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MAKING THE MESSAGE: What Can We Say?

LET'S IMAGINE THAT IT IS TIME to sell your home. (If, on the other hand, you're ever going to be in the market to buy an existing home, you'll still want to follow along. This story might save you money.) It will be important to use the right language in your listing so that you can generate the greatest possible interest from potential buyers—which should help you position your home to sell at the highest possible price. So what exactly should you say?

You have been cleaning and decluttering the house to make it look great. Friends and neighbors are telling you that the house should sell easily. “It's so inviting,” one says. “It's in great shape,” says another. “It really is in move-in condition for the right family.”

Hmmmm. “Inviting” sounds like a great descriptor to put in the listing. Or should you say it's in “move-in condition” instead? This is not a frivolous decision. Considering the average sales price of existing single-family homes in the United States as of this writing, your choice of one term over the other would likely make a nearly $3,000 difference in the sale price of your home.

SOME WORDS GET USED A LOT

There is no shortage of hyped-up promotional language in business today. Have we not heard enough of “world-class,” “new and improved,” “epic,” “innovate,” and “disruptive”? But let's take the long view. As it turns out, a few words have proven popular for many years in the world of marketing and persuasion.

There are several excellent collections of advertising from past decades, including the Advertising Archives (a resource for British and American press advertising) and Duke University's John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, & Marketing History. If, for whatever reason, you decided to devote several hours to a careful examination of ads from a generation ago—when print and television advertising were dominant—then you would likely notice some consistent patterns in the actual words used. You and your were popular. So were promotional words such as more, new, like, taste, and first, plus quality claims such as better, world, people, and of course quality. But what about the social media platforms of today?

When the social media management service Hootsuite analyzed nearly 40,000 Facebook ads, the most popular word was—you guessed it—you. Next in order were free, now, new, up, more, out, today, find, shop, business, save, and time. Notice that you, more, and new keep showing up.

I suspect that the differences are due to the immediacy of online and social channels. When print (and broadcast network TV) advertising were dominant, there was a separation in time and place between the seller's message and the consumer's opportunity to buy. Words such as quality, taste, great, best, better, and choice were well suited to that world. These days, consumers can immediately search, compare, ask, and buy; it shouldn't surprise us that today, shop, find, and time have become more popular for sellers.

Nevertheless, the differences pale in comparison to the commonalities. Over several decades, persuasive messages have consistently focused on how you can get more of something good, and the seller is sharing this information as if it were big news. If everyone tends to use a lot of the same words, are there ways to stand out? Can some words work better than others? Let's go back to the home-selling example to answer more definitively.

SOME WORDS WORK A LOT BETTER THAN OTHERS

The world of residential real estate is a great testing ground for the power of words. Every house is a bit different, of course, but they have comparable types of features (square footage, age, architectural style, etc.) that can be described in different and creative ways. Sellers use the words in their listings to attract interest and set expectations, whereas potential buyers use those same words to screen through what's available and often to frame their price negotiations. There are some specific, quantifiable results (selling price, discount or premium to listing price, days on market, etc.) that—given a large enough sample—offer clear evidence of what was genuinely effective and what was less so.

We can guess that certain words and phrases would drag home prices down. You and I can imagine (or remember) instances when verbiage is used in an attempt to cover problems: a “breathtaking” house might have been inhabited by a chain smoker, “cozy” means tiny, and a “peek-a-boo view” puts you at risk of falling off a balcony or pulling a neck muscle to see it!

A research team led by Kimberly Goodwin studied more than 16,000 such transactions, and their listing descriptions, from a nine-year period in an area of Virginia. The team wasn't terribly interested in standard stuff such as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Rather, they were investigating the impact of more unique features and language on sales prices and timing. Not surprisingly, the house listings that included specific property characteristics (like granite countertops or wainscoting) sold at a premium and were also 9.2 percent more likely to sell.

Those are features that are part and parcel of the product (house) itself. What was really interesting is, given a set of features, the impact of different words selected to promote houses to buyers and buyers' agents. The researchers found that a few “positive opinion words” moved the needle on actual prices. During the nine-year period under study, each positive opinion word boosted sale prices by an average of 0.9 percent. Some word examples were inviting, spacious, and stunning. That means just three positive words applied to a $300,000 home's description would translate into an average bump in price of $8,100. Not too shabby, huh?

In a different study, Canadian researcher Paul Anglin found that the word beautiful boosted sales price but good value reduced sales prices by 6 percent. Move-in condition had no effect. The phrases handyman's special and rental property were value killers, reducing sales value by up to 30 percent.

So, if in our example you chose inviting over move-in condition, then you would likely have pocketed a lot more cash for the exact same house.

