(Disclaimer: I don’t possess the expertise per se to tackle this subject matter and that most of the proceeding content of this blog is based on personal observations alone)
People who post their ads online, especially those who are not marketing or communications savvy have the tendency sometimes to create ads that are seemingly unfriendly. I have realized this just recently when we were looking for a room tenant. After a month, we were able to successfully find a tenant not from walk-ins that we also had had but from my http://www.sulit.com.ph advertisement. Take note however that I did get inquiries once in a while within that period but the task of getting a room tenant sped up after I made some necessary changes in my ad.
What made me come up of this blog? Ideally, if you want more inquiries or potential clients, you would post your ad in several different websites, but there’s a rather disturbing incident that made me stop and consider for a minute why did I even get that. So perhaps I thought that my ad is a little unfriendly and because of that, here I am listing down random thoughts on what makes an Unfriendly Ad.
1. Too much information. Providing detailed information is good, it really is but when it is too much, it might backfire on you. My mistake is that, in my intent to avoid unnecessary inquiries, I outlined even the terms and conditions of the contract. But I think some people thought that it was just too much especially when they haven’t really seen the room. There were times when I thought about modifying my ad which I eventually did because of too little inquiries and I took out around 60% of what I originally wrote and just like that I got an inquiry from someone who is keen on seeing the room right away. ( I also encountered ads with heavy information with online money making scheme or scam lol explaining this and that but is not hitting the right pocket which is how am I suppose to earn money from this and what are the real things at stake. In fairness to them, all will be revealed after several redirections or opening several webpage.)
2. Use of tone that is not appealing to your target market and vice-versa (appealing to other market). I was actually a little proud of myself after I finished writing my ad, I thought that for what its worth, it’s well written and sounds very realistic, professional and intelligent and so, here comes the Chinese businessman (at least that is what he claims he is). I was actually hesitant at first to entertain this guy not because he is Chinese, but because of the nature of his stay in the Philippines and the speed at which he would respond to my sms which was really dragging or delayed than what a usual sms exchange involving transactions should be. We have a really modest house and really small one and I have this mentioned in my ad and perhaps this Chinese guy skipped that part (could be language barrier because he’s really having difficulty with written or verabal english) So he came and checked out the room, I would swear that if he was indeed a businessman looking for potential investment in the Philippines our house would easily turn him off lol. And of course, I was right!!! He never came back :-)
All I’m trying to say is (after a lengthy story), I was not expecting someone of such background to rent a room in our house. I could absolutely be wrong, but I know that the way I have written my ad really did have a factor in attracting Mr. Chinese Businessman.
3. Ghastly presentation. An ad that is not presented well and looks crappy in terms of the overall appearance and ads that go without pictures isn’t really going to sell as fast as you thought it would. It will still get noticed though, but we all know that what is pleasant to the eyes seems easy on the pocket. The photos of our newly painted room really did help a lot. The green and white shades of the room is easy in the eyes I think that really is a plus if someone would want to get his eyes rested after a tiring day outside. And speaking of colors, I by the way think that colorful texts in some ads that scream so loud it shuts my eyes close in an instant is very kindergarten thing to do lol. Right? Right? (Eyes rolling scanning the room full of readers looking for nods or thumbs up hehe)
4. Where again is your ad? Ad placement has great importance because if your ad is in the bottom of the pit then how are people going to find it or rather when is your ad going to appear under the search results. My ad having no priority whatsoever also suffered low viewing rate. So if you have an ad in Sulit.com.ph, use that Sulit points you have My personal account in Suli.com.ph is relatively new, not much points to spend but I can clearly see now the value and worth of every sulit points. And in case you are wondering why is this even listed here, think of the number of days people would keep searching and searching until they find your ad which is really the one they are looking for and it just so happens that yours is stuck in the deepest pages waiting for the expiry date haha. Btw, if this ever happens to you, I mean your item or ad seeing no movement whatsoever, then it is time to revisit and re-evaluate your options you might be doing something that is not right.
5. Finding difficulty in striking a balance between being honest or transparent and withholding relevant information or soon-to-be relevant information once the transaction proceeds. Now you see, we have two dogs Moises and Noah that are noisy as hell and fierce as hellhounds when seeing strangers step inside the house. Our potential tenants would have to walk past them within arms length every day for the entire duration of their stay. Although both are securely tied to their places, some people have had dog trauma in their childhood so this is definitely a no no for them and for us since I also don’t want to spend everyday making guarantees that they won’t get bitten lol. So I decided to put this information in my ad as well. In the long run, I removed this information and just left the photos of the dogs in my ad. Maybe a lot got scared but all is well that ends well, the room is occupied.
