HTML Email Newsletter Strategies in Commercial Real Estate Brokerage
In commercial real estate brokerage today, you should have an e-mail newsletter strategy as part of your communication and contact processes with your clients and prospects. The technology and the systems are available to make that newsletter strategy simple to implement.
To get the e-mail process and newsletter underway, it is wise to consider the key questions and ideas that will help move it forward. Here are some of those questions to consider:
- How often should you make contact with your prospects and clients by e-mail? It should not replace the need for direct contact, meetings, and telephone calls. The newsletter will be an additional communication process. In most cases, you can send a newsletter on a weekly or fortnightly basis. Those issues being said and considered ensure that the newsletter contains interesting information that is relevant to the marketplace and the clients.
- To get the system underway, you will need the consent of the people that are to receive the newsletter. Every meeting and telephone call that you make into the future should include the question seeking the approval of ongoing e-mail contact.
- There are a variety of online database and auto responders to support the dispatch of a newsletter. They are all quite economical to use, and will have all the tools that you need to comply with e-mail marketing and spam legislation.
- Every e-mail that you send out to the people on your list will need to have the unsubscribe option available. You will find that people will leave your list for a variety of reasons. What matters here is that you are topping up the list with fresh new people every day. You want more people to go into your list and those that leave.
- The newsletter should be prepared with interesting information, property updates, market trends, and listings. You can create separate newsletters for the different property types. If you segment your prospect or client list, you can send separate newsletters to each group.
- Schedule your newsletter to go out on a particular day at a certain time. In the commercial real estate industry, most online activity and interest occurs between the days of Wednesday and Saturday. On that basis your newsletter should be set to go out on Thursday. The best time to send out the e-mail would normally be in the afternoon. Emails that are set out in the morning usually get tied up with the workload and clearance problem that everyone has with the e-mail system first thing every day. You don’t want your newsletter to be deleted.
- Within your website and on your home page, include a newsletter subscriber box for your database, newsletter, and marketing material. If your website is attracting enough visitors on a daily basis, you will get automatic subscribers from this process.
- You will need to decide if you wish to send emails that are plain text, or HTML text. The latter being more attractive.
- Link all of your emails to the listings on your website, and the interesting articles on your blog.
- Put some testimonials and market updates into your newsletter on a regular basis. Include stories relative to the challenges of marketing and recent property problems that many clients suffer. Clients and prospects like to know that they are not alone when it comes to solving a property issue.
As with all things, there is a requirement to make it happen. Many agents and brokers struggle with the discipline required to get the newsletter out. Implement a regular time to deal with the challenges of newsletter dispatch. Publish your newsletter on a weekly or fortnightly basis. Include photographs of the quality listings within your brokerage, as well as staff profiles and local property market information. Personality and professionalism are two desirable attributes to make the marketing process work.