That's an impressive use of words to build value in the residential real estate world. How about language that works more broadly, across industry lines? During the course of my years as a consumer researcher, copywriter, and corporate marketer, I have seen a lot of attempts to turn a profitable phrase. A few words have proven effective over time and in different settings. Here is my starter list:

• You. Okay, that one was easy. It was the single most popular word in print ads thirty years ago and it is the most popular in Facebook ads these days. And it sure beats I.
• Because. This word appeals to our logical selves, helping the audience connect the dots and establish cause-and-effect relationships. (However, as a father of three I cannot report that telling your kids “Because I said so” will be effective.)
• New. What's new? From fashion trends to the “New & Noteworthy” category of podcasts on iTunes, our attention tends to automatically go to what seems novel or different. That's why reporters talk about the news, right?
• Most. This word can be used to establish priorities (“what is most important to you”) as well as to offer evidence of social proof, or what is most popular with others (“most people in your situation choose this”). When they're unsure of the best decision, people tend to look to similar others for cues.
• Options. Most people (see what I did there?) want a sense of freedom, and push back when they feel trapped. It is best to offer multiple options rather than to force a binary, take-it-or-leave-it approach. I prefer the word options over choices, because the word choice also describes a decision that for some people produces anxiety. A common messaging mistake involves presenting options without appropriate guidance, so get comfortable with this next word. . .
• Recommend. A sound and empathetic recommendation is based on both your expertise and your understanding of the audience's situation. Recommending is better than merely suggesting and much better than simply asking, “What do you want to do?” without offering any direction. This isn't about being pushy to close a deal, either. A true professional's recommendation is offered to lead someone to a decision that benefits everyone.
• Imagine. I have a confession to make. Although a number of other experts have for years touted this word for its persuasive power, I resisted for a long time. It seemed a bit, well, staged. Could I with a straight face say something like, “Just imagine a world where your story is always understood and appreciated . . . ooh, look, there's a unicorn sliding down that rainbow!” The social-scientist part of me was willing to keep a slightly open mind, however, and I have now come around. There is enough good research for us to conclude that, at least in some cases, the things we imagine can alter the way we see the real world. As one example, a study in the journal Current Biology revealed that the process of imagining hearing something can change what we later see. The reverse was also true; what subjects imagined seeing changed what they actually heard later.

I am not recommending that you or your team try to cram these words into every conversation or communication. Please don't! But they can certainly serve as a useful comparison to the messages you are using today. Are you using powerful words in those precious conversational opportunities?

While you are adding effective words to your repertoire, you might find some others that deserve to be sent packing. Many words carry a little too much baggage, thus provoking skepticism and unease:

• Sell. If you tell consumers that you are going to sell them something, then you are setting up a competition (“Oh, really? Well, give it your best shot!”). Nevertheless, sellers such as auto dealers routinely say things like, “We want to sell you your next car.” Is it any wonder that more than 80 percent of Americans say they dislike buying at traditional auto dealers and more than 60 percent feel taken advantage of there?
• Buy. Buying involves parting with one's hard-earned money, so it represents the negative part of shopping. The more positive part comes in owning, using, and enjoying the stuff we bought. Consider talking about the pleasures of having your product or service rather than the act of paying for it.
• Contract. Formal contracts are necessary, but they are tilted toward (and generally provide more emotional comfort to) sellers over buyers. “Agreement” is a friendlier term.
• Cheap. Some companies have successfully marketed “cheap flights” or “cheap seats,” but that works because consumers know that seats on the same flight are directly comparable. In most cases, however, cheapness is considered a code word for something that is inferior or of poor quality.

Consider how you as a consumer would react to a pitch like this one: “We sell cars cheap! Sign this contract and buy now.”

PUT YOUR MISSION STATEMENT ASIDE . . . PLEASE

Your mission statement is probably a poor substitute for a real marketplace message. Most mission statements (or value statements, or vision statements) focus on the organization, its intentions, and its wonderful motivations. These can be pure and true, yet still largely irrelevant to most external audiences most of the time.

Mission statements are almost always developed in big committees. They emerge only after a long, arduous journey through many meetings to make sure everyone's voice is heard. That's fine, but you and I know that committees aren't exactly known as fountainheads of innovation. Even across companies in different industries and markets, mission statements can sound eerily alike.

The Mission Statement Book includes 301 mission statements from some of the top corporations in the United States. The great adman Jeremy Bullmore went through those 301 statements to find the most frequently used words (an act of bravery). If you are into clichés, then you will admire his tally. Service was the top word, appearing in 230, or 76 percent, of the statements. The rest of the top ten, in descending order: customers, quality, value, employees, growth, environment, profit, leader, and best.

There is nothing inherently wrong with those words. But none are particularly engaging or memorable, either. It is far more effective to craft messages that are less about you and more about what your audience can do—with your help, of course.

