Seth’s Advice to Realtors

As a lot of readers of this blog are real estate agents, I thought I’d pass along the advice of marketing guru Seth Godin. (I reviewed his excellent book The Dip here, and recommend all his work.) He gives two bits of advice. The first is kinda harsh. But the second is spot on. He…

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4 Ways to Tell if Your Real Estate Newsletter is Boring

I’m going to ask a blunt question: is your real estate newsletter boring? Because if your newsletter is boring, you’ll be losing thousands of dollars in business because…to put it bluntly… no one will be reading! And if no one is reading, you’re not going to be able to build that essential relationship with your…

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2 Easy Ways to Write Newsletter Articles (Even if You Hate Writing)

Many people are put off sending out a customer newsletter because of the amount of writing they think is involved. After all, a blank page can be pretty daunting. So here are 2 ways to make article writing easier. These aren’t new ideas – I’ve heard them mentioned several times before by several people –…

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Real Estate Newsletters: 5 Essential Tips to Make Clients Adore You

Sending a real estate newsletter to your farm isn’t about getting a client or a listing right there and then. Unless you hit their mailbox at precisely the right time – just when they are looking for an agent or wanting to list their house – you’re in the business of building a relationship rather…

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5 Elements Every Real Estate Newsletter Must Have

Here’s what I hope is a useful list for any Realtor putting together their own newsletter. 1) Clear Contact Information Make it easy for your clients to contact you. Put your name and contact information on the front and back, and consider adding your website URL or phone number at the bottom of every other…

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Are Printed Newsletters Bad for the Climate?

One of the arguments against printed newsletters and in favor of email is that because printed newsletters use paper, they are bad for the climate. Chris Anderson, he of The Long Tail and Wired magazine, has done an analysis that finds “dead-tree magazines have a smaller net carbon footprint than web media.” I don’t know…

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The Canadian Tire Flyer

For many years, Canadian Tire has delivered a pretty thick flyer to people’s mailboxes every week. (For people who aren’t familiar with Canadian Tire, it’s a soup-to-nuts — or lightbulbs to auto parts — store that’s one of the most famous brands in Canada.) Canadian Tire also produces an email version. Yet despite what must…

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The 22 Best Newsletter Tips Ever

Follow these and you won’t go far wrong with your newsletter. Some are old, some are new, some are borrowed…you get the picture. Remember who you are writing for. Your newsletter must be about your intended audience, not about yourself. Every client is tuned to WIIFM – What’s In It For Me. Make it useful.…

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A Brand You World

I’ve been using my mp3 player the past few days to catch up on the teleseminars from A Brand You World – the global summit celebrating a decade of personal branding. From the site: In 1997, Tom Peters wrote his now iconic article “The Brand Called You” in Fast Company. Now ten years later, the…

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7 Ways to Use Your Real Estate Newsletter to Grow Your Farm

Attention Realtors: Are you making the most of your newsletter? There are lots of ways to use your real estate newsletter — here are just a few: Keeping in touch with past clients If you’d like to be a client’s “Realtor for life” (something that should be one of your main business goals), then your…

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Another excellent newsletter example

Earlier this month, I showed you an example of someone who took one of my ready-to-go newsletters and customized it themselves to make it even better. Today I’ve got an example of a real estate newsletter. This one is by Linda Frankl, a Realtor in Connecticut. Here’s what I think she has done well: Prominent…

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An excellent example of a customer newsletter

I’d like to show you what I think is an excellent example of someone using a commercially available, ready-to-use newsletter and customizing it to make it even more powerful. As you may know, I operate a service that provides ready-made newsletters for real estate agents and other professionals. The newsletters are delivered to my subscribers…

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The newsletter spectrum

There’s so such thing as a typical newsletter, of course. It’s a spectrum, from down-and-dirty, straight from the kitchen table written by your spouse…to glossy, designed by Madison Avenue and crafted by a team of high-paid wordsmiths Both ends of the spectrum have their place, because you want a newsletter that matches the clients you…

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How to encourage newsletter readers to contact you again

One of the main reasons for having a newsletter is to build a relationship with your clients and prospects. A way to deepen that relationship is to encourage readers to interact with your content. Increasing the amount of interaction has several benefits: People spend longer with your newsletter – and hence with you People change…

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Can people sign up for your newsletter on your website?

From time to time I visit my real estate newsletters clients’ websites, just to find out more about them so I can help them more in future. And here’s a strange thing. These people have newsletters. They mail them out. Yet on their websites there’s often no mention of them. That’s a big mistake. These…

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The golden oldies

Drew McLellan summarizes as well as anyone I’ve seen the reasons why it’s smart to focus on your existing customers as well as going out looking for new ones. See his post, Concentrate on the old this week. Here are the advantages he mentions: They know who you are and trust/like you enough that they’ve…

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Is your newsletter boring?

Rule #1 when writing your newsletter is this: focus on your reader, not on yourself. After all, readers are interested in themselves, not in you. So when companies fill a newsletter with how they’ve just got ISO 9001 or been awarded the Mayor’s Prize for Human Resources Development, they’re asking for their words to be…

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Too little, too late

You already know I’m a big fan of keeping in regular touch with clients and prospects. With clients, keeping in regular touch increases the likelihood they will stay as clients and that they will buy even more from you. With prospects, it gives them multiple chances to buy from you and increases the chances they…

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Elements of a successful newsletter: 13 – The Publication Schedule

This is the thirteenth in a series of posts about the elements of a successful newsletter.  13. The Publication Schedule Newspapers, magazines and even websites have a publication schedule. Everything is run like clockwork, to deadline. There are many external reasons for creating a schedule. But there’s one good internal reason: without one, nothing would…

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Useful Product: Fedex Kinko’s Print Online

Here’s a useful service that might help you print your newsletters. Fedex Kinko’s allows you to upload your document, have it printed and then shipped back to you (or anywhere else you choose). Or you can go to the nearest store and pick it up. Saves having to visit a copy shop twice – you…

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