Thread: e-newsletters

Originally Posted by MaxSinclair

This thread is getting really interesting. Shawn, you're right about how complex it is to set up target newsletter marketing for separate interest groups. Would creating separate web sites to reach different audience a better approach?

I have thought about that approach, but I think that it has some drawbacks. The first, and most obvious, is the potential for duplicate content. It probably would be best to not have any crossover regarding residential communities. If you have more than one town in your service area, it may even prove beneficial to have a different web site for each town. That way you could target "my town + real estate" and "my town + mls" etc. on each site.

Another drawback is the amount of time that it takes to develop and SEO a site if you are going to do it yourself. For most agents, there time would be better served showing homes, working leads, visiting open houses, etc.

If you have multiple sites it would be best to use different web hosts, or at least keep them off the sam IP C-block. I would also be wary of cross linking the sites, even though there would be great temptation to do so.

I just picked up a project to design and SEO a new hotel and travel web site. One of my challenges is to cater to 5 very distinct buyer demographics within the same site (similar to targeting different homebuyer demographics). Among the ideas I am debating is using sub-domains to manage the various themes and demographics of the web site. This will still allow me to funnel the web surfers to the same booking engine.

For a real estate web site, the final decision would be based upon the total number of homebuyer demographics that you would like to target and how much information that you would need to present for each of these buyer types (is there enough info to warrant a complete web site?). If you have only a few buyer types, you could keep just one web site.

One word of caution - don't go overboard trying to cater to everyone. Choose only one or two targets to start with. Target only demographics that will bring you your best return on investment based upon your current market conditions and your own experience and skill set. (Note: My use of "you" and "your" in this discussion applies to agents in general, not any particular person in this forum).

For example, if you're a fairly new agent, you probably should not target the high-end homebuyer. Why? Unless you are the exception to the rule, your current level of real estate selling experience may not be enough to close the sale. You could spend a lot of time and money marketing yourself and your web site to these buyers and never close a deal. Your lack of experience may frustrate both yourself and the buyer, and in turn may hurt your word of mouth reputation in the market.

HHI...Once again great info and we always appreciate your words of wisdom!

Origianl Content is always the best way to go....however for those of us who may not be the best writers, I like the ability to integrate my own information into same basic industry information.

I like reatly times because you can use the articles given to you or put in your own content. This way, you can communicate specific information in regard to your farm area and have some basic information about mortgages, loans etc...which tends to be the same across most markets. In addition to the news letter, when you sign up, you get the market conditions report which gets you increased exposure across about 80 websites and a validated backlink from RealtyTimes.com

It would be great to produce your own newlsetter, but when you look at prioritizing your efforts, you may want to look at a newsletter program which allows you to use stock content integrated with your own content so that it is personalized.....and get a free back link

Just my two cents,

Shawn, you're right on again.

I'm so fortunate that my wife has just agreed to write original contents for my site. I'm going to have richer contents one bit at a time.

You might want to have a look at High Impact Email 3.0

Thanks CR!

No problem,

I just started using it and it seems fantastic... enough variety for a few years worth of newsletters.