Newsletters

I use Old Republic Home Protection's "toolbox" for agents.  They make a great newsletter that I can customize with my name, picture, logo, whatever I want, and then i email it out.  You can also print it and mail it, but I haven't done that.  I think some people enjoy them and I'm sure some get deleted before even opening them.  It's still a noninvasive way to stay in touch with past customers, clients, or prospects.  I'd recommend using something like I do to save the expense of creating your own,  unless you just love to do them :)

Hi Carol-  We have started a newsletter out of our blog posts and wrote a blog about that. It's not for everyone's market and our newsletter is a work in progress.  We are looking forward to our next issue! --Sara

We send out a newsletter every  month, and ususally have about 1/3 of our list open it. We sent one out this morning that included a special offer. Within an hour, we had a response to the offer, so I guess at least one person read it, and if she hires us, the newsletter will definitely be worth the time we spent on it. (I enjoy putting newsletters together, too!)

Emailing to as many people you can is extremely cost effective.  Just as many people ignore emails as they do throw the print version in the trash.  Might as well save money.

My recommendation is to keep it short, consistent, and provide info they care about - market statistics, real estate news, great buys, coupons, your blog info, etc.

Emails I design have a 30-40% open rate.

Make sure to TRACK any emails too.  That's a huge asset to email marketing.  You know what people open them and what they click on, if anything.

I agree with Kim. Print verse email is a split battle. I am in the printing industry and see so many articles over the last few yrs asking if print is dead is everything going to email/internet. It really isnt. There is a large amount of readers out there that prefer the physical copy verse online. There are many pros and cons. Easiest way to find out is to ask your clients which they prefer. Granted online is less then print but if your online material is not being read then it is a waste of time. Printed material may cost more but it does get kept around and hopefully passed to others to read and in the end hopefully it gets recycled and not throw out. A great tip for printed materials such as newsletters is to include useful articles that will make the reader want to keep the printed item. To help costs maybe advertise some of your close referral businesses as well as ask them to participate with your newsletters by including some articles regarding their industry. Hopefully you can send the newsletter to their database as well which is a win win for the both of you.

I have a listing in a new home neighborhood where the site agents are employees of the builders, not Realtors.  Since it is a new neighborhood, there is no dominant agent in the neighborhood.  I have started printing a newsletter and hand delivering these to this neighborhood each month.  I use a template that I have from AnyPresentations.com that I can download & print and then I add in a single page with a list of the homes which closed this month, as well as any new restaurants or retail stores that have opened in the neighborhood.  I stuff them into a plastic door hanger bag and walk the neighborhood.  It is not only great exercise, but I figure that people will see me and eventually think of me as the neighborhood Realtor and I have had a couple of people ask me real estate questions as I have walked the neighborhood.