If you are a REALTOR focused on residential sales who distributes a monthly email newsletter, ask yourself: Is my distribution list growing And more importantly, Is my newsletter accomplishing what I wish it to
You already recognize that an email newsletter is an effective marketing tool to help to increase sales. Regular communication with clients and prospects is essential to increase your revenues over time. But if the results are not living up to your expectations, step back and ask yourself, How can I improve my newsletter to increase its readership and drive more sales Perhaps you need to make your content more compelling or to use your newsletter in a more engineered fashion.
The marketing goals for your newsletter should be: 1) to consistently present yourself as a knowledgeable expert to whom readers can trust their real estate matters, and 2) to bring prospective clients to your Website where they can view your listings, be reminded of your realtys programs for buyers and sellers, and to see your latest promotional offers.
To retain and expand readership, your newsletters must present information of value to its intended audience. It must provide specific data beneficial to homeowners in the geographical area in which your marketing efforts are concentrated.
Some newsletters provide general home fix-it information, national statistical data or news on community events as their main content. There is a place for that, but this should be used sparingly. You are more likely to create a growing client base if your newsletter talks to a homeowners wallet. Some suggestions to help make your real estate newsletter a must read item are:
1. Highlight a section on home values in the local area. People always want to know how their main asset (i.e., their home) is faring. Create this from MLS data sorted by zip code, then drill down to find recent sales and listings within your farming area. Show average time on market for the latter. Ideally, present this data in a graphical summary (which is easy to do using Microsoft Excel), but require the reader to branch to your website for the detailed information.
2. Using the above information, offer a tool on your Website to quickly provide a ballpark estimate of market value based on the latest average dollars per square foot for sales in the targeted area. Be sure to include disclaimers (e.g., This is a rough estimate only. Actual value will vary based on location, lot size, amenities and upgrades. Contact us for a FREE competitive market analysis).
3. Identify new developments and local trends that are expected to impact future home values.
4. If you work for a full-service realty, include financial information and services, emphasizing homeowner benefits.
Your newsletter should be a vehicle for driving prospects to your Website where pertinent offerings are presented. The best way to do this is to provide compelling article lead-ins or summaries that direct your readers (Click here for complete article) to your Website for the rest of the story. Make sure that once the article on the destination Webpage has been consumed, other enticing choices (e.g., See Featured Listing or Sign up to win a FREE digital camera) are available to encourage readers to explore the Website.
In short, think through the entire process, from your newsletter to the ultimate path you wish the reader to follow on your Website. If you approach it in this manner, viewing your newsletter as but one component of a marketing machine, then over time you will be rewarded with expanded sales.
Al Kernek is a real estate broker and author of Creating E-Mail Newsletters A Practical Guide for the Real Estate Community. To learn more about increasing real estate sales using low-cost Internet marketing techniques, visit Real Estate Internet Marketing
A strange thing has been happening to newsletters online.
They have been turning into either a) promotional emails or b) web pages delivered by email.
Im sure you know what I mean. Go back a couple of years and you could look forward to receiving your favorite newsletter in the knowledge that the newsletter itself would contain some great content...something you could read and enjoy, or learn from.
You could open the newsletter in your email and read it, from beginning to end. There were articles, reviews or just personal rant...well written and interesting.
In short, there was real value, right there in the newsletter.
These newsletters, where significant value lies in the body of the newsletter itself, are becoming harder and harder to find.
Instead, more and more companies and organizations are using their newsletters as a promotional ploy to drive you to pages on their sites.
In one way, its understandable. As anyone with a newsletter knows, if you have one or two links to your site in the newsletter, your site traffic really spikes on the days you send out the newsletter.
When you see that, its tempting to optimize the entire newsletter its format and content as a means to drive additional traffic and generate more sales.
As a result, you now see numerous newsletters where an article is not included in its entirety. You simply get a teaser and a link to a page on their site. Or else you get a newsletter that looks just like the site interface, with all the various navigation links and promotional messages included.
This may be great if you want to maximize the traffic to your site each time you send out a newsletter. But there is a catch.
The catch is, if there is less value in your newsletter itself, your subscribers will quickly begin to become bored with it. After all, with a zillion other promotional emails cluttering our inboxes why pay special attention to a newsletter that is simply another sales pitch
The real value of a newsletter that contains valuable content is long-term. Youll get more word-of-mouth, youll get higher open-rates, and youll get long-term readers who look forward to your newsletter, for years ahead.
Is there a compromise Sure there is. A valuable newsletter doesnt need to be text-only without a single link, or devoid of any promotional elements.
Just make sure that every newsletter contains some valuable content, in its entirety. Give people a real reason to look forward to receiving it, opening it and reading it.
Nick Usborne is a copywriter, author, speaker and advocat of good writing. You can access all his archived newsletter articles on copywriting and writing for the web at his site. Youll find more articles and resources on how to make money as a freelance writer at his site.