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Sending Effective E-mail Marketing to Your Clients and Prospects–Part 2

By Jim Gillespie | September 15, 2008

Here are two big mistakes commercial brokers make in their E-mail marketing that’s costing them a lot of money:

Broker Mistake #1:

Relying primarily on sending out information on properties that are currently available in the Broker’s marketplace

Any broker can do this, and most brokers who send out E-mail to their clients and prospects are relying primarily on doing this, too. But this does nothing to differentiate you from all the other brokers in your territory, especially if they’re all sending out similar information to the same people.

You need to brand yourself in people’s minds as the intelligent, insightful broker they’ll want to work with whenever they have their next commercial real estate transaction. So send them articles about the trends you’re observing and what these mean in terms of where your market is headed right now. Write articles about any proposed changes or new real estate developments and what these will mean in terms of both the desirability of the area, and the value of people’s properties.

Anyone can copy and paste available property data into an E-mail. This does nothing to differentiate you from all the other brokers in your prospect’s minds. And if you don’t differentiate yourself from all the other brokers, there’s no compelling reason for your prospects to work with you.

Your people want to work with the commercial real estate broker who they feel has the best knowledge and insights on what’s going on in the area, and someone who has the ability to guide them in their next commercial real estate decision. And you can’t convey that you’re this broker by just sending them information on what’s currently available in the market, or by sending them information on what’s recently sold or leased.

Your people want to know what all of this information really means, and by writing articles with your interpretation of the information, and giving your projections on where the market is headed, you send the message to your people that you’re the broker who really understands everything, and that you have the ability to guide them through their next transaction. This will help differentiate you from all the other brokers when your prospects are deciding on which broker they’ll be working with exclusively the next time.

Broker Mistake #2:

Not including a photo of yourself in all of your E-newsletters and E-mail marketing to your clients and prospects

People need to feel they’re forming a connection with another human being in order to begin a relationship with them. And when they don’t know what you look like, or they’re not being reminded of what you look like, their relationship with you won’t feel as strong to them. This is why you’ll want to include a photo of yourself in all of your E-mail marketing, and in all of your printed mailings, too.

Maybe the best example I can give around this happened when I was speaking at an annual conference of one of the top commercial real estate brokerage companies in the world. I was discussing the subject of including your photo in both your E-mail marketing and in your printed mailers, and a very successful SIOR broker raised his hand, stood up, turned and faced the audience and said, “Jim’s right on this one. He’s been coaching me to do this in my one-on-one coaching program with him, and since I’ve been doing this I’m treated like a celebrity now sometimes when I walk into people’s offices. ‘Oh you’re the broker who’s been sending us all of the great information on our real estate market,’ they’ll say. ‘Please come in, sit down, and let’s talk with each other.'”

So no matter what other people tell you, when you include your photo in your E-mail marketing and in your printed mailings, people will feel that they know you better. And this will lead to more closed transactions for you and more commissions in your pocket.


Topics: Marketing, Prospecting | No Comments »