You Must Have A Powerful Message and Call To Action

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You Must Have A Powerful Message and Call To Action!

By ⋅ October 5, 2008 ⋅

One of the elements of a good sales letter, or any other marketing piece, is the call to action. A call to action comes in various forms, but they all have one purpose. Get the prospect to act now not later. But for them to act, you need to give them a good reason before you call on them to act.

Whenever you write a sales letter, design a post card or a flyer, you should spend some time thinking how are you going to get the prospect to act right away to your marketing piece. Never assume they will do the right thing and will call you because they like your "character" or because you sound "professional". While some may, majority won’t.

Here are some strategies you could used:

Price Break

I received a post card the other day from a new Real Estate Agent who is farming the subdivision I live in. Her post card was very simple. I will try to find it and scan it for you, but it is hidden under tons of papers somewhere.

Her main selling point was offering 5% commission. a 1% reduction on the average commission, or in Real Estate Agency talk, she will get half her pay (3% for buyer agent, 1% for her broker, 1% for her instead of 2%).

Now price break is a valid motivating factor, but there were few things missing in her message. I’m a strong believer in treating prospects as children. Don’t tell it to them as it is because they aught to know it, assume they don’t and explain it to them.

How about telling them I will give you X dollars back at closing! 1% of $100,000 neighborhood is $1,000, $200,000 is $2,000 and so on. Dollar figure saves them from having to calculate it and it is of more value than 1%. They may think 5%, 6% whats the difference? but $1,000 or $2,000 makes big difference. For those of you who are wondering is it legal to give them money back, or how can you give them money back? you just reduce your commission by 1% not give them cash. Tell them it will apply to wards closing costs, or increase in selling of the house by $1,000.

Now by no means am I advocating reducing your commission as a strategy. In fact, I called her a new Real Estate Agent for two reasons. She is not mailing me enough, and she went right away to the reduced commission. I would much rather use other marketing tactics than reduce my pay!

So what can you do in terms of the price break?

Rather than offering a discount right off the bat, how about you offer them the following:

For Sellers: I will sell your house for full price or I will give you $1000 back!

For Buyers: I will save you $5,000 on your new home or I will give you $1000 cash!

I don’t want to get into too much details as to how to live up to such promises, but they do deserve an explanation. You see, house will sell for full price if it is priced and staged correctly. So when you meet with the seller and he asks about this program, then you will explain to them that the house needs to be in top condition for the price they ask for. You can negotiate full price offers with potential buyers, or price the house for quick sale for full price.

As for buyers, in today’s market, it is not difficult to get $5,000 reduction in the form of closing costs paid by the seller plus a 3% reduction in the price for example. Of course, you cannot offer $5,000 on a $50,000 home. Make sure it is $150,000 and up.

This technique also works for investors. I love to advertise No Fees, No Closing costs! type of message. Distressed sellers do not have the money to pay for services and many of them do not know it doesn’t cost them a dime. I usually explain it more and expand on it to make sure everyone understands it. I never assume they know what closing costs are even though they bought a house before.

Scarcity

Scarcity technique is based on giving the prospect the feeling that if they don’t act now, they will miss on a great deal. We love great deals don’t we? of course we do!

So how can we use Scarcity in Real Estate…

This is a great negotiation technique as well, not just a scarcity example… A while back I was negotiating with a seller to sell me his house. I made him an offer thinking he will accept it, but he turned it down. For two weeks I tried to call and left him messages, but he never calls back.

To get him to act quickly, and act right now I called him and left this message on his phone:

"Hi Dan, sorry if I missed your call I was out of town and just got back in. I have a buyer who wants to buy a house in your area right away, and you will make $2,000! Call me as soon as you can"

Well, first I gave him an excuse or a way out of being embarrassed for not returning my calls or answering. Then, I gave him a reason to call me. A buyer… he has to act now, or lose that chance to sell and make money. 2 minutes later my phone rings and it is Dan! he said to come right over! he said he will even take $1,500 to sell… I offered him $2,000 and he took voluntarily $500 less!

For the Real Estate Agents, can you offer "FREE MARKET ANALYSIS FOR FIRST 5 REQUESTS!" or "For a limited time only! buy a house with zero down!" or "Houses tend to sell for much less during the winter and holiday season, so if you are planning on selling call me right now" (use this in the beginning of the summer not end!).

They all provide the seller for a reason to act, not just tells them to act. Or worse, it tells them nothing at all like most marketing pieces sent out.

Benefits

Another approach is to use benefit based selling. I much rather not take less money for my work. In fact, I am sure you want to make MORE money not less!

Benefits should be related to the specific prospect needs, or general but affects them enough to act. for example, when marketing to Expired Listings, offer them to do market analysis to figure out why their house did not sell! they have no obligation to sign up with you so there is really no risk (by the way, I would say it just like that not make it sound professional).

Investors for long time have been offering "Cash in days!", I offer "Cash in 24 hours!" thanks for the teachings of John "Cash" Locke, one of my great mentors.

Offer them no closing costs, they pay nothing. "Behind on their payments? tell you what. I will negotiate with the bank to reduce what you owe so we can buy it and save your credit from foreclosure. I really don’t believe you should let todays problems prevent you from having new start and buying a house in a year or two if you want."

You can always combine your techniques, you don’t have to use only one. The trick is to use the right one, with the right audience. And TEST TEST TEST till you find what works for you!

Call To Action

Never end your marketing piece with just benefits, or any other tactic without having a powerful call to action. If they don’t act now, chances are they won’t act later. With every day that passes, your response rate will get huge down fall.

Here is part of my call to action that I like to use. I modify it depending on where it falls in my sales letter, but the gist are the same.

".... Pick up the phone right now and call me at (xxx)-xxx-xxxx. This is my personal phone number, and I will answer it myself. If I am on the other line or don't answer, do leave me a message and I promise to call you right back.

...."

If you notice, I give my prospect the EXACT steps I want him to take to call me. I even tell him to leave me a message and not be surprised if I don’t answer because I will call him right back.

You Must Have A Powerful Message and Call To Action!

Price Break

Scarcity

Benefits

Call To Action

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