WHY LESS IS MORE AND SIMPLER IS BETTER

The right words matter, but you can do too much of an otherwise good thing. Businesses and professionals have a shrinking window of time to get attention; when a lot of words appear, many time-pressed people turn away. In that Virginia real estate study, researchers found that more words in a listing led to less likelihood of a sale. Plus, if there was a sale, lengthy narratives wound up reducing the ultimate sale price by 6 percent.

Okay, so we'll zip it. But what about the quality of words, not just the volume of them? How simple or complex should your message be?

In his portrayal of an attorney in the movie Philadelphia, Denzel Washington spoke this line to a prospective client: “Explain this to me like I'm a six-year-old, okay?” That is a vivid (and a bit depressing) instance of dumbing things down. But as it turns out, in some messaging scenarios Mr. Washington's character doesn't miss the mark by much. A team from Boomerang for Gmail examined a collection of more than 40 million business emails. Their study showed that emails written at a third-grade reading level had the highest response rate. Those emails had 17 percent higher response rates than emails written at a high school reading level and 36 percent higher open rates than those written at a college reading level.

Let's not immediately start emailing customers and prospects like they're eight-year-olds. The value you offer and the actions you recommend are well beyond a third-grader's understanding. But even in high-value business conversations, simple language tends to win. These days, a more informal and conversational style tends to be most effective. That doesn't mean coming across as juvenile but rather, respecting our audiences enough to make it simple for them.

THERE'S A COMMON NOISE COMING FROM YOUR INDUSTRY

When it comes to messaging, your industry might be working against you. That isn't intentional on anyone's part; industry groups and meetings are great vehicles for sharing good practices, forming policy, and establishing relationships. When I speak to industry associations, it is clear to me that these professional tribes can be very beneficial to everyone involved.

The sticky issue is that, over time, people within any given group or tribe can tend to start acting and sounding the same. Think of a messaging undertow that drags a lot of people downward and closer together.

It's true that professionals are changing jobs and organizations more frequently. Oftentimes, however, they change jobs within the same industry. Government, aerospace/defense, media, telecommunications, nonprofits, restaurants, and healthcare are examples of industries where workers tend to stay, even as they change roles and employers.

What happens when people stay within the same general tribe year after year? They attend the same conferences, adopt similar insider language, and share similar stories. Think back to our concept of the signal-to-noise ratio; many industries unwittingly and unknowingly perpetuate a layer of messaging noise across the membership.

Here is a vivid and timely example. The next time you're going through a magazine or scanning signs at a sporting event or airport, take a moment to notice the ads for watches. More than 90 percent of today's ads for watches show the time as 10:10, or something very close to it. That is not a coincidence.

It was very different during the 1930s and 1940s, when many of the ads for clocks and pocket watches showed the time as 8:20. That meant a nice symmetry for the placement of the hands—our brains like symmetry—and also left space for the reader to easily see the brand name or logo (which is typically centered near the top of the face). What changed?

By the late 1950s, a failing market researcher named James Vicary was making news. He claimed that, by flashing the messages “Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola” for just fractions of a second during movie previews, he could increase sales for theater owners. A few years later it became clear Vicary had faked the study. Nevertheless, there was growing public awareness and concern about the power of subliminal advertising.

If you think of a clock or watch face as akin to a human face, then the 8:20 position of the hands could—supposedly in some subliminal way—look like a frown. The 10:10 position, just as symmetrical, could look like a smile. And wouldn't a subliminal smile produce more sales than a nasty subliminal frown?

Over time, we have learned that claims about subliminal advertising are so much rubbish. There is zero evidence that any of that stuff makes any real-world difference in consumer behavior. (If it did, it would be the worst-kept secret in marketing history!) Nevertheless, an industry's 10:10 practice that started more than half a century ago is still going strong. Many of the industry's leaders have even institutionalized it; Timex policy dictates that timepieces (even the digital ones) are set to exactly 10:09:36, while at Rolex watches are always photographed at 10:10:31.

It gets even more strange and entrenched. Reporters found that industry leaders recognize the practice but have little idea why it exists. Not long ago, I was visiting with a local Rolex dealer inside his store. He is both knowledgeable and successful, yet he had no idea why the large Rolex poster on his wall—like every other Rolex ad out there—showed a watch set to 10:10. That is how industry thinking works. Smart and well-intentioned people get sucked into following convention with little or no idea why they are doing so.

As you develop the words and phrases to describe your business, don't just default to the assumptions, language, or images that have been common in your industry. Those assumptions may no longer be valid. And why would you necessarily want to say things the way everyone else has been saying them for years? The world of watch advertising might be the only place where time actually stands still.

