The Pleasures of Sharing Information

The key of your business success is building customer loyalty. Holding on to existing customers is as important as soliciting new customers to keep feeding your list with fresh subscribers. Customer loyalty is the key to your business growth and profit. Because loyal customers generate a continual revenue stream through repeat purchases, they bring your business-increased profitability at a lower cost.

Like in any other moneymaking system, to succeed as an email marketer, you will need to understand all the secrets that are available to keep growing your business and apply them immediately.

How to Build a Business Relationship to Gain Customer loyalty!

Everywhere you go online they tell you that you must have a list to succeed. That’s true but it doesn’t go far enough until you understand exactly what makes subscribers eager to pay for your products, success will remain subtle.

If you don’t know how to build a business relationship to keep your subscribers enthusiastic, eagerly waiting for your articles and rush to buy your product without any regard for brand, your list is worthless.

Hands down the main key factor of a responsive email list is the Trust Factor. If you earn your subscribers trust, you will have much more success when it comes to advertise to your list. Without the trust of your subscribers, they will be leery when it comes to pulling out their credit card to buy from you.

1 - Earn your subscribers’ trust

Honesty is essential to earning customers’ trust, and that trust is the key to gaining customer loyalty. Earning customers trust is important to the success of any business.
Being honest goes with not hiding anything.

Let your subscribers know your Identification and contact information, such as your name, physical address, email address and telephone number. It is important that you let your subscribers know how to contact you for assistance. The more they know you as a person, the more they’ll trust you. And when it comes to asking for money, nothing is more important than trust.

Warning: Be sure to be selective in what you promote to your subscribers. If you suggest a product that turns out to be a scam, your subscribers will likely blame you first for recommending it to them. You really can’t afford to take a hit like this to your reputation.

2 - Give Them What They Want

When your subscribers sign up to your ezine, they are doing so for a reason. They want the information you are telling them they will receive. Keep giving them that, and they’ll be happy as can be. Diverge from that, and you could find yourself losing subscribers quicker than you can get them.

Tips: Ask Your Subscribers what they want. Don’t guess. Use this great, easy to use
online tactic to find out exactly what your subscribers will buy from you or what subject they want to learn about. You could hold a contest. By sending them simple questionnaires or surveys will give you a sense of your market’s needs, wants and preferences. Give the winner a quality prize and/ or gift that he can’t find elsewhere. Getting your subscribers involved like this will also keep them interested in your emails and help get more emails opened.

3 - Don’t send “too many” marketing messages.

Two thing you really need to watch, as a publisher, is how to advertise your product/ service and what product you endorse. Nothing ticks off a subscriber more than thinking a publisher is only in it for the money. This will happen if you advertise too much, or if you advertise the wrong products.

Sending out an email newsletter with too much ads and a little or no quality information will hurt your reputation. You have everything to lose, and nothing at all to gain by stuffing your Ezine with ads.

The ads in your Ezine aren’t the only things you have to worry about. This also includes any ads you send out that are separate from your regularly scheduled newsletter. Sending out an ad each day is not the way to go if you want to build customer loyalty. It is the way to go if you want everyone to unsubscribe from your list.

4 - Make your subscribers your friends!

Give your subscribers a good sense of who you are. It’s important that your subscribers see you as a real person, because they will likely never meet you in person.
One thing every successful publisher does is just talk about whatever is on their mind in each issue of their Ezine. They may talk about their family, their favorite sports team, politics, the weather, anything that’s going on. They usually ask the reader to write back a few comments about it, or the reader will just write back without being asked to. This creates a bond between the publisher and the reader that could result in future sales and future partnerships.

5 - Over Deliver

Nothing makes people happier than knowing you pay attention to them. Make your customers and potential clients delighted by giving them more than they expected. After they order your product or sign up for your publication, give them a gift or a bonus that wasn’t advertised, in addition to any gifts or bonus you promised they would get. I’m not talking about any ebook or software they can download from any website. Give something that no one or only a few other people are giving away. This kind of gift and bonus says that you put a lot of attention and thought into helping them succeed.

