In case you haven’t noticed, we’re currently experiencing information overload, and it’s not getting any better. There’s so much news, gossip and misinformation circulating at any given time online and on social media that it’s tough to keep up with anything these days.
For that reason, I love email newsletters. You may have seen me talk about Morning Brew or Marketing Brew, but I also follow other specialty newsletters geared toward content writers, folks who are interested in AI applications, and still others that are more small business oriented.
The advantage of these types of newsletters is that they’re curated to provide quick takeaways with links to full articles, videos and other information. They’re designed to allow either a quick scan of the day or week’s news or a deeper dive if you have time. I read Morning Brew first thing every single morning so that I have a sense of the day’s economic and political news as a context for the other, more specific real estate news I’ll run into during work.
About a year and a half ago, I started my own email newsletter, The Ketchup. It’s a combination of best-of-the-week real estate news, content from my own blog, and a survey of marketing, social media and housing highlights from around the digital world. The idea is to give real estate professionals who are committed to marketing their businesses more effectively a quick “catch up” on the week’s news and views.
I’ve been really gratified by the reception The Ketchup has received. Open rates are in the mid- to high-40s every week, with even higher rates for cobranded partner editions. Click-throughs are well-distributed throughout the newsletter, which suggests people are reading all the way to the end. The list has grown over the past year, and any initial subscribers who dropped off early on have been replaced by more engaged, more enthusiastic new readers.
What’s bigger and better than analytics and KPIs is the personal response I’ve gotten from both total strangers and longtime clients. The Ketchup goes out on Sunday morning (so readers can catch up for the start of their week) and it’s very common for me to start my day with messages of thanks and interest from readers. Some reach out just to say how much they enjoy the newsletter, while others reach out with specific questions sparked by their reading.
What’s easier than starting your own newsletter?
If you’ve been thinking about starting your own newsletter, here are some key questions to consider before starting. Answering these questions will help clarify your goals, identify your audience, and shape your content strategy effectively.
Goals and purpose
What are the primary goals of your newsletter? (e.g., generating leads, recruiting agents, showcasing properties, educating clients)
How will your newsletter fit into your overall marketing strategy?
What unique value will your newsletter provide that isn’t already covered by your website or social media?
Target audience
Who is the ideal recipient of this newsletter? (e.g., potential buyers, current homeowners, real estate investors, new agents, veteran agents)
What are the needs, preferences, and pain points of your target audience?
What kind of information is your audience looking for in a real estate newsletter?
Content strategy
What type of content will you include? (e.g., property listings, market updates, investment tips, neighborhood guides)
How often will you provide fresh content, and how much of it will be original versus curated?
How can you provide actionable insights and valuable information to keep readers engaged?
Newsletter frequency and schedule
How frequently will you send your newsletter? (weekly, biweekly, monthly)
What day and time might work best for your audience?
Do you have the resources and time to consistently produce quality content on this schedule?
Format and design
What visual style will align with your brand? (modern, elegant, minimalistic, etc.)
How will you structure the layout for readability and engagement?
What tools or platforms will you use to design and send your newsletter?
Personalization and segmentation
How can you segment your audience to deliver tailored content? (e.g., buyers vs. sellers, first-time buyers vs. investors, by niche or neighborhood)
Will you incorporate personalization elements, such as addressing subscribers by name or curating content based on their preferences?
Are there specific elements (like geographic regions or property types) to focus on for certain segments?
Call to Action (CTA) strategy
What actions do you want readers to take after reading your newsletter? (e.g., schedule a tour, sign up for a webinar, contact an agent, contact your recruitment director)
How will you position CTAs in a way that feels natural and not overly sales driven?
Will each issue have a main CTA, or will you include multiple options based on different reader interests?
Email list growth and management
How will you grow your email list organically? (e.g., through website signups, social media, events)
What incentives or lead magnets could you offer to encourage subscriptions? (e.g., free market reports, buyer’s guides)
How will you manage subscriber preferences, unsubscriptions, and list hygiene?
