5 key features of a lead-generating real estate newsletter
Effective real estate newsletters include timeless advice that helps your future clients make educated real estate decisions.
Whether you send it out by email or post it to local homeowners (or both), there are 5 elements that make up an effective real estate newsletter.
Embrace these 5 key features and you will be setting yourself up for success with an efficient marketing approach that can generate listings on a consistent basis throughout your career.
The 5 key features of an effective real estate newsletter:
- Evergreen content
- Make it educational
- Keep it positive
- Demonstrate real estate proficiency
- Keep it simple
Let's break each one down...
1. Include evergreen content
Guess what kind of marketing has the longest shelf-life? Marketing that contains something helpful or educational.
Most homeowners have the vast majority of their net worth tied up in real estate. If you can help them improve the value of their biggest asset, you'll win their respect and their attention. So it stands to reason that effective real estate newsletters should include timeless advice that helps your future clients make educated real estate decisions.
Timeless real estate advice is evergreen content. It stays fresh and never goes out of season.
Here's an example you can send out this week: How to sell your home for the best possible price.
Andrew Duncan
2. Make it educational
We all love to learn. Especially if that learning helps us improve in some small way. Imagine how your local database contacts would feel if they picked up some piece of useful knowledge every time they read one of your newsletters?
What if they actually looked forward to receiving your newsletter? It's possible if you get the content right (more on that shortly).
3. Keep it positive
There's one thing that attracts real estate opportunity better than bus-backs, billboards, and banging on doors...
It's positivity.
Effective real estate newsletters are upbeat at all times, focussing on the positive aspects of the current market, the opportunities available, and the light at the end of the tunnel. Not in a boring old 'it's a great time to sell' kind of way but something more like...
"We're seeing increased activity compared to last month, especially in the first home buyer market. And investors are actively looking for new properties. We've got a bunch of amazing houses on the market right now and we'd love to see you at any of our open homes this weekend..."
Change it up each time you send out your newsletter. Keep it short and snappy. 1 or 2 sentences are fine.
TIP: Include a listing with a sharp asking price as your 'buy of the week' in your next newsletter. It doesn't matter if it's your listing or someone else's. The goal is to help your clients find a good deal.
4. Demonstrate proficiency
Most agents miss this key aspect when marketing themselves to potential vendors. If you want to attract sellers to list with you, you need two things:
- You need those sellers to know who you are.
- You need them to know you're good at marketing real estate.
Your marketing needs to build profile (so more people know who you are) and demonstrate proficiency (so they know you're good at what you do).
Most marketing focuses simply on profile ("look at me, I'm in real estate!") and does nothing to establish credibility.
Demonstrate proficiency in your email newsletter by including recent sales info and by writing about challenges your owners are facing, like whether to renovate before selling, when to sell to get the best price and how to choose an agent.
5. Keep it simple: easy to build and quick to send
For a real estate newsletter to be truly effective, it needs to be consistent. The challenge is that once you start sending a high-quality newsletter, you'll start to get some traction. You'll start to get busy, appraising properties and eventually listing and selling more houses.
Most agents who reach this point get too busy and stop doing the one thing that got them that success in the first place: They stop sending a regular newsletter.
If you want to avoid the famous real estate income roller-coaster, then you need to stay consistent and keep sending your newsletter out, even when you get busy.
For that to happen, your newsletter needs to be easy to build and quick to send. You need a process that doesn't take you much time. A process that you don't have to think too hard about. Once the phone starts ringing non-stop it gets very hard to sit down and write an 800-word newsletter!
That's why we started Agent Monday. We want to free up your time so you can focus on what you’re good at.
As an Agent Monday member, you have access to a library of lead-generating real estate articles. Ideal content to build your newsletter in minutes. Information you can share with your database to add value and create listing opportunities.
These are white-label articles. Which means you can take them and use them as your own.
Agent Monday articles are designed to work in all markets. We have members all over the world, winning more listings right now with our proven real estate content.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I send out a newsletter?
For email, we recommend sending out a short, concise newsletter with an Agent Monday article to everyone on your database, every single week. If you want to do it fortnightly, that's fine too. But in our experience, weekly produces the best results.
For posted newsletters, aim for monthly. Or if you are delivering them as a letterbox drop to your farm area, aim for fortnightly.
TIP: Most salespeople do not send their newsletter out often enough. When it comes to marketing, repetition is the key to success.
What about branding? I don't have a nice template!
When it comes to email, plain text is fine, and in fact, it's preferable if you don't want to end up in your contact's spam folder.
But I don't have any new listings!
That's why we created Agent Monday, so you'll always have something to send. Most contacts on your database probably aren't looking for a home right now. They don't care about your new listings (or lack thereof).
But I haven't emailed my database in ages. What if they all unsubscribe?
If they unsubscribe to your next email, then they weren't ever going to list with you anyway. Besides, the alternative is you don't send them anything and that sure as heck won't help you grow your business.
Andrew Duncan
Got a question about sending out your regular newsletter?
Get in touch and let us know. We'll do our best to help.
Where to next?
Check out this guide to learn more about the power of repetition...
Andrew Duncan