From time to time and in special events send free gifts just for the heck of it. By continuously over delivering, your subscribers will realize that you are trying to help them learn what they need to know, and they will appreciate it when you give them the tools and information they need to succeed. This is obviously geared more towards strong relationship and they stay loyal customers longer.

6 - Help Them Out

Besides giving your subscribers what they want, helping them with whatever they need help with is the best way to earn customer loyalty. While this works on an individual basis, instead of taking care of all of your subscribers at once, the people you are able to help will be very grateful, and will probably tell their friends, colleagues and neighbors about you. Positive word-of-mouth is a powerful way to acquire new customers and build customer loyalty.

If one of your subscribers sends you an email asking for help, help them out as much as you can. Don’t just give them a quick, one word answer. They’ll probably just be back asking for a little more information. Just go ahead and tell them what you can, and be nice about it, even if you think it’s a stupid question.

7 - Don’t Use Hype

I’m sure you’ve seen this before. It seems to be everywhere you look people trying to hype-up their offer to make it sound better than it is. Most people just want you to be straight with them.

If you just stick to telling the truth about a product, without making it look like hype, I think your subscribers will have much more respect for you. Personally, I think its stimulating when someone sends me a sales letter and outlines how I can benefit from it without trying to make it sound better than it is. Most people can tell the difference, and will probably be turned off by the hype.

The bottom line

When you combine all of these keys, you’ll build a strong relationship with your subscribers and they stay loyal customers for years. All you need to do is find a way to include all of these keys into your business marketing strategies, and you’ll soon find yourself getting new subscribers, building relationships with and earning customer loyalty.

Gley Yahya owns the Strategic Internet Marketing, designed to help small business owners build their opt in email lists by following a proven to work procedure, that leads online people to their websites, and take them through the process from position to position, to convert them to loyal customers. If you need information and assistance with your online growth, we can help. You can reach him at: gley_yahya@email-list-builder.com

Comments Off

Having a downline can be golden. A downline is a group of folks who have either signed-up or have already agreed to at least look at what you send them.

There are currently many ways to get a downline on the internet, and more coming all the time. For example, promoting certain programs, such as surf exchanges, may allow you to build a downline. This can be a pretty good way, but you must check into the particulars of the specific program you are using, because some will not allow you access to your downlines’s E-mail addresses. In other words, you will only be allowed to E-mail your downline from within the program, and they might also restrict whatever advertising you are allowed to do. It all depends on the program. Some are different.

There are quite a few downline clubs popping up all over the net. Again, you would be well advised to check-out the particulars very well, as often you must do a lot of recruiting before you are allowed to advertise to your downline, and sometimes what is presented as free turns out to be an incentive to up-grade, before you are really allowed to use the service that you have worked very hard at building up!

But why not collect your own leads?

One way to do this is to offer a free gift if, a person sends their E-mail address to your autoresponder to get more information about your product or business opportunity. There are plenty of places to get software or E-books to give away. You must make certain that you are free and clear to give whatever it is away, of course. The software or E-book will usually tell you right up front if you have the gotten the rights to give it away or resell it when you acquired it.

One of the easiest ways to create a lead capture page is to look around and find an
autoresponder that gives you codes for making web forms, such as sign-up boxes that will allow visitors to sign-up for your autoresponder.

Just paste this code into a web page, offering a free giveaway, and then put your page into surf exchanges. Some exchanges don’t allow pages with sign-up boxes, so the way around this is to make another page and link it to the page with your sign-up box. Then put the link for whatever you are giving away into your Email ad or newsletter.

If you run ads, just put the link to your lead capture page in them.

Brian Beshore has been involved with Internet Marketing for several years. He publishes his own Home Business Guide. http://www.surfinsafari.net

Comments Off

My business is created around fun and yet I didn’t realize that I was still holding back. I wasn’t paying attention to those inner messages saying, “…really create this the way you want it,” because I thought that’s what I had done.

