by Richard Breen
E-mail marketing has evolved to the point where all kinds of business professionals – including Realtors - are sending out daily, weekly or monthly newsletters. How much of it do you consider to be spam?
Phil Yanov has an idea.
“It isn't spam if the guy likes what he got,” says Yanov. Which begs the question, “how do I give him what he wants?”
Dynamic Realty Inc. recently asked Yanov, founder of the Greenville Spartanburg Anderson Technology Council, to speak to a group of Realtors about e-mail marketing. Yanov reaches out to a database of 13,000 people via e-mail.
The key to successful e-mail marketing is engagement. And engagement is a two-way street.
“Who do you love?” asks Yanov. “Who are the people that you really want to talk to?”
Assembling a list of e-mails can be done using a variety of tools. There are business card scanners that can load data right into Microsoft Outlook.
“Then we figure out what we're going to talk to them about,” Yanov says.
I have talked to a number of Realtors who still use snail-mail lists to send occasional greeting cards or other info to a contact list. Others say they have begun sending e-cards for birthdays, holidays, or even on the anniversary of their home purchase.
Some Realtors send out occasional newsletters or e-mail versions of such. There are services that create generic newsletters with tidbits such as recipes and famous birthdays and “personalize” them with the agent's contact info or photo.
If a particular strategy is working, that's fine, whether it's birthday cards in the mailbox or monthly recipes in the inbox. But if they aren't working, it may be because they are not engaging enough. Some people would think it's pretty cheezy that they are getting a monthly recipe suggestion from a Realtor that can't boil water.
“It's got to be something you care about, because it's going to come out in your voice,” Yanov says.
If you don't know what your contacts want to know about, ask them. Yanov is a technology expert and loves the latest gadgets, so those are the things he writes about. Your marketing doesn't necessarily have to be a hard-sell e-mail with listings and real estate news.
“You can only do business with someone if they're ready to do business,” Yanov says. “I use e-mail to get people a little closer to me.”
Do you like kayaking? Maybe you can be the “kayaking Realtor.” Send out e-mails with news about the latest equipment, best rivers, or even fun stories about past adventures.
Then, when two people are on the French Broad one Saturday and one says to the other “I'm thinking about buying a house,” the other will say, “I know a Realtor. He sent me an e-mail with a suggestion about this paddle I'm using.”
For information on Yanov's group, visit www.gsatc.org.
