Relationship Marketing and Newsletters
With so much demanding your attention daily, carving out time to care for your relationship marketing can fall by the wayside.
What is Relationship Marketing?
Relationship marketing involves building lasting relationships with past, present, and future clients, with the goal of making them loyal, repeat customers.
Enter the power of newsletter marketing!
YOU SCRATCH MY BACK, I’LL SCRATCH YOURS
Newsletter marketing is beneficial to both the sender and receiver.
You can build brand awareness and grow your current business by establishing a stronger connection with clients and prospects. Newsletters will also keep you present throughout your clients’ buying cycles.
And your clients? They receive valuable, relevant content on a regular basis, free of charge. With everything demanding the attention of your clients, something that truly catches their attention and engages them — for even just a few minutes — can feel like a breath of fresh air.
IT’S ALL ABOUT TRUST AND COMMUNICATION
Newsletters have been a powerful marketing tool for decades, but their benefits expand beyond getting your business in front of clients and prospects. Newsletters take your marketing efforts a step further. They have the ability to establish you, and your brand, as a subject matter expert.
Financial institutions offer newsletters that contain advice on investing or topical monetary news. Doing so builds trust with their readership, ultimately building their customer base.
Insurance companies create newsletters that offer driver safety tips (in hopes of reducing accident occurrences the company could become financially responsible for). Insurance companies are in heavy competition with one another, and newsletters help keep their customers loyal.
Speaking of competition…
THERE ARE PLENTY OF FISH IN THE SEA
Newsletters are a powerful tool in your competition and anti-competition strategy. If you keep a client engaged through a newsletter, you stand a better chance of retaining them as a customer. There are many uses for newsletters today, but this will likely remain one of your favorites!
IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE THAT COUNTS
The intention of newsletter marketing is not to push your product and services. It’s to remind clients and prospects you’re on their side.
Yes, self-promotion is woven into the content, but you’re still providing free information that benefits the reader. If your newsletter is engaging enough, repeat business will come as a result.
A good rule of thumb when developing your newsletter is to make 90% of the content educational, and the other 10% promotional. However, 100% of it should be relevant to your target audience.
Breaking up a newsletter into organized sections makes it more digestible for the reader and more manageable for the creator. Digestible sections also make it easier to brainstorm topics and outsource writing to a freelancer (should you choose to go down that route).
Every newsletter will be different, and the focus will vary from industry to industry. Consider the following options when developing a newsletter:
- Introductory/welcome message
- Tip of the week
- Cover a hot topic relevant in your industry
- Upcoming events for your clients
- Recipes
- A promotion or special offering
- A strong call-to-action to support the goal of your newsletter marketing
Aim for a friendly, clear, and inviting tone, but don’t be afraid to infuse your newsletter with some fun. And ultimately, do what feels right for your brand.
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
Think of newsletters the way you think of traditional newspapers — published regularly, consistently, and containing free content with a bit of self promotion.
Commit to a regular newsletter schedule, and your clients will inevitably look forward to staying in touch!
P.S. If you’re a professional in the real estate industry, creating a robust newsletter can seem like a daunting task — especially if you have limited time and content creation experience. Don’t worry, we’ve got a smart solution you can dig into!