Realtors who have been in the real estate business a long time know the secret: Past and current clients are your best opportunity for future business. Staying in touch with both of these groups is key. That involves contact and communication. Being reachable by prospects and clients before, during and after the home-transaction process is one of the best ways to stay in business. This type of dedication creates repeat customers and word-of-mouth referrals. As we all know, social media, texting and email communications are great tools for being reachable and staying in touch. The e-newsletter format is a great way to achieve this.

Here are some simple steps you can take to adopt a newsletter strategy for real estate:

Choose Your Service

A simple Google search will bring up a number of e-newsletter services (Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor. etc.) that will allow you to build and manage your e-newsletters. But do your research so that you can settle on a program that works for you price-wise and functionality-wise.

Compile Your e-Mail Database

If you've been on top of things the last few years of your business, you have a healthy email database of prospects, clients and colleagues. Your e-newsletter program should allow you to compile, edit and manage these lists. In addition, most programs will allow clients to opt-out and edit their settings, like if they change e-mail addresses.

Come Up With a Design

Not a designer? Not even tech-savvy in the slightest? Most e-newsletter services provide easy-to-use templates and graphics, not to mention extremely simple newsletter editing tools to put your real estate e-newsletter together. And if you do happen to be a graphics wizard, you can go to town by uploading your own HTML templates.

Choose Your Content

A major dilemma for most REALTORS is what to promote across their social networking channels. For your e-newsletter, a variety of content with a clear focus is ideal. It shouldn't be all listings, for example. Provide a little something for everyone — those in the market for a home or not. This could be a combination of listings, local news, real estate trends and information about your business. Provide a little something for everyone.

Select a Schedule

Send out too many e-newsletters and people will unsubscribe. Send out too few and people will forget who you are in the intervals. Depending on how active your business is, and depending on your amount of content, you might go with a monthly or quarterly schedule. Most industry insiders will tell you that any more or less than that would not be ideal.

How is the e-newsletter different than social media marketing on Facebook and Twitter? The real estate e-newsletter is a way to appear directly in your clients' inboxes. This provides a clear marketing opportunity but also a risk (as mentioned above), so work with your colleagues and business partners to come up with a safe and effective strategy for the rest of the year.

To view the original article, visit the ReachFactor blog.