4 Elements of a Real Estate Newsletter

When it comes to the style of your newsletter, there are only four main elements necessary to make sure you're giving your audience exactly what they want and need:

• Visual appeal
• Good real estate content
• Links back to your website and social channels
• Contact information

We have broken down each of these elements below to make it super easy to make sure you are right on track.

1. Visual Appeal (branded, organization, flow)

This step gets overlooked more than it should. Do not discount a well-designed layout! This includes websites, flyers, newsletters, and business cards. The most popular topic discussed while I was studying advertising in college is how the human brain works when it encounters an ad. If the flow of the ad doesn't follow natural eye movement (ie. the z-pattern, c-pattern, other patterns, etc.), or just the colors are wrong, then the document or ad or whatever it is that is in front of the intended audience will not be noticed. And if it is noticed it won't "stick" with them. Remember, the point of spending hard earned advertising dollars is so that something "sticks."

The fact of the matter is, most people do not feel confident in designing these types of documents themselves. And that's okay. You are a Realtor, not a graphic design artist! Your job is to help people find and purchase their next home, not to spend years educating yourself on graphic design programs and then practicing every day. That's what you higher graphic designers for.

In the event that you are designing your own newsletter, you will want to make sure that it is composed of these elements:

Your logo and headshot

A crisp logo, linked back to your website is so important. Sometimes that logo is the most-clicked item in the newsletter. Don't miss out on that website traffic opportunity. We also recommend professional, but personable headshots. If you have a bubbly personality, the traditional suit-and-marbled-background photo from Sears isn't going to communicate that well at all. Make sure your headshot represents your personality!

Imagery

A nice image that represents what you do. If you focus primarily on luxury properties, make sure to showcase that through a high quality picture of your best listing. If you sell land and recreation properties in the middle of Kentucky, a nice picture of the woods or a well-manicured piece of land would be appropriate. The point is to enhance what you do using images.

Color palette

I cannot stress this enough. If your company color is bright red, do not make the mistake of making every component bright red. That does not set well on the eyes. Find ways to incorporate your colors in fun ways. I have a client who chose to wear a red shirt in her headshot, and use the company in the header. Those were the only two dashes of red and the rest was greyscale. Her newsletter was easy to read while still getting to experience the brand's bright red.

2. Good real estate content (general + local + listings)

What is "good" content? Good content means it resonates with your audience, they enjoy what you share and find value in it, and they are reminded of who you are. Our recommendation for real estate content is to have something general, something local, and to showcase a new or hot listing.

General content is something that is real estate specific but could apply to buyers, sellers, or past clients. Something like "10 homeowner tax breaks you should be taking advantage of," or "how to prepare your home for putting it on the market." These are general real estate topics.

Local content is something that is specific to your area and interests that speaks to you and your brand. For example, if you're really into community, then your local content section can be about upcoming events for the family. If you're into finance and market trends, then your local content section could include charts and reports about your specific market, the changes, trends and projections.

Including a listing or two is a great way to put your listings out there without bombarding them with annoying "daily listing" emails. Now I'm not knocking those kind of emails, but they are for a very narrow target audience with specific needs for a defined time (e.g., buyers on very strict time frame). Don't be "that guy" that sends "just listed" emails to people who just bought a house. Tossing in a listing into a monthly newsletter among other content is just fine.

3. Links back to your website and social channels

Yes, you're providing some awesome information, but the secret is the only reason you're really doing any of this is to get people back over to your website. If you didn't know that, now you do. When you're driving people to your website, you're letting your website do its job at converting visitors into leads. Email marketing is the single most effective way to drive people to your website. This is more effective than pay-per-click marketing, social media marketing, handing out business cards, mail outs, and everything else you can think of. Yes, all of those forms of advertising will get people to your website, but none of them have as high of a conversion rate as email marketing does.

4 . Contact information

Rule #2 in Advertising 101: be reachable in the ways that people want to reach you. That sounds silly to read, but basically it is saying this: if Sally's preferred method of communication is calling and texting, then make sure that you have your phone number on your newsletter, business card, website, etc.

If your email does not list every single one of these pieces of information, you're missing out on opportunities for people being able to reach you. Make sure you list these details:

• Name
• Position
• Company (hyperlinked)
• Email
• Phone
• Fax (if applicable)
• Website
• Social

For a typical real estate agent, this may look like this:

Chelsea Thomas
REALTOR / ABR, GRI: My Home Realty
[email protected]
985-555-5555, ext. 222
myhomerealty.com | @myhomerealty

Now we invite you to check out what we do. For those of you reading this that aren't eMerge subscribers, we want you to check out the newsletter campaigns that we do for real estate agents. Just visit this page, and if you have further questions about eMerge, then set up a demo with one of our marketing coaches. You can do that here.

To view the original article, visit the eMerge blog.