I finally GOT IT one day after I figured out how to market my business and have FUN at the same time. Here is an example from one part of my business. See if this rings true for you.

After creating my first exciting marketing program new ideas began springing up. I told a friend, I wanted to create additional “fun” programs but kept getting stuck. She said, “You like brainstorming, its part of everything you do, create a single program around that.” So I did. I thoroughly enjoy having brainstorming groups, and have received some great results and feedback, but after a while I felt like something was missingsomething I was ignoring. I discovered what I really wanted to do was take this monthly program and turn it into not just a quarterly program, but an EVENT! Each event had to have an environment that really meant something to me. It might have been something I enjoyed as a kid or now as an adult.

What happens when you start paying attention to those wonderful times in your past or what you really enjoy today and integrate them into your business? You create magnificent, FUN, inviting programs. If you’ve been following your business path, doing what you love, how can it get any better? By looking deeper inside and paying attention to those inner messages.

You begin like this. Simply start writing down those experiences or environments that bring warmth, giggles or excitement to your heart from childhood to now.
Think back to what you really enjoyed as a kid. Maybe it was books, a love for animals, or those magnificent salt-water fish in your aquarium. What puts that smile on your face when you think of something you have enjoyed from your past or in the present? How exciting would it be to combine that special environment with a program you created?

Here are a few examples.

-Things I enjoyed as a kid: boating, riding the train to my grandparents

-Things I enjoy now: hot tea in the afternoon, high tea, and a cabin in the woods

- One of my programs is now integrating all of these things with separate events.

- One event will take to the rails on a train similar to the one I rode to my grandparent’s house when I was a child. It will also be in my favorite time of year. I’m so excited I can barely stay focused on my daily routine and my energy feels like a giddy kid. Another event will combine with an afternoon tea.

Here’s a bonus. By offering what you enjoy — it becomes your BRAND. Do I want to be known as the Chief Executive Kid of business and marketing fun? YOU BET! How do you want to be known?

Beth Woodward, CPCC, is the creator of the popular Marketing On The Playground Program, and the “My Way” Marketing Plan. Find out more about how to market “your way” and sign up for monthly Marketing Tidbits at http://www.marketingontheplayground.com

Comments Off

If I was a fortune-teller and you just walked in my door I would tell you this:

“I see you still seek the dream of earning money in your sleep. Enough to give you the time and freedom to do what you want, when you want and without the restriction of having to choose second-best.”

Don’t worry, I can’t read your mind. I can, however, manipulate how it controls you without you knowing it.

“No way” you say?

The fact that you’re reading this line of text proves I just manipulated your behavior by provoking your subconscious. I pushed your emotional buttons and sucked you in to reading more. How many of your subconscious actions are controlled by someone else? Who knows, it depends on who you are. But we can all agree that this human ability to manipulate the behavior of others is the keystone of today’s marketing.

You are being manipulated every waking minute of your day.

The advent of the Internet has connected us globally. Add to this, the hundreds of thousands of merchants who’ve adopted affiliate programs as a way of consigning an army of salespeople to actively headhunt new customers in exchange for commission earnings. So where does it end up? Right here: An all time record number of humans manipulating other humans. No wonder it’s getting harder to sell stuff. From the second you wake up you’re bombarded with attempts to sell you stuff.

People will do anything for money and so they do anything to get your attention. Taking of their clothes on national TV, proclaiming outrageous benefits, and acting out ‘close to illegal’ attention seeking publicity stunts are not uncommon tactics.

The inherent problem here is that it’s no longer a matter of whether there are enough customers in the market. It is whether you can capture and keep a customer’s attention for a few minutes of their 24-hour day. This is why the plethora of marketers opt to use hypnotic and manipulative communication to win your attention.

What if you could bypass all this manipulation?

Imagine if you could shut the door on the screaming, banner-waving crowd of competitive marketers. Sit your customer down in your office and present your product with their complete attention?

