If you’re email in-box is anything like mine, it is all about volume. In order to find what you’re looking for, to distinguish what is important, you are seeing what you already have expectation of, and what looks like it’s worth your while.
When dealing with your customers or clients, it is exactly the same process to get your real estate marketing emails front, center and eagerly anticipated.
Email marketing service provider AWeber stresses the importance of this. The initial email can set expectations of things to come and “the welcome message” is often overlooked as a place to do that. You want to be anticipated and enjoyed – not relegated to spam, and your “welcome” can make that happen.
When a customer signs up for your information or weekly newsletter, it isn’t the biggest step. The biggest step is when they choose to remain on that list, when they choose to read it, when they decide you are worth the interaction.
Easy identification is important. Your email response should include your logo first and foremost, clearly identifiable, so the recipient is reminded they opted into this communication.
Next up, you want to give your subscribers a brief rundown of what they can expect. When will you send updates? What is the general content of your emails?
Don’t forget to include your webpage URL where it is easily readable and quickly clickable – a wonderful side benefit of that introductory email means the recipient might like to get to your webpage right now and take a look around. Don’t disappoint!
There are two basic components to add to your introductory email that are standard, and necessary.
- First, advise your potential customers to add you to their address book, to ensure your emails aren’t blocked or thrown immediately in the spam folder.
- Secondly, include contact information regarding unsubscribing or contacting you with questions or comments. Remember, you are about distinguishing yourself from spammers and fraudulent emailers; you’re providing an informational service and your customers/clients should know that by your professionalism.
Remember, there is a good reason these people have signed up to hear from you. Something has intrigued them to want more from you and your company. Don’t let this interest drift away, either from lack of follow-up or information. Wow them with confidence and an abundance of good things to come, and you will build an exciting following.
Check out AWeber’s excellent article on “What makes a good welcome email?, with great examples of how real businesses did theirs.
Please share your comments on some of the challenges or successes you have had with email marketing.
According to Ms. Raleigh Pinskey, Author of 101 Ways to Promote Yourself — “In order to promote and prosper, I feel that you have to take responsibility for your own success, take charge of your destiny. If you don’t introduce yourself, if you don’t tell them what you’re all about how are they going to know you exist?”
Here is a list of 10 ways to promote and prosper as recommended by Ms. Pinskey:
- Sponsor or create your own event
- Teach a class
- Exhibit at tradeshows
- Write articles or a book
- List your company in “expert directories”
- Mentor kids in the community
- Volunteer/community involvement
- Send out press releases about new hires, products, clients, and more
- Postcard or e-mail campaigns
- Sit on the boards of organizations and associations
What do you do to promote yourself or your business?
Change is here—the ways in which your audience view and process information from standard media sources has changed. Technology has empowered the consumer to access information as they read and surf across offline and online media. My children (I am guilty of it as well) are engaged in watching TV, chatting with friends on Facebook and surfing the Internet to research a movie/song/gadget/concert all at the same time.
Small, medium and big companies are paying attention to the digital culture. Forrester Research provides a peek at the interactive marketing budget of US companies. The interactive marketing spending as a percentage of all advertising spending will grow from 13% in 2010 to 21% in 2014. The two top choices for interactive marketing investing are search marketing and display advertising. See chart below.
Source: American Marketing Association, Forrester Research’s US Interactive Marketing Forecast 2009-2014; Cambridge, Mass.
Staying in touch is an effective marketing tool because it keeps you at the top of the list with your clients and prospects. Here are six simple low cost ways you can stay in touch with your clients or customers:
- Create an eNewsletters
Build on your relationship by sharing industry news, special offers, or invitations to events. Importantly, eNewsletters contain links to drive traffic back to your website. This means people will see more of your brand image, and can read about your products and services.
- Sponsor Events In Your Community
If the opportunity presents itself, sponsor your community church, school or sports team. Your contribution does not have to be monetary. Give of yourself—give your time.
- Use Postcards For Announcements
Postcards are not used for coupons or sales only. Send a birthday wish or boast about an industry award. There are an infinite number of things to share with your customers using the postcard.
- Share Articles
You can stay in touch with your clients by reading newspapers and magazines. Be aware of your clients’ interests to occasionally clip an article or a quote that might interest them. Don’t forget to forward pertinent Internet stories (no jokes or chain letters please).
- Send A Hand Written Note
Never underestimate the power of a simple thank-you note, remembering a date or a place that’s important to a client, or a note of congratulations.
- Take Your Client To Lunch Just Because
No sales pitch, no pressure—have lunch (or breakfast or coffee) just to shoot the breeze. Catch up on new interests, problems, additions to the family, etc. Then follow up with a note saying “it was fantastic to catch up with you today, here is an article on preparing your child for college…”
- Press Releases
Press releases as part of a marketing program can be a powerful lead generator for your business. So announce a product or service. Duct Tape Marketing offers a free online press release creator. Once it produces your nicely formatted press release, you can send it out by using an online press service such as PRWeb.
