In a recent Christopher Watkin sofa chat, respected industry trainer Richard Rawlings suggested a property listing only needs to do a very basic 4 things.

According to Richard, the only 4 things potential buyers/tenants need to know from the property description are:

• Where is it?
• What’s it like?
• How much is it?
• Who do I call?

Whilst I laughed out loud and completely agree with Richard on his hatred of listings specifying pointless information like “double radiators” or “low level w/c” I couldn’t disagree more with his above just-the-basics suggestion.

If the property listing only answered the 4 basic questions above then the agent in question would be missing a massive opportunity.

They’d  be missing the chance to engage a different part of the buyers/tenants brain and create emotions in a way the photos alone cannot achieve.

I come from a direct marketing background. In this world copy is king. 

The best direct marketing copywriters can command 6 figures for writing a single sales letter or landing page. That’s because smart clients know that even after paying their 6 figure fee, their words can deliver a phenomenally profitable ROI. 

With this in mind, I firmly believe well written property listing copy can make a BIG difference.

And for those agents who think photos are the most important part of a property ad?

Legendary adman HW Hepner put it far better than I could; 

“Catching attention should lead to capturing the mind. Effective advertising means that the reader’s mind as well as his eye must be captured.”

And to capture the mind, you need good copy.

A listing can affect how the potential Buyer or Tenant thinks about the property long before they set foot inside.

And that “pre-framing” can work for you in the background in a very persuasive way.

Renowned psychology professor and ‘Godfather of Influence’ Dr Robert Cialdini states that it’s hard to change what people think – but much easier to change what they think about.

You have a gap between the initial viewing of the listing and the actual property viewing. 

That could be minutes, days or sometimes weeks. 

Either way, an emotionally engaging listing will ‘warm up’ the potential prospect during that gap.

It gives you the opportunity to direct the potential buyer/tenants attention or focus to where you want it. 

And that sets the agenda for their subsequent choices.

This is in danger of getting very theoretical and academic so I’ll bring it back down to earth. 

Your listing copy can influence the choices made long after the listing was viewed by directing what the reader thinks about and perceives as important.

Surely in light of this, even Richard would agree that it makes sense to unleash this hidden power in your listings – rather than just covering off the property listing basics?