Google loves original content — it’s one of the most guaranteed ways to increase page rankings in search. Consistently publishing original content that people are sharing about a certain topic is an excellent way for people to find you online.
According to Search Engine Journal, “Companies that blog have 434 percent more indexed pages. And companies with more indexed pages get far more leads.” This idea can also be applied to real estate as well. The bigger presence you have online, the wider your network is to connect with potential buyers.
Email newsletters can be an effective method because they serve as a content marketing asset and distribution platform at the same time. By curating content, sharing your own original content and distributing it, you allow potential buyers to have a personal connection with you before they meet you — which puts you way ahead of your competitors.
Engaging in conversations online will also help you become a leader in your space and keep people coming back for more. Starting an email newsletter might sound overwhelming, but it’s not as difficult as you might think.
1. Establish goals
Before outlining and executing a strategy, it’s important to write down what you want to accomplish by starting this email newsletter. Jot down two or three goals that you hope this newsletter will achieve. A few examples of goals might be:
- To establish myself as an authority figure in real estate in my city.
- To build a following within my community.
- To build a network I can consistently reach out to.
Once you’ve established your goals, write down a few ways you are going to measure those. The most common and easiest way to measure the success of a newsletter is the increase of subscribers.
Open rates are another common metric to look at, in addition to comments and feedback. Are people responding positively to your email newsletter?
Now that you’ve established your goals, it’s time to figure out the important details. Who is going to be in charge of sending out the newsletter? What content will it include? And when are you going to send it out?
2. Designate an author and a platform
Most likely this will be you unless you have an assistant or a digital marketer to help you. Part of this is also determining the how of the process. What tool are you going to use to send out this newsletter and build a subscriber list? Fortunately, there are many helpful tools; here are a few:
• Microsoft Outlook: This is a good tool for beginners because it’s user-friendly for everyone with a wide range of technical skills. The layouts are simple, which keeps you from spending a lot on visuals and design. Plus, you can easily add your existing contacts — and it’s free if you already have Microsoft Office.
• MailChimp: It’s an online service that makes it easy to design and send newsletters to a large list of people. This tool is great because it offers a lot of templates that can help you make your newsletter visually appealing without having design experience.
It also has built-in analytics to help give you regular insights into how your newsletter is performing. The lowest-tier pricing on this platform is free for your first 2,000 subscribers.
• Constant Contact: Another great tool with nice templates to easily organize and design your newsletter. For $20 a month you can send an unlimited number of emails to your subscribers, choose mobile-friendly templates and get free coaching to help you in times of need.
3. Create a content strategy
The content of your email newsletter is the most important part. An excellent way to show you’re an expert in your city is to keep readers updated on current events.
If there’s a festival, concert, parade or fair, be sure to include that in your newsletter. You can either keep local events updated in an article on your blog if you have one, or you can curate the list from another source. Of course, make sure to give credit where credit is due and ask permission when necessary.
Another type of content to include in your newsletter is informative articles on how to purchase properties. Examples could be: what to look for in a house, what’s available in your community within a certain budget range or questions to ask your agent.
These are just a few topic ideas for blog posts, but the important thing here is that you include one piece of your own original content.
Finally, don’t forget to include content about your own listings and events.
4. Work out a schedule
Another crucial question to answer is when you are going to send out your newsletter. This schedule is something that will vary in the beginning as you test the best days and times to reach your audience.
However, you can still establish how often you’re going to send it out when you start building your newsletter. Once a week is usually a manageable frequency to start off with for you and your subscribers.
It’s important to remember that building a successful newsletter will take time. It’s not going to take off overnight. But with hard work, consistency and the right content, you’ll be successful in no time.
Nicole Karlis is the content manager at Scripted, a marketplace where people can purchase written content on demand. You can follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.
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