A new league of customer acquisition techniques that bypass the constant manipulation is rising from the chaos of today’s marketing. One of which I am personally fond of is ‘Customer Reciprocation’.

Customer Reciprocation takes a holistic view of Internet marketing, applying traditional win-win formulas to the modern way of doing commerce. If you remove all the hype of today, what you’re left with is age-old commerce propositions. “Do you need something to solve your problem? Then buy this product”, and “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine”.

Customer Reciprocation bypasses the hype because each customer who purchases from the other only purchase the products that they had already intended to purchase. A fair and honest way to acquire customers for both affiliate marketers and merchants. General online shopping portals manipulate customers to shop at a limited list of merchants by offering discounts, rewards or other incentives. Customer Reciprocation delivers to you as a customer the freedom to shop anywhere online while still receiving a discount. The discount is in the form of a customer to you or your affiliated merchant generating you income.

Deep down we all like to sell stuff the honest way, and none of us like to be manipulated. So it is easy to see why Customer Reciprocation is growing in popularity. It may be a slow-and-steady customer acquisition strategy but it’s one that is guaranteed to reap results for its users.

Copyright 2005 Michael Lever

Michael Lever is a co-founder and CEO of SpinningTornado.com, an independent company offering unbiased tools and services to help affiliate and network marketers build profitable online businesses.
http://www.SpinningTornado.com
Partnering affiliates the world over.

Comments Off

At the annual American Association of Advertising Agencies media conference last week, speakers stated that the industry must cater to consumers empowered by technology and multiple content choices. A joint study with Harris Interactive and the American Association of Advertising Agencies reported that roughly one-third of consumers say there is too much advertising interrupting programming.

So…in a nutshell, as business owners, what this means is that we need to find ways to interact with our consumers in ways that are convenient for them while not interrupting them from what they are trying to do. While it may sound like a contradiction, it is certainly achievable. For example, most web site owners and anyone engaging in internet marketing has already realized that despite grabbing visitors attention in a big way, pop-up or pop-under ads generally perform very poorly if at all. In fact, they can often have a negative impact on a visitor’s experience and remove all possibility of them becoming a client or customer of the company in question. On the other hand, many companies have had great success with simple text links within relevant copy on a web site. There are several reasons for the success of this type of advertising, such as:

• Relation to the content - The visitor is reading a particular page of a web site because it is of some interest. Conversely, links to relevant content elsewhere are more likely to be of interest to that visitor than those that are not.
• Ease of use - All a visitor has to do is click the link.
• Unobtrusiveness - A simple text link is not a pop-up, banner or big honking flash ad that plays circus music, therefore will not annoy visitors.

To use this idea in your marketing, all that you have to do is present your message in the manner that your prospects want to receive it, make it simple to use and most of all don’t annoy them. Perhaps you don’t know how or when your prospects want to receive our message, what they consider simple, or what annoys them. There is a solution for that as well. Ask them.

Jeremy L. Knauff is the founder of Wildfire Marketing Group, an innovative marketing company that specializes in guerilla marketing techniques to help smaller companies compete with larger companies and win. article submission & directory submission by rcplinks.com

Comments Off

I thought I was unique, but the more folks I talked with, the more I realized that many people started just like I did. When I first got into my online business, I knew nothing about computer programming. I figured that I must be the only one in online marketing with such undeveloped computer skills. It turns out, there are many of you that started just like me.

No matter where we start, however, computer skills are essential in the online world. More and more frequently, programming knowledge is not only helpful, but required. It’s just not business-smart to pay someone else to make every single change on your website.

Even if you are a programming newbie, all is not lost. You probably already know, for instance, that a huge amount of website programming is done in HTML (HyperText Markup Language). HTML was designed so that the ‘average’ website owner could create and edit content easily and quickly. If you don’t know what HTML looks like, get a glance by going to your favorite website. In the menu at the top of the screen click View and then click Source. Theoretically, this will give you the HTML code for the page you are viewing. There is an amazing amount of functionality involved with HTML coding. With knowledge of just a few commands, you can make a huge number of formatting and esthetic changes to your web page. With just a little bit more knowledge of the basic commands, you can enact very detailed adjustments to your site.

