Newsletters are a mixed blessing for many Realtors. They can be time-consuming and expensive, but a great newsletter can bring you more business, and they can work even better online.

No other marketing tool is more versatile at retaining new and past clients. Properly designed, content-filled, and distributed, newsletters are the only marketing tool that can simultaneously:

• Contact customers with news and valuable information
• Provide new leads
• Position you as the local market expert
• Nurture leads until they are ready to buy, sell

And, if you use an online newsletter, you can add two more benefits. Online newsletters can also:

• Provide new leads from the wide net of the Internet
• Help you capture leads in real time

That's a pretty tall order for a single marketing tool, but used properly, you'll need little else to capture new business.

So if newsletters are so great, why doesn't everyone use them? If you're not a born writer, newsletters can appear daunting. Gathering and producing content is a challenge, then there's putting the newsletter together in an attractive format, and mailing or e-mailing it out. But the main reason people don't use them is that they don't understand how newsletters really work.

Newsletters are used to further a relationship. They can help turn strangers into leads, and leads into clients, and clients into referrals and repeat clients. But, they don't work alone. Newsletters are best used as nurturing or interest capturing tools as supplements to other marketing efforts.

Newsletters as farming tools

Newsletters are a contact/nurturing tool, which means they are best used in the initial stages of doing what Realtors most dislike doing - collecting and managing names to build a farm. Farming is work, but it makes all the difference between agents who thrive and those who don't survive, and that difference is keeping prospects alive. You can't send out a newsletter to people when you don't have their names and addresses or e-mails, so that means you have to create and stick to a strategy for collecting and managing the names you come across.

Farms are made up of two kinds of people - those you know and those you don't know, and sometimes a strategy works for one kind but not the other. If you are dependent on newspaper ads or your Web site to bring you new business, you have to employ a strategy that will help you make the transition from stranger to business contact. That's why many agents prefer to advertise or use a Web site to get new business. But once prospects have seen your ad or your Web site, how do you keep them coming back to you? Ads and Web sites work to make the phone ring, but they don't help you build a relationship. That you have to do with your follow-up skills, and that is where newsletters come in.

Let's say you have a listing, and you put it in the newspaper. When prospects see it, you can send them to your Web site for more details, or to view a virtual tour. While they are at the Web site, you can invite them to leave their contact information so that you can send them updated market information - your newsletter. That way, you don't lose the prospect because the listing didn't meet the prospects' needs. It's next-step marketing.

Newsletters as transaction tools

When you do get the prospect under a contract, you can use your newsletter to stay in touch and keep the client informed of the market. This can be handy for frustrated sellers and buyers who may not understand why the market isn't cooperating to help them meet their goals. For example, a newsletter story about how to stage a home when sales are slowing in your newsletter might help you explain to your seller why their home isn't getting as many offers as it should. Buyers who are missing out on homes may get a clue when your newsletter explains that sellers favor buyers who are prequalified by a lender. Your newsletter can include changing market conditions and what you think they mean, and what they mean is it's time to buy or sell! Or both! If you use an online newsletter, you can always include an "ask me" link that encourages quick e-mail questions from your prospects without obligation.

Newsletters as post-closing tools

If sellers move every five to seven years, that is a long time to stay in touch and hope that the relationship between you and your client stays together. Without an information tool, you may have a tough time calling periodically and asking for business. Sending a newsletter allows you the opportunity to share information, and gives a chance to make a follow-up call with something new to talk about. That's why your newsletter should include information for homeowners as well as buyers and sellers. These can be reminders as simple as to fertilize in the spring and to cover their outside pipes in the winter. Alert readers always to local changing market conditions, such as solds, days on market and prices of average home sales in the area.

Farming is a constant process of seeding, watering, cultivating and replanting, and that is why newsletters fit comfortably in every phase of your "continuum of client care."

Published: May 25, 2001

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Blanche Evans is the award-winning senior editor of Realty Times, the Internet's leading independent real estate news service. She is featured daily on the Realty Times Video Network in the "Realty Viewpoint" segment. Blanche has been named one of the "25 Most Influential People In Real Estate" by REALTOR Magazine, and has been twice recognized as a "notable." In 2005, she was named "Top Reporter Covering the NAR" by Delahaye-Bacon's. Blanche is a renowned author of five real estate books. Her newest, Bubbles, Booms and Busts: Make Money In Any Real Estate Market, McGraw-Hill, was rave-reviewed by The New York Times. She was also selected from hundreds of real estate experts to contribute to Donald Trump's book, Trump: The Best Real Estate Advice I Ever Received: 100 Top Experts Share Their Strategies, Rutledge Hill Press, and is featured on page 68. Order Now Review - Honors In 2006, Blanche was selected among scores of candidates to author two consumer real estate guidebooks for the National Association of Realtors: The NAR Guide to Home Buying, and The NAR Guide to Home Selling, Wiley & Sons. She is currently planning two new books for the NAR and its members.       Known for her keen insight into real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is a sought-after keynote and continuing education speaker. Real estate organizations from MLSs, to brokerages, to franchisors, to associations hire her to provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry news and advice on how to improve revenues. Her passionate delivery, peppered with stinging wit, is a huge hit with audiences and fans. Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, Blanche Evans, Richard Courtney, president 2007, GRAR "The GNAR membership meeting last week featured Blanche Evans as the keynote speaker. Her comments and insights resonated extremely well with those in attendance and we have had many requests for copies of her PowerPoint Presentation. She was a terrific part of the membership meeting and convention program!" - Don Klein, CEO Greater Nashville Association of Realtors Coverage from WSMV, Nashville - 8-14-2007 That Interview Guy - Get Inside The Head Of Today's Generation 2007 AE Institute Session - To purchase 2006 AE Institute Session - Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HouseValues Mastermind call - Parts 1 2 Blanche's fireside chat with Jeremy Conaway, HAR - Click here. To contact Blanche, email her at . For more articles by Blanche, click here.