I had hoped to have time to post this last Friday, but didn't. Last Friday was a milestone for me. It was the one year anniversary of my very first newsletter. I know I've blogged about newsletters before. Many of you simply don't see the value. Here it is.... Since then I can directly contribute over $100K in sales directly to this one marketing campaign. Does this get your attention? What other marketing tool do you have that is this effective? Why haven't you started one yet? Or worse yet, have you started one but send it out sporadically?
I have 'moles' in the local real estate market. Ok, not really, they are friends who are agents that send me every newsletter they get from someone else. It is amazing to me how few are actually well written, well designed and well executed. NONE of them are sent on a regular basis. There is one local stager who sends them out every so often (maybe once every 4-6 mos). There is another that has sent 2 in the last year. (Last time I talked to her she was wishing she had more business... meanwhile I've trained 3 other stagers locally who work as much as they want.... same market!). Why aren't they doing it? Frankly I'm thrilled. If we all were sending monthly newsletters in the same market, the content might get watered down. All of my personally trained local stagers are listed on the same newsletter as me (and I'm not counting their income in that $100K!)
So, now I know all of you reading this who are looking for more business are going to go right out there and begin your newsletters, right? If you need tips, visit my past blog - Newsletters - Getting Agent Attention. If you want to see some of my past newsletters you can visit my local website, www.RedesigningCharleston.com and click on News, Articles & Links. If you want help creating your newsletters monthly, including 2 pre-written articles for you to use each month, monthly business tips, etc, consider joining First Impressions as a member.
For those of you who want to use Constant Contact, email me and I'll send you a link that offers you a free trial month and then a $30 credit when you join.
Good luck!
Melissa Marro - become a member of First Impressions today!
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Melissa Marro, a published artist, now turned staging advocate and national speaker speaks her mind about real estate and the home staging industry. In her 'no holds barred' approach, audience members find real answers to the industries pitfalls and learn how to overcome them with tried and true information and guidance. With marketing as her passion, she turned a small home based business into one of the nation's largest home staging and training facilities. Selling her successful home staging company in January 2012, Marro is now a full time speaker and instructor for Staging And Resign and Real Estate Staging Association (RESA)'s trade events.
For more information on having Marro speak at one of your real estate functions, please contact her at 843.619.1593 or email at marro.melissa@gmail.com
Melissa,
The only problem I have with that is that you need permission to send the agents the newsletters- in other words, I can't pick some random local agents from Google and send them the newsletter correct?
Melissa,
Fabulous post! You have perfect timing. I am about to start working on my first newsletter scheduled for July and this has been not only helpful, but inspiring. I will be using the free month and $30 credit you sent too. Thanks for all your help! You are a true leader in this industry.
Hi Melissa. I did my first newsletter last month. Unfortunately Constant Contact was adamant about not allowing me to use "gleaned" email addresses, so instead I mailed all 500 of them. I plan to do four per year, in between I mail postcards. Wish there was a cheaper way to market. Thanks for the information.
Terry Haugen - STAGE it RIGHT!
I too have been doing monthly newsletters since Februrary. It's fun to create them, and watch when they are opened and what links they are most interested in.
I highly recommend Constant Contact, but definitely be sure you have permission to send an e-mail as there are laws out there if the receiver hasn't consented to receiving it.
Good Post. Perhaps my persistance in sending them out monthly will be as fruitful as yours.
Congrats!!!
Melissa,
Thanks for the inspiration. Your post has motivated me! I'm so happy to hear of your success! I'd love to have the $30 credit to constant contact. I've been looking into using them. Thanks again!
Congratulations Melissa--what an accomplishment!
Okay--I have to ask because I don't know--how do you get the addresses and what is a "gleaned" address. I have e-mail addresses from agents I have met through presentations in their office or at open houses or at the grocery store but I didn't ask them if I could send them a newsletter. How does that all work? If I'm going to jail it's for something more exciting that sending out "spam" ;)
Maureen - huh?
Barie - sent! If you don't get it, let me know. Good luck!
Debra - gleaned, as in taken off of the internet, from MLS, wherever. As I said, I've been doing it for a year and have virtually no spam reports to speak of. If you send to 1000 agents on your first email without permission, that may get a bunch of reports, but if you start with a 100 or so you will be fine. They will unsubscribe if they aren't interested. Many are interested, they've just never heard of it and will be thrilled to get the information.
Setting up an agent meeting (say their morning sales meeting) after a newsletter you've added the agents for that office is a great plan, btw. If you do the meeting before the newsletter they will know who you are. If you do the meeting after the newsletter, they will have a lot of questions based on the content of the newsletter.
Hi Melissa - I followed your lead and sent out my first newsletter June 1st. I'm pleased to report that I got calls from 6-7 new agents, saw 3 properties, and was asked to speak at a realtor's office. Great, great response. I am going to stop sending postcards and rely on newsletters from now on. You can take a look at the newsletter on my website, www.centerstagesf.com. Thanks!!
Melissa - I wanted to leave a comment before so I would not loose your blog. I didn't have time to read the entire thing and check out all the links. I have been considering writing a newsletter for some time now so I'm always interested in which service is used and what information to include. I love the idea of a format - It's brilliant. That way you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. Also having the agents picture and quote is fantastic. No wonder you are so successful. I just subscribed to your newsletter - it'll be like a little present in my mail box once a month.
I think I am going to take the plunge and do the newsletter thing. The reason I didn't do it before is that I didn't know if I would commit to doing it on a regular basis so I didn't want to spend the $ on a monthly charge. I'm going to have to seriously look into how to get all the addresses. Your success has inspired me. Thanks for the push.
I missed your other blogs on newsletters - don't know how. I just subscribed to your blog so I won't miss any more good stuff. ;)
Great information, Maureen. We send out an e-newsletter every other month and have found that when someone hands me their card (which is basically giving me their permission to contact them anyways), I mention that we have a home staging / real estate marketing e-newsletter that we send out and would it be o.k. to send it to them? Over the years, no one has turned me down ... at least not yet.
Thanks for sharing. You're just a wealth of good & useable information.
P.S. Sometimes a nice, little push doesn't cut it - more like a good swift kick in the pants!
Hi Melissa-
This was a great blog. I have used Constant Contact's free trial before for holiday emails. But clearly consistency is the key. Do you only email realtors? As a realtor as well, I offer all residential services, do you see that as a conflict of interest? I am considering a reduced fee for my own brokerage agents, what do you think?
Also, do you mail newsletters out at all or only concentrate on emails? Thanks. Great tips!Love your newsletter and Great site too.
Hi Melissa, I've been searching the archives for this post and thankfully I finally found it. I remembered the topic, but couldn't remember who posted it. Thanks for sharing all this great information and your expertise. I'm starting my newsletter today using your reccomendations.