Let me give you a few examples that you may already know. When you use the command …, all text that replaces the ‘…’ will be emboldened. With … you can probably guess that the enclosed text will be centered. If you want a line break, use the command at the end of your sentence.

As I said, you probably already know those commands, but there are many that are just as easy and useful that you may not know. Just a little bit of research into the standard HTML commands can give you a world of knowledge in this user-friendly programming language.

Whether you have to completely redo your website or just want to make a few choice format changes, basic HTML knowledge is invaluable. Learning a few of the commands can give you a significant advantage over your competition, not to mention saving you money through do-it-yourself programming work.

When you’re ready, check out how much HTML you can learn in just one hour. http://www.build-passive-income.com/cmd.php?ad=127595

Remember, be good to yourself and never underestimate the power associated with the intensity of your passion.

Copyright 2005 Foreman Enterprises

Scott Foreman Build-Passive-Income.com

mailto:scott@build-passive-income.com

We will pay you TWO WAYS to run this article!

First, we will pay you up to $25 for every person who visits our site and purchases a product as a result of you running or posting this article.

PLUS, once you confirm we will give you a FREE DISPLAY AD in our Internet Success Newsletter (that’s how much we appreciate it)!

Make sure that you get your affiliate ID at:

http://www.build-passive-income.com/affiliate

This article may be reprinted for use in newsletters and websites provided that the information box is kept intact. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: newsgroups@build-passive-income.com

About The Author

Wayne and Scott Foreman are co-owners of

http://www.build-passive-income.com

This Secret Book Made Terry Dean Rich! You Can Get it Free IF you click below now (you won’t believe the simple techniques it reveals that ANYONE can use)

http://www.Build-Passive-Income.com/secret

scott@build-passive-income.com

Comments Off

Did you ever wonder how the big boys in Internet marketing build lists fast?

I’m pretty you know by now that building a list of subscribers
is one of the MOST important parts of your online business
if you want to make any real money.

If you don’t know that, let me remind you that the
MONEY is in your LIST that’s why your credibility
and relationship with your subscribers is vital.

I’m not going to explain why and so on, because
I don’t want to lose focus. What I want to share with you
is one of the best list-building strategies I’ve personally used
and it build me over 1500 targeted subscribers in less
than 1 week!

If you want to build a list quickly with targeted
and responsive subscribers, I strongly urge you to use the
co-registration joint-venture list building strategy.

Damn now that’s a long name for a strategy!

Here’s a great example of a co-registration joint venture
which takes up a bit of time and effort but is really worth
it in the end - you could set-up a free giveaway site.
A bunch of people get together to offer their best products
to everyone’s subscribers - all they need to do is fill out a
form to get them.

I know it works because I’ve done it with
one of my previous campaigns.

Here are the details on how I did it so that
you can copy it in whatever niche market you
are involved in:

1. Contact 10 Joint Venture partners or any number of
partners you want to have. The more JV partners
you have, the more subscribers you’ll gain but
you risk getting less targeted subscribers.

Here’s why:

If a subscriber subscribes to 10 lists, it’s a very
high possibility that he (or she) will unsubscribe
because of too many subscriptions. But if
you have 5 JV partners, he’ll be receiving
emails from 5 people only.
The only problem here is
that you’ll only have 5 people to promote the promotion
for you.

2. When you contacted your potential JV partners,
you MUST state very clearly:

i. What are the benefits that they can expect.
Can they make money? Can their list grow?
ii. What they are expected to do. If you need
them to email to their list, tell them so. Don’t
do it at the last minute.

iii. What do they need to offer to be in this
promotion? Normally, each of the Jv partners
will offer a product to entice the subscribers
to subscribe to their mailing list.