THE VALUE OF AUTHENTICITY, OR WHY TRUTH AND TRADITION AREN'T THE SAME

Authenticity is a popular buzzword, but in my experience it is less of a fad than a practical return to a proven messaging practice. Consumers want organizations of all types to be more “real.” Few of us want to be seen as phonies, and that extends to the products and services we use.

This can be tricky for organizations. Who doesn't want to put their best foot forward? How much should they reveal? I have found that when organizations fail to be authentic, they aren't necessarily trying to pull a fast one in their marketplace. Rather, they confuse authenticity with tradition, long-standing habits, or their good intentions. In some cases, companies can hurt themselves by being unconsciously inauthentic.

In 2004, I came from outside the bottled-water industry to lead marketing for the Mountain Valley Spring Company. Our signature product was a single-source natural spring water, bottled in both glass and recyclable plastic at a protected watershed near Hot Springs, Arkansas. The bottled-water industry was (and still is) dominated by huge companies such as Nestlé, Pepsico, and the Coca-Cola Company; their offerings include waters blended from multiple springs or purified from municipal sources. Our little company was different in that our signature brand came from one spring.

Despite this high-quality product, the company's sales had been stagnant for years. We needed to make some changes. I quickly targeted a product label that featured a drawing of three snow-capped mountains with a river running among them. I made my case at a management meeting. The discussion went something like this:

Me: “This label is hurting our marketing, and it isn't true to what we offer.”

Them: “That label has been around for years. You marketing types always want to change the label.”

Me: “I don't think we should change it just for the sake of change. But take a close look. We want to show how our water comes from a single, protected spring in Arkansas, right?”

Them: “Of course.”

Me: “Can anyone tell me where the snow-capped mountains are here in Arkansas?”

Them: (silence)

Me: “And by the way, our water doesn't come from a river. Rivers are filled with stuff that comes out of fish . . . not exactly the message of purity.”

Them: “When can you come up with a new design?”

We will never know whether that specific logo image had actually hurt business. But we do see plenty of examples where even small slices of inauthenticity cause big problems. Domino's Pizza Inc. designed a smartphone app to show its customers, in real time, a to-the-minute description of their pizza's production. This description includes the name of each Domino's employee handling and delivering the order. That feature proved popular with customers such as 24-year-old Brent Gardiner, who at times used the feedback feature to send his personal encouragement. Things changed when a man he happened to know showed up to deliver his pizza—after the app specified that someone named “Melinda” would be doing the honors. That tiny lie—or at least the perception of a lie—had an, ahem, domino effect on the company's credibility. As Mr. Gardiner was quoted in The Wall Street Journal, “Ever since then, I knew everything they said, I felt, was made up.”

While the absence of authenticity can damage customer relationships, the presence of it can boost growth. A research team of professors from Yale, Stanford, and Columbia studied restaurants and determined the connections between customers' perceptions of authenticity and how many stars they offered in reviews. They controlled for other factors (such as ratings of food quality). The restaurants with high authenticity ratings earned high overall ratings, often by a half star or more. That tends to translate into 3 to 6 percent higher revenues.

But for the all-time record-setting example of using raw authenticity to sell a lot more prepared foods, look no farther than Charlotte McCourt. The eleven-year-old Miss McCourt had begun her annual campaign to sell the most Girl Scout Cookies in her small troop; she hoped to match the 300 boxes of cookies she had sold the previous year. She heard her father Sean mention that a longtime friend of his was pretty wealthy. Less than an hour later, Sean noticed in his Sent folder that his daughter had emailed the rich friend.

In my neighborhood, the Girl Scouts typically use a cute sales message along the lines of, “You know my parents, and it's cookie time, so please buy your cookies from me.” Charlotte did something very different; she offered her personal rating, on a 1 to 10 scale, of each Girl Scout cookie variety. Her honesty was refreshing and hilarious. Some of the cookies received personal ratings of “9” on the 1–10 scale with descriptions like inspired. Others were subject to brutal honesty. Charlotte used words and phrases such as unoriginality, blandness, and bleak, flavorless, gluten-free wasteland. Through her remarkable message, this young girl instinctively built trust by showing she was willing to lose all or part of a sale.

How, you might ask, did we learn about an email from an eleven-year-old Girl Scout? As it turns out, Sean the dad works with the popular TV host and producer Mike Rowe on Rowe's podcast “The Way I Heard It.” Sean showed the email to Rowe—who liked it so much that he read it on his Facebook page. Charlotte shut down her website after selling 26,086 boxes of cookies and donating 12,430 of them—what the Girl Scouts affirmed as an all-time record. In his video, between belly laughs, Rowe said, “A basic tenet of sales is that you can't sell a product unless people first trust you. The best way to get them to trust you is to tell the truth.”