Ideas for Content in real estate newsletters:

• Interest rates and their current trends
• Mortgage and appraisal information
• Buying and selling tips
• Tax information such as home buyer tax credit
• Changes in real estate laws
• Market report on neighborhood and area sales

Remember to create content that has real value for your readers.  They don’t want to hear about you, they want to hear about things that can help them in the future.  Offer something free to your readers, such as free property evaluation or something that may be of value to them.   There are services that can provide content for you, but you’ll have to pay for those.  This may be the way to go if you are too busy to write the newsletters yourself.

A great resource for those of you that are members of National Association of Realtors is “HouseLogic”.  Houselogic (at www.houselogic.com) provides free, up-to-date content that is meant to be used in your marketing efforts with clients. The only catch is that you must be a member of NAR.

Now that you know what content to send in your newsletter, who do you send it to?  The most important rule is this: only send to those that have agreed to receive emails from you.  It may be tempting to buy a list of emails or get the email addresses from someone else.  If you do this, you will be at risk of being marked as a spammer by internet service providers (ISPs).  That is the last thing you want for your business.

Send your newsletters to any past clients, close friends, or business contacts.  Another way to build a list is to create an opt-in form on your website where clients can subscribe to your newsletter updates.

Feel free to share any ideas you think have been helpful in your newsletters.

It’s important to know a few things about email marketing before sending out your first email newsletter.

First, you must be careful about sending out a mass email because it is possible to be blacklisted by internet service providers.  When you send one email out to a large list, systems can pick this up and consider it spam.  If you are blacklisted, you can be blocked from sending emails to certain recipients or even have your email blocked altogether.  The easiest way to avoid this is to use a company that specializes in email marketing and use their system to send the emails out.  A few services with good reputations are: Constant Contact, Vertical Response, iContact, or eCampaignPro (which is designed for real estate agents).

Second, make sure your emails can be read through any email client.  Most email clients (such as Outlook, Gmail, or Yahoo) keep images turned off as a default.  This means that if your email contains information in the form of images, it will not be seen.  Make sure important headlines or information is in the text of the email, not in the pictures.

Lastly, send your email newsletter at the right time.  Half of the people that normally read their email during the week will not read their email on the weekend.  The best time to send emails is in the middle of the week (Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday) and during normal business hours (try between 10am and 5pm).

Check back next week for part 2 of this topic.  We we will go over ideas for your newsletters as well as how exactly to implement your newsletter campaign.

• Family
• Friends
• Neighbors
• Former business associates
• Hairdresser
• Doctor
• Bank
• Accountant
• Attorney

After you have a list of the contacts in your sphere of influence, how to you actually reach out to them?  This can be done in the form of emails, announcements, post cards, business cards, and letters. Let everyone you know that you are now in real estate.  Write as if you were writing a letter to a friend letting them know what you are up to.

You should even contact friends and relatives that live out of your area. Referral fees are an easy way to generate income and you don’t need to do anything except pick up the telephone and refer the lead to a Realtor in their area. Be sure to follow up on your marketing with telephone calls, free information or reports.  You will need more than one point of contact for them to think of you first when they need assistance with real estate.

Your business plan should include the following categories.

• Income Goals: How much volume do you need in order to make your financial goals?
• Ways to Generate New Leads: What methods will you use to find new leads?  Will it be setting up a new website or will it be direct marketing to your sphere of influence?  You must be constantly working on new leads even when you have too many.  Think of some other creative methods to find new leads.
• Seller Lead Conversions to New Listings: Will your listing presentation and closing skills be enough to convert leads to listings? Explaining the tools you will use in marketing their listing will set you apart from other agents.
• Buyer Lead Conversions to New Sales: Impress prospective clients by showing them how you are different from other agents.  Go the extra step by keeping prospective buyers up to date on the newest listings to hit the market.
• Expenses: Even though it can be tedious and time consuming, keeping track of your expenses can save you a lot of money.

You will have to determine the number of leads you need to turn into appointments first. Then how many transactions you need to close to reach your goals and the expenses that are associated with them.  Keep a record of these key categories and try to improve on your numbers each month.

We hope this blog will be a resource for you in becoming a better agent. You will find tips on building your own web presence as an agent, lead generation ideas, ways for marketing your listings, current events in real estate, and much more.

Hope you enjoy the blog!

- Kevin

Flyer on a Chain