Revealed - how to create the perfect newsletter

As an agent, newsletters can be an effective tool for your marketing and brand strategy. They are a great way to build relationships with your customers as well as help you to maintain contact with your clientele and keep them updated with important updates relating to your agency. Additionally, newsletters help to build brand awareness and grow your database.

Investing in your email marketing can be a profitable endeavour for agents as a survey revealed UK marketers found the rough return for every pound spent on email marketing stood at £35.41. As newsletters are such an impactful tool, it’s important to get them right. Here, The ValPal Network explain how you can create the perfect newsletter.

Write newsletters that offer value to the subscribers

Newsletters can be a powerful promotional tool, but that’s not their sole purpose. A good newsletter provides value to its readers by spreading knowledge and sharing insightful tips and tricks. People are more likely to stay signed up for a newsletter that provides value as opposed to constant promotion.

A good formula to follow when crafting your newsletter is to keep most of it educational and a small amount promotional. Value can be offered in all sorts of ways from free services to insider knowledge and monthly updates. For example, as an agent, your newsletter can reference the latest goings-on in the property market and you can dedicate a small section to promote your free valuation tool. By doing this you’re providing value and showing expertise in your area but also drawing attention to the services you offer.

Write clear and concise copy

As an agent, terms like gazumping, gazundering and conveyancing may be familiar to you but they might be completely new to your customers. Make sure your newsletters are not bogged down in jargon and are clear and concise. A long slog of text doesn’t make the most appealing read, so keep it short and straight to the point.

Use images

Further to the above point, newsletters full of blocks of texts are not appealing. You can make newsletters look better by using images, they will help bring your newsletter to life. Choose between pictures, infographics and GIFs and picking the right images can help illustrate your newsletter and make it more visually engaging.

Schedule and send out newsletters frequently

It’s important to establish a regular pattern with your newsletter subscribers. You can do this by using a content calendar to plan your newsletter and also send them out on a recurring basis. You can choose between daily, weekly, monthly or whatever interval makes sense for your business needs.

Planning your newsletter in advance makes sure that the copy is well-written, the email reads well and the newsletter is sent punctually.

Keep newsletters consistent with your brand

One of the main roles a newsletter plays is building brand awareness. Make sure the content is relevant to your brand and there’s a consistent design theme. If somebody signs up to an estate/ or lettings agency’s newsletter, they will expect the content to revolve around property. Keeping it consistent makes it easier for people to recognise your newsletters as well as what to expect to read.

When it comes to design, add your brand logo to the newsletter and use your brand colours to make the emails representative of your brand.

Optimise your newsletters for mobile devices

More and more people access their emails on their mobiles, with 61% of users checking their emails on their phones every day as opposed to 55% using a desktop. So, it’s important to optimise your newsletters for mobile devices as 42% of people said they will delete a marketing email if it doesn’t look good on their phone.

When you create your newsletter, make sure to preview what it will look like on mobile devices and adapt the placement of your images, text, CTA according to it. Another nifty trick is to keep the subject below 35 characters to ensure nothing important gets cut off in mobile view.

The importance of email marketing

Newsletters are a great way to stay in front of your database and add value in the form of free educational content, but if you want to get the most out of your email marketing, it’s important to also nurture your leads on a regular basis, giving them multiple touch points and opportunities to engage with you.

Here at The ValPal Network, our MovePal system offers pre-built, ready to go nurturing funnels for vendors and landlords so that you can stay in front of them for longer, with proven messages to get them to engage with your brand via email and SMS. When a vendor or landlord engages with you, you are notified straight away via email, helping to identify which leads are ready to convert into a market appraisal/instruction.

With MovePal, you can easily at the click of a button engage with your existing database, turning old leads into new business opportunities. You can also engage with new leads from marketing campaigns such as Facebook ads. You can even schedule and send one off eshots, newsletters and campaigns to your full database or specific audiences with our handy drag and drop email builder.

By using MovePal, you can maximise the Return on Investment from your marketing budget significantly, meaning you are no longer wasting a high percentage of the leads you generate.

Get in contact with us here and we will be happy to show you how the system works.

Or for more information on the features and benefits of MovePal, please feel free to call us directly on 020 8663 4930 or email us at team@valpal.co.uk.