- Corporate Website
A good website designer already knows how to code their website’s HTML so that it will present the same no matter what browser your visitors are using (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Mac or Windows). But search engines like Google don’t care what your website looks like; they care that they can easily sift through your code and images to find the actual searchable text in the content on your website. They also can’t index graphic images or Flash elements, so keep that in mind when designing your website. If you’re home page is just one big Flash graphic, you’re not helping your search results at all.
- Research
Know where you are today by conducting quantitative research with your target audience, Benchmark your most important audiences annually and your less important audiences every three years. Put it on your marketing schedule.
- Marketing Plan
A marketing plan will assist you in defining your business mission and values, competitors, financial and non-financial goals, as well as provide the opportunity to assess your strengths and weaknesses. A marketing calendar allows you to not only budget for campaigns, but execute and monitor their progress as well.
- Email Marketing Template
Excite and thrill your current and potential customers, by sending a professionally designed email message. Display your logo right in the inbox. With a template, your email appears more professional and can draw attention with nicely designed graphics that not only look great, but also promote your business.
- Postcard
Update current or former customers about what your business is up to. If you have a new product or service that you are promoting, no one will know about it unless you inform them of your updates. A branded postcard is an excellent way to show off your identity and bring in more business by making sure your clients know of your new ideas. Not only will a postcard enforce your branded identity, it can be an affordable sales and promotional tool.
I met a young executive at a conference last month who had already begun her e-mail marketing initiatives. As she was fine tuning her campaign her team had one question. Below was my response to her. I hope you will find it useful as well. As always, I encourage you to share information with my readers. If you have anything to add, please leave a comment.
Question
Do you find that often when sending HTML e-mail campaigns, depending on the e-mail service provider, that people have to click to download the pictures (red x)?
Answer
Unfortunately you as the sender of the e-mail do not have control of the download issue. That is actually a setting in Outlook. It is activated or deactivated by the individual user. You can however educate your e-mail distribution list on how to activate the auto download of images as most of them do not know how. Read Email Safe Send Instructions>>
Incorporating the tip below can increase your chances of eliminating the red x issue. But as I said before, the recipient is the one who ultimately decides if they want to enable images automatically or not.
Tip: Improperly referencing your images can cause them to appear broken when you send your message—the dreaded red x. To insure the image is referenced correctly it must appear as, img src=”http://www.yourdomain.com….” rather than, img src=”/images/picture.jpg”. Alt tags are another important part of your images. The new security features on almost every e-mail client these days disables images automatically. Having alt tags in place allow your reader to identify the image and determine if it is safe to enable.
Are you a new business that is looking to create a website, brochure, or produce other forms of marketing materials? If you’re not, you should be and one important thing you will need is photos. Here are some tips.
- Endless Choices and Professional Quality
Amateur photos never look as nice as the professional ones. Consider red eyes on your models or problems with inconsistent focus. These are small errors that occur often, but with stock photos, you can have flawless images without the worry or the need to turn yourself into a photo editor. Stock photography offers anything you can imagine in a photograph with millions of choices. Many websites are available that offer stock photos. Photos.com, iStockphoto.com, Jupiter Images and Getty Images are just a few of the popular sites that are worth looking into. Logo Design Guru also offers free access to stock photos included in all of our web and brochure package options. It both makes the creative process easier and more convenient.
- Image Overuse
Stock photo sites do have a ton of variety, but keep in mind; if they are available to you, then they are available to everyone else as well. When using stock photos, you often run the risk of using repeats. Standing out is important, therefore if you see the same photo all the time, the power and effectiveness of the image is lost.
- Does Your Stock Photo Look Staged?
It’s true that people in general have very short attention spans and most of the time, plain text on a page is not going to keep someone’s interest. Photos nicely break up the space and draw more attention to the content, even if the image is something simple, such as a random, smiling person. These types of photos can work well, but beware of the obviously staged image. If an image is too generic, it is clear that it’s a stock photo. This staged look doesn’t appear natural and can give off a bad impression.
- Avoiding Copyright Infringement
Often people think that if an image appears on the web, it’s free for the taking. This is unfortunately not true at all. Similar to pieces of music or artwork, photographs are often copyrighted and snatching them up from someone else’s site is breaking the law and can have unpleasant consequences. Images from free sites may also be copyrighted and you may be using them unknowingly. Some photo companies use search software to track their images and can tell if you are using them illegally. Stock photography eliminates this fear. Once you purchase an image, you are purchasing the rights to use it as well. It does cost money, but it is an investment that is well worth it and is law abiding.
- Model Release Required
A great advantage of stock photo use is reducing the worry of model release. A model release is a signed form, which allows a photographer and the end user to have full permission to use a person’s likeness for marketing, advertising or artwork purposes. The law protects a person’s right to privacy, even when the person is in public eye. Most stock photo sites have taken care of this for you, so that once you purchase the photo, you have purchased that permission as well.
- Costs for Stock Photo Options
The option of stock photography is a great way of saving on marketing costs. Although hiring a photographer will give you more control over what you want, photographers can be very costly. Stock photos can vary in prices depending on how they are sold. Some sites offer monthly or yearly subscriptions and others can charge by individual photos or photo quality or size. Depending on how often your company requires photo use, you can play around with the options and settle on something that works best for you.
Contributor: Joe Witte
