Ezzy
Insignificantly Important
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2000
- Posts
- 2,252
Inspired by Tireless Tongue's "Spelling and Typos" thread.
You can get caught by the “running on” paragraph just about anywhere, I have seen item descriptions for real-estate properties, that are three quarters of a page (A4 or Legal pad), single space, using a small font (an eight or a seven), that from more than a foot away look as if the ink was simply thrown at the page.
It may save you paying that extra hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars for the advertisement, but a shorter description with a bigger font would bring you many more phone calls from those who did not need to use a magnifying glass to read it as well those who do.
Once that item listing didn’t sell in a reasonable amount of time, you can guess what they did can’t you? That’s right, they added another running on paragraph to the listing making it even worse.
I have offered edited versions of this sort of “running on” description, back to sellers at no charge (for the edit}, just to get listings changed, you will be surprised how many get quick sales, once their long-winded descriptions have been winnowed down to two or three succinct paragraphs.
As I make commissions on the sales I am helping myself at the same time, so I’m not doing it just for altruistic purposes. My non-professional partner often lets the non-professional sellers pay their money for their listings using their verbiage, and he does it for one of two reasons: -1) They insist that they want their words used. 2) They don’t listen when he tells them, we can do a better job with fewer words, at a lower cost.
If they still insist that they want a full description, he takes down their description and charges them our “by the word” price. They will check out the advertisement and seem to think they are getting good value for money, as what they had asked to be included is all there. Three or four weeks later, I will offer a trimmed down version, and they will often sell it to the first caller for their asking price.
So does anyone have any ideas why people think like that, or even want that?
You can get caught by the “running on” paragraph just about anywhere, I have seen item descriptions for real-estate properties, that are three quarters of a page (A4 or Legal pad), single space, using a small font (an eight or a seven), that from more than a foot away look as if the ink was simply thrown at the page.
It may save you paying that extra hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars for the advertisement, but a shorter description with a bigger font would bring you many more phone calls from those who did not need to use a magnifying glass to read it as well those who do.
Once that item listing didn’t sell in a reasonable amount of time, you can guess what they did can’t you? That’s right, they added another running on paragraph to the listing making it even worse.
I have offered edited versions of this sort of “running on” description, back to sellers at no charge (for the edit}, just to get listings changed, you will be surprised how many get quick sales, once their long-winded descriptions have been winnowed down to two or three succinct paragraphs.
As I make commissions on the sales I am helping myself at the same time, so I’m not doing it just for altruistic purposes. My non-professional partner often lets the non-professional sellers pay their money for their listings using their verbiage, and he does it for one of two reasons: -1) They insist that they want their words used. 2) They don’t listen when he tells them, we can do a better job with fewer words, at a lower cost.
If they still insist that they want a full description, he takes down their description and charges them our “by the word” price. They will check out the advertisement and seem to think they are getting good value for money, as what they had asked to be included is all there. Three or four weeks later, I will offer a trimmed down version, and they will often sell it to the first caller for their asking price.
So does anyone have any ideas why people think like that, or even want that?