Today is Saturday. Let’s talk about something indirect about marketing and promotions for properties. I was invited to speak in a Toastmasters event today. I reminded all the club leaders that we are NOT an English class. Toastmasters provide a positive environment for everyone to learn by doing and at their own pace. Everyone is different and everyone should be respected for their effort and willingness to improve themselves. However, when it comes to developers appointing agents to sell their properties and their agents promote those properties using ‘UNBELIEVABLE’ English, I could not accept. My colleagues laughed when I showed them and somehow they did not even want to read about the project any further.
My dear agents, the commission scheme from the developer already allows you to spend a very small sum, get the marketing stuffs edited before being pushed to the public. Please do not give descriptions which would make the potential buyers laugh. A little more care, a little more effort is certainly necessary. I do not think Malaysian developers marketing their projects in foreign countries could survive with this kind of ‘never mind’ about the English attitude. How about stopping the promotion in English and just use Mandarin instead? Sorry, can’t share who but there has been a few. Whether it’s from SMSes, Emails or even Facebook pages.
My dear developers. If you could, you should have an idea how agents are representing you. How about actively reading through the materials that they are using? Of course, marketing materials aside, some agents open their conversation by using the famous developer’s name and then their next line is, 20 percent discount. You have no idea how much this will affect all your branding and future developments. If as a developer, you believe this is fine, then do continue. I guess no harm since they say the English standard among Malaysians are dropping anyway. Perhaps when they read the marketing materials they would understand and could not detect grammatical or spelling errors.
Not too long ago, a HR professional told me that her boss, the Managing Director wants to edit every material that goes out to the public. She said she does not understand WHY? She works in an institution specialising in language teaching. This is the ‘why.’ A better way would actually be for the Managing Director to do more strategic things and get the editing work to be done by some other staffs instead. For property marketing in English however, do it right, please.
written on 11 Aug 2017
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