Creating Customers For Life by Utilizing Email in Your Business
by Bryan Guentner
(Brian wrote this for real estate sales but the applications to any business are very obvious!)
We have probably all heard the phrase take care of your customers and they will take care of you. Well that is the same truth when utilizing the Internet to increase your business. The more you learn how to use email more effectively in your business the more successful you will become. A great example of this is, before integrating the Internet into my real estate business, I did 15% relocation-out of town buyers and 85% local business. After deciding to take action, my business is now 75% relocation ñ out of town buyers and 25% local and my average price has increased by 100%. All because I have embraced the Internet and Email. Email is becoming a necessity and without it, you soon will not survive in your business. And you are in business for yourself, therefore you need to take on the responsibility of being the instigator and motivator in your business called "You, Inc."
There are many ways to embrace and utilize Electronic mail or Email. The most common way is to use it to send messages to your clients and friends. As simple as this is do not underestimate the power of it. Have you ever heard "a picture is worth a thousand words?" Well when your client receives your email it says lots of thing about you even before they read it. Just what does it say? It says you are in touch with tomorrowís technology today. That you care about your client enough to be literate in a technology to provide them with quick information about your product and service when they want it-Now! It says that you are on top of things. Some advanced possibilities of Email to keep in touch with your clients, are to use it to send out a monthly newsletter "E-News" or following up with your clients on a weekly bases until they buy or sell a home. With Email this can be all automatically with $0 postage cost. Email is free, other than your ISP (Internet Service Provider) cost such as America Online or Netcom.
There is some etiquette to know about email though -- you can not just sent out unsolicited information to people just because you have found the email address. This is called junk email or Spam. Not the canned variety albeit just as tasteless ( Sure there are companies promising you the moon and stars with this kind of service. Three words of advice ìdonít do itî. You run the risk of losing your great reputation and your businessÖor at the very least having your email service and ISP account terminated.
On the flip side this does not mean that you can not send out "bulk" personalized email to a group of people who you have asked them for permission or they volunteered to be included in your mailing list group. Some of the possible uses of this in Real Estate is to send out New listing or just sold notifications or "Cyber" Postcards to your mailing list. Remember the postage is free: There is none. All the cost is in your time or your assistantís time to prepare the ìCyber postcardsî or Email. There are plenty of programs to help you out on this endeavor too!
If this is all new to you that is all the more reason why you need to take the bull by the horns or broccoli by the head to be politically correct not to offend anyone these days, and run with it. How to get started? I would advise you to run out and sign up for America online, but if you do this you will need 2 accounts -- one on America Online and one other dial up account or ISP. The reason for this that if you are serious about the potential of Email in your business you will need to send your prospects several attachments. An attachment is a file that is attached to your message. It can be a photo, spreadsheet, word document or just about anything you would like to send your clients.
How about a listing presentation or a customized photo presentation with music on that perfect property you are selling so the buyer will decide to buy it sight unseen. Wouldn't that be great! Is that possible? You bet it is. Are you starting to see the benefits? Are you getting a clear picture? Are you feeling like this is a great idea? Outstanding!
Now back to what I would recommend. Go get a nationwide ISP account from a nationwide company like flash net or Netcom. Usually this type of service will cost from $16.95 to $19.95 per month for unlimited access time. Also, this provider should provide you with browser and email software such as Microsoft Explorer and Outlook express or Netscape Navigator. You could purchase a specialized email software like Eudora Pro to help you manage those hundreds of messages you will get each week from potential clients and junk email (Spam) that you will want to sort through fast, but this is not necessary. The basic email packages included with the browsers will get you started just fine. And you may even want to get America Online just to get your own AOL account name. There is special pricing for AOL if you access it from your other ISP. It is about half price.
After you are comfortable with sending email and attachments now you are ready to graduate to the next level: sending out personalized email messages to anyone or any number of lists. Friend family, clients, Sphere of influence, past clients. Anyone with whom you would like to keep in contact with. How would you like to send a personalized email to hundreds of people with a few clicks of your mouse? Better yet when your clients receive the message they will you individually wrote and sent one message just to them individually? If you were to actually do this with hundreds of people it would take you hours or days to compose and send a personalized message to each one of them, but with technology you can do this in under one minute plus the time it takes you to write the letter.
This is possible in several ways. The first way is to set up a list serve on someone else's computer. You email the users email address and the webmaster for this service will keep your list intact. Then you send one message to an email address given to you by that company and they will then forward your message to everyone on your list. This is fast and eliminates all those addresses of your friends and clients being seen by everyone who receives the email. One drawback to this method is the message is not personalized like Dear Tom, or Dear Mary and costs about $10 per month, although I understand that some companies are charging as low as $30 per year or free if you want to see their advertising each and every time you access your account.
The best way is to purchase a software product that can help you out by importing a simple file in the form of an ASCII Text file from your contact management program. The best part is that in the body of your message you can merge anything you want (as long as you have exported it to the ASCII file) into each and every message you send. An example would be the persons name: Dear Tom or Mary, the persons town: how is the weather in Denver or Florida, or the persons type of home they are looking for:
we know we can find that 3 bedroom home with a pool for you. Do you see how powerful this marketing tool can be? One of the best programs for this is World Merge.
Well there you have it, an introduction to what I believe is the most important marketing tool since the telephone was invented and I think you will agree too! Give it a chance, take a few minutes a day to learn something new that you will use for the rest of your life communicating with clients and keeping your family informed and connected. A true 21st Century tool.
If you have any questions or are interested in finding out more please email me at HYPERLINK mailto:topagents@home.com topagents@home.com or call 1- and I will forward the information to you
Bryan Guentner, CRS (email)
1999 CRS Florida Chapter Technology Chairman
Re/Max Properties -- Sarasota, Longboat Key, & Siesta Key Real Estate
941-316-6550
Copyright 1999 Bryan Guentner, CRS
back to Other Resources for Building Your Business
back to Consulting Articles Page
back to Articles and Other Writings