3. Prepare all the necessary materials.
These will include:

i. Creating the webpage where anyone who
is interested in getting the products offered
for free can subscribe to the contributor’s (your
JV partners) list.

ii. Programming script to make sure that
it’s working perfectly that each subscription
will go to your JV partner.

iii. Email templates for your Jv partners to send
to their subscribers.

iv. Email support for the new subscribers.
Sometimes, they might face challenges like
failing to subscribe or trouble with downloading
the products. It’s your responsibility to manage
all of these.

4. Thanking your Jv partner. You’ll probably
agree with me that you managed to build a list
quickly with targeted subscribers is because
of the help you get from your Jv partners. Tell them
how much you appreciated their help and if
possible, offer an extra incentive to them. You can
promote their products to the new list that
you have built from this promotion to show
your appreciation for your Jv partners contribution.

Now that you’ve got yourself a great targeted list of
Subscribers the next step is to keep them coming back, for
A loyal list will bring in the money in future.

One of the best places to find cutting edge information on the latest Internet Marketing techniques is a website called the Affiliate
Classroom.
They have a multitude of E-books and libraries for hours
Of reading pleasure.
Here’s a link to join their very helpful free mailing list.
http://tinyurl.com/dt4rb

To your success in the future.
Regards.
Ryan Blake.

About the Author

My name is Ryan Blake and I run my own Internet Marketing
company from home which pays all my bills
So here’s an artice which hopefully will teach you something
new and guide you through the first step… which is by far
the hardest and get you off to a good start.
So why not check out my latest amazing find below.
http://tinyurl.com/dt4rb
Regards and good luck.
Ryan Blake.

Comments Off

Cold Calling Fun, Are You Serious?

When my business partner who also happens to be my husband suggested that I learn to do cold calling to become an expert in our home business, I can still remember the exact spot where I was standing in our kitchen; nor can I forget the feeling that gripped my insides.

Quite simply put, I was horrified at the prospect of talking with complete strangers about my business. The thought conjured up all of the stereotypes of the worst kind of salesman that I could think of; remember Jack Lemmon in the movie, “Glengarry Glen Rose”? Or the Arthur Miller character of Willy Lomax in “Death of a Salesman”?

If you remember these characters then you get the picture….. If you don’t, think of the most aggressive and desperate car Salesman you have ever met and you have the image. It has been five years since that kitchen conversation and one of the things I love most about our business is talking with new potential customers or cold calling.

If the telephone still seems to weigh 400 pounds when you pick it up to call prospects or if you cannot talk with a sharp waitress about your business because the words stick in your throat, read on.

There are three essentials to learning how to love cold calling: Support, lots of it;
Feedback, lots of it;
And leads, lots of them.

Let’s begin with the support part. Support is imperative because when we begin to talk with strangers about our business, we will not do well at first. Trust me on this one. Here’s an example; in the beginning, I used the “300 foot” rule. Translated, that means that anyone who came within 300 feet of me and was breathing was fair game.

There were many times that I had no plan in mind when I prospected a stranger. Often, my husband and I were in a restaurant together when I awkwardly approached the waiter or another customer; I made the classic mistakes of talking, not asking, over and over ,often knowing that I would never follow up with this person. But my business partner (husband) never made fun of me or gave me “constructive feedback”.

He knew how far outside my “comfort zone” I had wandered and consistently encouraged me to continue taking the risk of talking to strangers about my business. He called it practice and told me that I was learning.

So you know what happened? I got better.

The more I did this, the more comfortable I felt and therefore acted. There is a reason that Chesterton’s advice is often quoted to anyone learning a new skill: “anything worth doing is worth doing poorly”. When we are learning, we’ll most likely act like it. Realize that in yourself and in others and you will start to attract people to you.

Feedback is a tougher issue. Once the newly acquired skill of “cold calling” or prospecting is more-or-less comfortable, we need to see the errors that we are making in order to correct them. This is where “constructive criticism” comes in. This is tough because most of us despise being criticized- I do and so does everyone else I know.

So what can we do? There are several alternatives that may be preferable at least in the beginning. One is using a tape recorder to record live phone conversations; simulated role-plays can be useful as well and scripts may be helpful for some. But nothing beats someone listening and then giving us immediate and honest feedback.

