I heard it said the other day that half of Rush Limbaugh’s listeners are people who hate him.
But those haters just can’t help tuning in to hear what he has to rant about next.
After all, you can’t claim the guy is bland.
Now, I’m not suggesting you become some kind of newsletter shock jock.
But…it’s fair to say that opinions – and a little bit of controversy – do get people’s attention and make you stand out.
I was reminded of this when I was talking to one of our clients the other day.
A recent issue of our newsletter contained an article with a controversial take on appraisals.
And it generated a ton of calls for the Realtor who sent it out.
Now…one of the things that sets our newsletters apart from others is that they are not blah, blah, snore, snore.
The articles are interesting and challenging.
Indeed, when our client sent out this newsletter, some of the agents in her office asked why she sent it – they said they wouldn’t have mailed such a thing themselves.
But…
Our client got a ton of calls from homeowners about it – and those calls led to in-depth, one-on-one conversations about listings.
The newsletter worked!
Of course, we always try to make our articles balanced. We don’t want you to come off as some kind of crazy person.
But we do want them to generate calls, which is what happened in this case.
So I asked this client: do you want more articles like that – a little bit controversial and challenging – or would you prefer something vanilla?
Give me the challenging ones, she said. They get people calling me!
So that’s what we will continue to do.