If you send out a email newsletter each month, the first thing you should ask yourself is: why do you send it out? What’s the point? If you haven’t figured out the point of sending it out, then there’s really no reason to be sending it at all.

An effective email newsletter strategy has a few main points: 1) to inform 2) to stay top of mind 3) not to annoy.

Be Informative

When you send out a digital newsletter, you need to ensure you’re sending information that’s important and relevant to the subscriber. 

Your newsletter should certainly have a sales aspect with a strong call-to-action about your services, but it should also delight and inform the reader. How-to’s, interviews, and lists are just a few examples of content you can include that is relevant and interesting for a reader.

The content doesn’t need to be limited to the written word either, infographics, pictures, and video can also have a strong impact in an email newsletter. Today’s newsletters incorporate multi-media for an immersive experience for the subscriber.

When planning your newsletter content, you should also think about being timely, for example, don’t send out a “How to prepare your home for selling during the holidays” in the middle of summer. It’s not relevant. The information is not timely, and your subscriber will be confused. Newsletters are designed to be sent and opened immediately, so if you can include a combination of timely information, and evergreen content designed to teach and inspire, your newsletter will be more impactful and useful to the reader.

Stay Top of Mind

The second main point of sending out a newsletter is to stay top of mind. Your database might not be thinking about you at all times. The newsletter is a great chance to reconnect with them, update them on your business, and let them know that you are still there should they need you.

Additionally, if your newsletter content is compelling enough, it will inspire subscribers to take action. Whether it’s downloading a free guide or contacting you about buying or selling a home. Newsletters also help with referrals. Imagine this: you send your newsletter out, and it’s opened by 3,000 people. Of those people, some of them might have a friend or family member who is looking for a real estate agent. By sending out your newsletter, and influencing your subscribers, there’s a better chance that they will recommend you to their friends and family because they just received a great newsletter from you with lots of interesting content and news.

If the goal is to get your business in front of as many eyes as possible, a newsletter is a great way to do so.

Don’t Be Annoying

Let’s face it. Not everyone likes getting newsletters. For some, a monthly or bi-monthly newsletter is annoying. They don’t open them, they mark them as junk or unsubscribe immediately. The trick is producing a newsletter that doesn’t annoy people. But how do you do that?

In addition to sending out relevant, interesting, informative content, you should also think about a few other things including:

• Setting the expectation for how many emails subscribers will get. It’s always a good idea to specify if your newsletter is weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, etc. That way, people will have a clear expectation and they will know exactly what they’re signing up for. Nothing is worse than signing up for a newsletter and then being inundated with tons of emails every day.
• Don’t be too salesey. It’s a good idea to separate straight sales emails from your newsletter. Yes, your newsletter should give subscribers the opportunity to inquire about your services, but if your newsletter is just a constant barrage of sales CTAs, your audience will get annoyed and unsubscribe. There needs to be value in what you are sending out.

 How to Make Your Newsletter Successful

The main goal of your newsletter is getting subscribers to open the email in the first place. From there, you want them to click the links in the email, and then take action on the pages they are visiting on your website from the email.

According to Hubspot, a “good” median email open rate is about 32%, and the click rate on these emails is around 6.5%. If these numbers don’t sound anything close to what you’re getting, there a few ways you can fix it!

• Reduce the frequency of emails that you send, and selectively send your newsletter to subscribers who are likely to engage with your emails. Some CRMs will have the option to remove unengaged contacts (people who haven’t opened your emails in a while) from your mailing list. If you send your newsletter to the unengaged people less frequently, they will be more likely to open an email when they do get one and become re-engaged with your content.
• Make sure your CTA buttons and links are clearly clickable. People won’t click your emails if they don’t know where to look.
• Separate your sales email subscription from the newsletter subscription. If you are sending out frequent “sales” emails, you should consider creating a “Sales Email” subscription in your subscription settings. That way, email recipients will be able to better refine the types of emails they get from you. For example, if they don’t want to receive the sales emails, they can unsubscribe from those but still get the newsletter.
• Be consistent! Consistency is key with newsletters and email subscribers want to get the newsletter when they expect it.
• Use humor and let your personality show. Depending on your target audience, you can use humor as a way to connect with your subscribers. Don’t be afraid of showing personality or your fun side in your newsletter. This is your chance to communicate directly with your audience, and if you make a positive impact with your personality, they will be more likely to spend more time reading your newsletter.

The most important key to creating an effective real estate newsletter is that you’re sending your subscribers something of value, something they actually want to receive. If they’re engaged with your content, opening and clicking your emails, and your business stays top of mind for them, there is a much better chance that they will eventually convert.

Want to see what our digital newsletter strategy is like? Click right here to sign up for our bi-monthly email: The Artifakt Advance. 

Want to plan your digital strategy on your own, and set your business up for success? Download our workbook: ‘The Digital Business Planning Workbook’. It’s a self-guided, interactive, strategic workbook where you answer questions about branding, SEO, content, design, and a lot more, so you can set goals for your website and your digital marketing efforts. And, it’s free to download.

Author: Jen Baguss

Post-Production Team Lead, Senior Copywriter

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