Keeping in touch with clients is crucial to a real estate agent's success. Maintaining the relationship after a sale encourages referrals and repeat business. Strategies like drip marketing, mailing personalized holiday or home anniversary cards, providing periodical property tax assessments, and scheduling homeowner check-ups are all excellent ways to stay top-of-mind.

Agents looking to provide even more--or different--value to their clients should look to their MLS. By using their MLS's mapping tools, REALTORS® can notify their clients about new listings and sold properties in their neighborhood.

This is an easy way to leverage homeowners' natural need to be "in the know" about their neighborhood. Listings frequently go into the MLS before a sign goes up on a property's lawn. Just imagine your client's delight at being the first to know that a nearby home is going on sale.

Simply use the drawing tool to highlight an area around your client's home. This can be a small or large area, depending on the population density. By setting up your MLS's software to automatically email your client with new neighborhood activity, you have an effective way to provide value with no extra work required on your part. The trick is to keep emails at an appropriate frequency so clients are not bombarded. Another method for accomplishing the same thing is to register the customer to your website.

What to Do if a Client Opts Out

Not all clients may be interested in receiving frequent emails, particularly if they live in an area with high activity. If a client asks to be removed from email notifications, consider sending them monthly direct mailings with neighborhood updates. This less frequent, less intrusive method may be more to their liking.

If a client then calls you and asks to be removed from direct mail, ask if they would prefer to receive the information by email. Nine times out of ten, your customer won't even recall asking to be removed from your email list. If they do remember, politely remove them from all future mailings, digital or otherwise. After all, the goal is customer retention, not alienation!

When combined with other methods for staying in touch, leveraging your MLS's features can be a potent way to provide clients with information that's personally valuable to them--and keeps you top-of-mind!

More Client Retention Ideas

• How to Stay on a Client's Radar For the Long-Term
• Relationships Matter – How to clean up your act and get communicating NOW!