Designing and writing kick-a** marketing materials

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Designing and writing kick-a** marketing materials that get you noticed!

As a REALTOR®, you will have many occasions to generate marketing materials, including open-house flyers, listing ads and property descriptions, as well as brochures, website copy, presentation slides, handouts and possibly even trade show display signage
Nowadays there are many software programs that make designing promotional and collateral materials easy.
Designing and producing eye-catching, effective marketing materials comes down to knowing and applying some basic principles of design.
Here are a few tips:

  • Keep it clean, simple and easy on the eyes
  • Select and use a few choice colors per page
  • Don’t overdo design features; too many graphics, fonts or decorations are distracting and confusing
  • Use simple, direct language and break up blocks of text
  • Use headings and subheads to organize and clarify your message
  • Use white space as a visual frame for text, graphics and other content
  • Do not crowd or overload a viewplane; instead chunk or even delete content if necessary. (remember, less is more)
  • Pay special attention to the beginning and end, as well as the top and bottom
  • Notice what the reader will see when they turn a page or open a brochure; avoid awkward breaks or dangling “widows and orphans.”
  • Invest in high quality photographs; avoid using amateur snapshots
  • Provide captions for all photographs, illustrations and graphics

As for the text, keep your writing tight, concise and focused. Vivid, colorful descriptors and strong action verbs will inject energy into your copy.
Your tone should be positive and reflect confidence in what you are saying or offering.
Of course spelling, grammar and sentence structure matter because they speak to your professionalism, competence and attention to detail.
If you find yourself suffering from writer’s block or your copywriting seems dull, insipid, uninspired,  try this technique: Start writing a letter to someone you know well. “Dear Beth, I want to tell you about this great listing I just got. It’s a sweet home in a terrific neighborhood ….”
You’ll be surprised how easy it is to riff about a topic when you set it up as a conversation with someone familiar.
If you are writing for the web, be aware of keyword density and proximity and keep directing readers to additional relevant and useful resources on your site.
Strive for a thematic look, tone and style in all your collateral materials. They don’t all need to be identical or repetitive, but they should communicate your brand, your professionalism and your USP in a consistent, coordinated way.(You can read about USP here on my previous post).
Now that you have the low-down, you can translate this into your listing flyers.
If you have a listing that is “clean and contemporary” use one of our cleaner style flyer templates… there are 45 templates to choose from. Each one designed to fit different types of listings.