Metrics and success evaluation
Which metrics will you track to measure success? (e.g., open rate, click-through rate, conversion rate)
What’s your plan for adjusting the content or format based on performance data?
How often will you review and analyze the results to refine your approach?
Legal considerations and compliance
Are you familiar with GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and other regulations related to email marketing?
How will you ensure that subscribers can easily opt-out if they wish?
Are you committed to using only permission-based lists to avoid spam complaints and maintain credibility?
Resource and team allocation
Who will be responsible for creating, editing, and sending your newsletter?
Do you need to hire or outsource any part of your newsletter process?
What’s your budget for email marketing tools, design, and content creation?
Long-term strategy
How will your newsletter evolve as your business grows?
Are there plans to integrate multimedia elements, such as videos or virtual tours?
What’s your plan for gathering feedback from subscribers to continuously improve your newsletter?
By answering these questions, you’ll be better prepared to create a newsletter that is valuable, well-received, and strategically aligned with your business goals.
However, if you want a fast-forward button to get your newsletter up and running, bypass the development stage by partnering with an existing newsletter (like The Ketchup) or hiring an experienced newsletter creator.
How do you partner with an existing email newsletter?
There are a variety of ways to partner with an existing email newsletter provider. You can:
Co-brand the newsletter and send it to your mailing list under your name
Provide sponsored content to run in the newsletter as part of its editorial offering
Offer subscriber deals or incentives to the newsletter’s subscribers
Work with the newsletter creator to design custom bonus editions of your newsletter
Work together to cross-promote each other’s content on social media platforms, expanding the reach of both the newsletter and the broker or team leader’s brand.
What’s in it for you?
If you’re a real estate broker, team leader, coach or agent-facing startup, you get a done-for-you educational and marketing solution that you can send to agents, recruiting targets or consumers to stay top of mind and to enhance your brand’s authority.
If you’re a real estate agent, partnering with a consumer-focused real estate newsletter provider allows you to stay in touch with your sphere of influence and makes you look like the smartest, most engaged agent in your market.
What’s in it for the newsletter provider?
The newsletter provider can be compensated in one of two ways: Either through direct sponsorship dollars (you pay for placement and logistics involved with sending out your newsletter) or through access to your audience.
For a consumer-facing newsletter geared toward buyers and sellers, you provide your email list, segmented as required, and the newsletter creator charges a fee for the time and logistics involved in designing, writing and distributing your newsletter to your mailing list.
For an agent-facing newsletter, either for your own agents or for those you are seeking to recruit to your team or brokerage, you may either pay for sponsoring your newsletter or allow the newsletter creator to advertise to your mailing list within your newsletter.
For example, when a brokerage partner or team leader co-brands an edition of The Ketchup, I offer a discount on writing services to all of that broker’s agents and include calls to action and a fee schedule in the newsletter so that agents can reach out to me easily and conveniently when they need to book content writing projects. There’s no out-of-pocket expense for the brokerage or team, which is able to provide an up-to-the-minute educational resource to all of its agents on a consistent basis for free.
Now more than ever before, knowledge and expertise are major differentiators for real estate professionals. Being able to provide expert-level insight and advice sets you apart and sets you up for the conversations that matter most, whether you’re recruiting new agents or generating leads.
How do you get started?
First, decide which audience you want to reach out to, consumers or agents. For a consumer-facing newsletter, discuss content, audience size, pace and design with your content creator for a custom quote. For an agent-facing newsletter, discuss the compensation structure you prefer, whether fee-based or access-based.
Second, provide branding collateral, mailing lists and other details. Make sure that someone in your organization is available to update the list as needed and to approve each newsletter’s content. If there’s market-specific content you want to include, make sure that is provided as well.
It’s really as simple as that.
If you want to get even more bang for your newslettering buck, regularly share the subscription link and a link to your newsletter with your social media friends and followers. It’s another way to grow your database and show your brand’s authority. (Follow me on Instagram at @writingrealestate to see how I share each week’s newsletter in my Stories.)
Want to learn more? Ready to get started? Reach out to Christy at Writing Real Estate. I’m always here to help you learn more, do more and grow your real estate business.
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