you’ll enjoy a big dine-in kitchen with island; an open, light, and airy floor plan, and a huge family room with fireplace glow. Manicured lawn, attractive plantings. 4BR/2BA. Three-car garage … and, oh, those delightful views! $305,000

With these five ways (of course, there are others), you should be able to cut down on stress, save time and money, and write better ads that reach out and touch the right readers.

Write to an audience

Asking questions like those outlined in this article provides you with an extra dividend. By thinking of properties in terms of comfort vs. status, styles, what’s new, etc., you naturally think of the person or people who will be attracted to the home. With any kind of writing—advertising included—you write more clearly and effectively when you write to a specific audience.

At a seminar we held in Denver, we introduced agents to what we found out about different psychological types who buy homes. Our goal was to help agents write more- pointed, targeted ads. Later, I got a nice letter from an agent thanking me—not for helping her write better ads, but for opening her eyes to the differences in buyers and how she should approach them. She cited three sales she had made to Californians, whom she previously hadn’t understood.

It works much the same way in person and in an ad. When you write a more targeted ad, you have the advantage of understanding something about the person who is turned on by the appeal to comfort (or status or Tudor). You connect, and when an ad connects, it’s doing its job.

Another surprise from our survey came in responses to the question about why agents got into and stayed in the real estate business. Again, I always believed the anecdotal evidence that the number-one answer was to make money. Making money came in second, though. And again, I was surprised and delighted to learn that the top reason, agents told us, was to help others.

This is indeed a praiseworthy goal, and it elevates being a real estate agent to the top rank of being a professional.

Now, I don’t know too many people who would argue that advertising contains similar humanitarian overtones, but, if in writing a good, targeted ad, you help someone find the perfect home, maybe it’s not such a stretch after all.

However you want to look at your advertising efforts, a targeted, emotion-evoking ad beats a plain list of features every time.

Hal Douthit is creator of Re/Ad, the computer ad-writing program for real estate, and is publisher of 19 Homes Illustrated magazines and 13 newspapers. Contact him at hal@adwriter.com or 419/621-2142, or visit www.adwriter.com.

Photo illustration: © 2001 PhotoDisc.

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