6. Your listed price is unbelievable. One thing to remember if you want to get your item sold or your ad viewed is too make sure that your listed price is within fair market value. What I did is that I looked and searched for other rooms that are being rented out within our vicinity to compare with the prevailing room rental fees around and slashed a few hundred bucks to make it more affordable and removed some room features. In the end however, I still got the rental fee I’m aiming for with the original room package I posted, how did it happen? Because I made them see the value being added is fair and just. Also if your potential clients have money, they really have money if they don’t have money then either you settle with them or let them find something else that fits their budget. The important things is that you have been reasonable in terms of price.
7. Nasty comments from Mr and Ms Anonymous. This is what inspired me to write this blog. I did mention that I post the same ad on a different website. Apparently the other website allowed anonymous comments. I’m not going to repost the comments made here since I instantly removed it after I got notified. The bashing was unfair and moronic considering that Mr or Ms Anonymous did not even talk to me thru phone or thru sms or did not even visit, inspect or check the room and thinks that the terms and conditions are outrageous. As far as I can remember, he or she used the words "scammer" and "masungit" referring to the ad owner which is me to think that I never got any inquiry yet at that point in time. To you Mr and Ms anonymous, let me tell you this, I would feed you to my dogs in a blink of an eye without having any signs of remorse afterward lol (I’m just kidding, peace on earth , peach on earth). Lesson learned: Choose a website where people cannot just make anonymous comments like the other website with url starting with the letter o then l, the rest go figure it out. I'm glad Sulit.com.ph requires logging in before you can make any public comment. Don’t we all hate it when people make negative comments with possible impact on our ads without our chance to retaliate lol , I mean discuss it diplomatically? Or sue his or her ass off ? Ooops I almost forgot, your ad isn’t really very friendly anymore if you have world war 3 going on under the comments section
8. Pick your words or choose a language in which the response that you’d get would not blow you off the face of planet earth. I’m not a grammarian, neither do I hunt errors in grammar and composition for a living, but a message that is ill-composed with grammatical errors considering it is just one or two sentences long is sometimes dreadful. Like I said, the ad that I placed was generally well-written that I think it made some impression regarding me as the ad owner. So I got several sms that really made my day (I tried searching for the message btw but I already cleaned up my inbox). Bottomline: If you can make things a lot easier for your target audience, do it or face the consequences haha. Not that it matters to everyone, but some people do appreciate things like this. Be more “language-friendly” (???? huh??? hehe).
9. Sorry po, wala po ako sun eh. I got this message since I only posted my Sun number. ( When I get an inquiry using other networks, I use my other phones) An ad that has only one contact number or just an email address is ok, but if you have multiple numbers please post it!!! Some people are too conscious with their sms spending and not that they don’t like what they see in your ad, if they don’t have a credit to send text to your network then you miss-out this one potential buyer ( I’m guilty here too hehe). Besides, more contact numbers are really better for obvious reasons. But if you want to avoid people who save every peso that they can or for whatever reason you may have, then by all means just stick to one contact number. But you gotta give it to me I have style!!! (Echosero daw ako )
10. Your ad could become unfriendly to you too you know. If you have accomplished your goal with your online ad please remove it. It’s common mistake for a lot of people not to remove their ads like me, so I have been getting inquiries even after the room has been taken (I already removed my ad btw weeks and weeks ago). I also don’t like throwing inquiries on people who forget to remove their ads after their items got sold. And since Sulit.com.ph has tremendous online readership/viewership it would really be wise to remove that ad if you don't want to receive sms anymore or to avoid becoming impolite by not sending a reply. Doing so at the same time helps conserve disk space
These are just a few of the things that I learned and observed from my room rental ad and hopefully some people who are already aware of all these things would take some time to re-learn or reconsider. Our room is occupied until December 2010 thanks to Sulit.com.ph. I posted the same ad in several different websites but the one that really brought in the tenant is Sulit.com.ph. However we all should be reminded that however great place Sulit.com.ph is for our ads, we all have got to do our part to make things a lot effective and friendlier for everyone
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