Login
iscover
Agents who take the cheap option of writing their own copy could actually be costing themselves thousands of dollars per year in lost commission.
According to a recent REB poll, 19.0 per cent of respondents never use a professional copywriter for their listings.
However, most agents do use professional copywriters – 76.6 per cent all the time, 2.0 per cent most of the time and 2.4 per cent a minority of the time.
Paul Naske from DIGM Assets, the company behind online copywriting service Word Me, said agents should play to their strengths and outsource their weaknesses.
“We are usually good at what we love, and not many people will love the buzz of sales and the careful crafting of advertising scripts,” he told REB.
Mr Naske said self-written listings often contain spelling mistakes, incorrect apostrophe use and strange sentence construction, all of which can put off buyers.
“One lost listing per month could easily add up to a $100,000 opportunity cost,” he said.
“Add in the cost of brand damage and the opportunity cost of time wasted by having a listing sitting on the books longer than it needs to be – I suspect the bottom line to an agency could be massive.”
Professional copywriter Karen Hutton told REB that it’s harder for agents to attract heart-over-head buyers without expert, story-driven listings.
“Agents' default position on copy is to use rehashed superlatives that their prospective buyers glaze over,” she said.
“This regurgitated trash is certainly quicker and cheaper, but it comes at a great cost.”
Ms Hutton said that agents who write their own listings typically use verbose, mechanical descriptions that fail to connect with the buyer’s imagination.
“The opportunity to engage the buyer on an emotional level is lost, and this is why regurgitated, agent-written copy devalues its client's property,” she said.
[Related: How story-driven listings attract more buyers]
