Do Your Newsletters Sell?

Indulge me for one minute in a thought exercise: if you were one of your prospective clients – a home buyer or seller – what would you want? What would be important to you?

I was thinking about that today, and here’s what I came up with:

1. To know what was involved in the process
2. To get an idea of the likely end result – how much I could sell my house for and in how much time or how much house I could buy and where
3. To know what the heck is going on with this crazy market
4. To know what I could do to get a better end result, quicker

On my list the common element, clearly, is knowledge. I’m one of those people who wants to know things. Not everyone is like me. But a lot of people – a lot of your prospective clients – are.

So how do you give the people what they want? Newsletters (as we design them here at Castelazo Marketing Ltd., at least) are one great way. Why? Because they offer your prospects “news they can use” – helpful information that makes their lives better, and they position you as the expert.

Plus, if you’re mailing newsletters the good old-fashioned way, they have a sense of permanence. Ideally, your newsletters will be so good that recipients will want to keep them – whether they go on the fridge or into the “resources” folder. That means that even if the recipient isn’t ready to buy or sell today, your newsletter will still be around when they are.

To do newsletters right, pay attention to the key elements that successful newsletters incorporate:

• They offer timely, relevant, area-specific content – the kind your prospects want to read. They epitomize the phrase “news you can use.”
• They position you as the real estate expert your contacts will turn to – for up-to-date information on your local real estate market and helpful tips on buying and selling.
• They describe the unique benefits you offer your clients (why your prospects should hire you and not the next guy) and include your contact information.
• They stand out – from the pile of other mail in your prospect’s box and from the mailings other real estate agents might send. (Remember, different is good!)

When I send newsletters for clients, I send them tri-folded and sealed with a clear mailing seal, not in an envelope. I do that for two reasons: 1) it saves the cost of the envelope (which isn’t a huge deal, but every little bit helps, right?) and, more importantly 2) it allows the newsletter to stand out. All of the six designs at CMRealEstateMarketing.com are meant to stand out – so your newsletter gets picked up, opened, and read. If it arrives in a nondescript white envelope, that’s less likely to happen.

I’ve included examples from two of Castelazo Marketing Ltd.’s newsletters (The Modern Green page 1 and The Fancy page 2) so you can see those key elements at work.

Molly Castelazo

Castelazo Marketing Ltd.

July 22, 2009

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