How to Use Newsletters to Generate More Business

brilliant talks generate more business newsletters Nov 15, 2022

Newsletters are not dead! During COVID, a lot of businesses started jumping back into newsletters as part of their marketing strategy.

According to stats from SocialMediaToday.com:

  • 81% of businesses rely on email as their primary customer acquisition channel.
  • 80% of businesses utilize email for customer retention.
  • There are over 4 billion daily email users, and it is projected to go up to 4.6 billion by 2025.
  • For every dollar you invest in email, you can expect an ROI of $42 on average.

That’s a lot.

Email is cheap, sometimes even free, and the stats tell us it is effective. 

I personally use Activecampaign for A Brilliant Tribe and LabCoat Agents, HubSpot for SUCCESS magazine, and Mailchimp for Tristan & Associates—Mailchimp has a free version, so I highly recommend it if you are building out your own newsletter.

So, how can we create effective newsletters?

 

Newsletters: Get it right

Off the top of my head, one example of someone who sends out a great newsletter for real estate is Jason Farris of FresYes!. He has around 85,000 people subscribed to his newsletter, and the things he talks about on his website and blogs come up in his newsletters. He redirects his subscriber to the content on his website, providing value and entertainment to his audience.

So, what makes an effective newsletter?

 

 1. The subject should be catchy and open-worthy

The first thing your audience sees is the subject. When coming up with what to put on the subject line, think like your audience: “What’s in it for me? Why would I want to click on this?”

For real estate, general subjects like “Today’s market trends” might not be as catchy as something local and specific like “This new coffee shop is opening soon. Check it out.”

Not all consumers are interested in market trends, but if they are a coffee-lover who lives in the area, they might check out the latter.

A high open rate is a good indicator of an effective newsletter campaign.

 

 2. Content and design go hand in hand.

You need valuable content that delivers the three F’s: facts, feeling, and fun; in a concise and entertaining manner. As much as possible, try to keep your copy (text) snappy, short, and simple.

The design should flow with the content, making it easy to the eyes, and directs your audience’s attention to the important elements. Your branding—logo, colors, font, etc.—should also be incorporated in the design.

You can come up with different ways to make it more engaging, such as incorporating user-generated content, highlighting key points, using icons and buttons, putting a bold yet uncluttered headline, banner, or photo, and utilizing effective CTA (call to action) buttons.

 

 3. Call to Action

You send out newsletters with an intent to engage, deliver value, and prompt the consumer into an action. Whether you want them to sign-up, buy something, read a blog or article, or refer someone, your call to action (CTA) must be clear at a glance.

There are many ways to make your CTA more effective: make them simple (usually 2-4 words) and intuitive, add urgency to how it is written, position them properly where they are easily seen without getting in the way, and try not to overuse them. Statistics also show that using buttons instead of a text link increase conversion or click rate by up to 28%.

I recommend redirecting them to a landing page or website that you own, instead of on social media pages. That way you get more traffic into your website where you can position yourself better to get more business. You can also redirect them to your blogs, which increases your influence and authority on the topic or industry.

 Extra tips:

  • Try not to pack too many different things in your newsletter at once.
  • Make your email newsletters more dynamic by having a balance of text and graphics.
  • Google and other email platforms prefer newsletters that use text and not graphic-heavy, making the deliverability go up.
  • Promote your newsletter in all your platforms and websites.
  • Find an email hosting platform that works best for you (and your budget).
  • You can outsource content writers for your blog, if you can’t write them yourself. But what it is about should come from you.
  • You can also link blogs or stats from other people/sources you follow, but as much as possible, direct them to pages and content you own.
  • Tell a story that your audience can relate to and will find relevant to them—in all your content.

 

In a nutshell…

Newsletters are effective in growing social media accounts, generate more business, grow groups, etc.—we were able to get good results for everything through them. 

When I realized the power of newsletters, I started growing those even more. Whenever we lack business, we start a newsletter process for marketing, and all of a sudden it comes around.

Just make sure that the content is always valuable: Valuable content creates a user that will keep on coming back to you.

We’ve seen the results. The people we’ve coached have seen the results that an effective and well-thought-out newsletter brings for the business. And I’m sure it can deliver results for you as well.

If you need help building out your newsletter, or if you need any kind of coaching for your real estate business, we have one-on-one and group coaching programs available. You can check them out. And we also do this free coaching every week, so if you aren’t ready to hire a coach, you can join us on Brilliant Talks.