Nothing - but it is unpleasant for those of us working hard to do the best we can do
and that is most of us.

The three common pitfalls for many of us are Talking too much,
Interrupting,
And not listening.

This last skill, listening, requires concentration and discipline but is powerful. You know when you are listening when you sense the appreciation of the person you’re listening to for they are almost always surprised and grateful to hear their thoughts and concerns return to them. We can change our style and learn to listen but it requires focus and work.

An unlimited supply of leads is the last requirement for learning to love cold calling. Most of us really believe we only know 5 people to talk to about our business and when pressed we may be able to list 30. So what do we do when we reach the end of the list and we have no money to buy leads?
And for many of us, the idea of approaching friends and family, makes our insides crawl. But an insufficient supply of interested prospects is one of the most common causes for failure in network marketing.

Let’s think a moment about why it is so important to have more people to call than you have time to dial. It isn’t complicated, is it? The more detached we can be from the decision of each person we talk with the more confidence we feel and stimulate in those we talk with. That Jack Lemmon stereotype of the aggressive, desperate salesman is a character we all look to escape, fast.

Where are the sources for unlimited leads? They range from the PTA and other clubs you can join to the 10-20,000 new folks going on the Internet each day in hopes of finding a way to change their lives. There are a few excellent companies to buy names of interested prospects for relatively little money on the Internet.

In summary, cold calling is the heart and soul of any business because all of us reach the end of our contact list sooner or later.

The three essentials for learning to love talking to strangers are: Support,
Feedback
And an unlimited supply of people to talk with about the business.

Happy prospecting!

Dr. Lin Wilder wrote this article. Lin is a full-time net worker, consultant and writer. She invites you to visit her site at http://www.fastmlmleads.com “Adversity is…….a tonic to me” Sir Walter Raleigh

Comments Off

One of the biggest concerns for Realtors who publish their own email newsletter is determining the type of content that will gain interest from their readership. After all, real estate agents who engage in this endeavor want prospective buyers and sellers to open their newsletter and thus be reminded that the agent is their local real estate expert. Ideally, readers should find the content so interesting that they will even forward the newsletter to their friends or relatives who might be prospective clients as well. This “viral marketing” often leads to a profitable source of income for agents.

An important first step is to determine what is of interest to your readers. Put yourself in their shoes. Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• What real-estate related topics are of interest to my target market? Is it mortgage rates? Property values? Equity loans? Closing costs? The escrow process? How appraisals determine market value? A piece of legislation that could affect property taxes?
• Why types of questions have you and your associates been asked lately? These may indicate an interest in understanding the escrow or loan process, for example, or how a local school bond might affect future property values. Is a major road improvement scheduled to begin soon, and what impact could that have on local residents? Are new zoning laws being considered? Is a new shopping center or theme park planned for the area? Maybe it’s what to do in the event of an earthquake.
• Is there a real estate issue that is costing your clients money? Do you have a solution or suggestion on how to handle this problem? Maybe it’s termite season. Is there a new regional development on the horizon, such as cable Internet? Perhaps your readers would be interested in knowing how to do simple home repairs or where to get assistance.
• Do you have any new business programs or services to introduce to clients? Or, use your newsletter to explain the direct benefits of an existing program.
• Are there any promotional offers (e.g., no closing costs for the next 30 days!) that you wish to communicate to your market?

The point is, there are a multitude of relevant subjects about which plenty of information is available. All you have to do is scratch your head and think a little. Look in the local newspaper to get ideas or brainstorm with other people in your office. Surf real estate sites on the Web. Ask your clients what they would like to see in a newsletter. Use your imagination and the ideas will come quickly.

Al Kernek is a real estate broker and author of “Creating E-Mail Newsletters - A Practical Guide for the Real Estate Community” and “Put Your Business Online.” To learn more about increasing real estate sales using low-cost Internet marketing techniques, visit http://www.renewsletter.com

Comments Off