Kick Mutt!

There are five elements in good advertising that I want to discuss here. I'm talking mainly about direct mail pieces, and I'm offering a video clip for discussion. Meantime, many businesses fall prey to making up in design, what they lack in ad copy. That is to say that amateurs make the mistake of thinking "pretty" mail pieces produce higher conversions than ugly ones.

It's been proven time and after time that {controlled for ad copy alone}, ugly pieces are read 2 to 1 over pretty pieces. Hmmm. Regardless of the "look", here are five elements to include in good advertising copy:

1. Clear.
2. Forceful.
   
3. Memorable.
   
4. Easy to understand.
5. Call to action.

Play the video below see how this advertiser included all five elements in the video. I'll say that this add is a bit cloying, but they sure get their point across.

Consider how you might improve your own advertising. This has been very helpful to me.

Rating John T. Reed and his Guru Rating BS Chart

[Unconfirmed Photo]

FYI: John T. Reed sells RE guru material! Commercial Review of J.T. Reed

He also spends a considerable amount of time in self-serving criticism of a majority of other RE gurus and their courses. I consider Reed, at best, classless in this regard, and at worst unethical and unprofessional, if not unsuccessful in real estate.

Why do I care? And why would I critique Reed?

Well first, quality operators don't make personally directed comparisons in order to sell their own products by putting down, impugning, or indulging in efforts and activities that otherwise diminish the reputations of their competitors.

Secondly, as a professional investor with several years of RE ownership under my belt, I've received a lot of insight from many of the gurus Reed bashes. In fact, I'll go as far to say that, I probably wouldn't have had the guts to do 30% of what I've done since 1981, had it not been for one of Bob Allen's No Down Payment workshops I attended, specifically.

Robert "Bob" Allen has certainly taken a fall, or two, over the years, as Reed is all-too-happy to inform you. But it's not the fact that one got knocked down a couple of times that counts. No. It's where one is headed! And it's about not giving in, or giving up! Allen got back up!

Notwithstanding, Reed takes specious quotes of Allen and blends them into a nefarious, evil, advantage-taking context. I had to laugh at one alleged quote of Allen that goes, "We're not in the RE information business. We're in show business". Well, of course Allen is in show business!

That's a lot of what marketing is. Duh?

But this is an anathema, if not a surprise for Reed.

Meanwhile, I have much respect for Robert Allen, if only that he's been willing to risk everything, several times over, in order to both become prosperous himself and help others do the same. Reed would not agree. Meantime, I don't mind one wit that Allen used "show business" to sell me on a "Possible Dream" many years ago.

This is the thing that John T. Reed doesn't understand. He doesn't understand that part of selling is creating a romantic image, even a dream in the buyer's mind of what could be possible. Yes, what's being sold can be mostly a romantic dream or image, but it's the romance that spurs imaginations and creates momentum in our hearts and minds to achieve something bigger than ourselves.

Look at John F. Kennedy. He made a romantic speech once about "...going to the moon, in this decade!"

If that's not a romantic picture --- that he motivated a nation to "waste" 30 billion on --- money that could have been spent on the homeless and hungry, I don't know what is.

No, Reed's all too mechanical and logical. He really doesn't understand people, or marketing. He prefers that RE guru materials must somehow equate to some MBA program with Harvard-like certificates (in what...Lease / Option Finance?).

Meanwhile, John T. Reed won't market himself out of a wet paper bag. He's afraid of the risk. He writes that he doesn't sell his books in stores because he doesn't want to risk printing too many copies at his own expense --- or let bookstores profit from his book (or something along that line). Whah!?

Essentially he won't take the risk that his book won't sell well, and he doesn't want anyone else to profit from his book either. How low-budget and greedy is this, I ask.

Anyway, let me just say that I did buy three copies of John T. Reed's superb book on Property Management. I bought them at Border's Books in Overland Park, KS back in 1991. Evidently someone bought several copies to be resold commercially, because I was shocked to hear him say his books have never been sold in stores. All I can say is, "Well John, yes they have been, and I liked them, too".

Meanwhile, I do not recommend John T. Reeds Guru Review or his BS checklist. The entries are subjective at best, and misleading and irrelevant at worst. Again, for example, who cares if Bob Allen filed BK 14 years ago, or several times since? Doesn't even the Bible authorize bankruptcy as public policy in the Old Testament --- as opposed to holding debtors in prison for the remainder of their lives --- both as a testimony of mercy and grace toward those who've gotten themselves in a financial jam?

We can only hope that John T. Reed never gets himself in a crack, and asks for financial mercy. He'll get none from me, because he gives none to others, and does his best to both embarrass and humiliate those who've once, or twice, been in a ditch.