VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

7 Easy Steps to Get More Action on Twitter

If you're using Twitter for your business, good for you! You're probably wondering how to get more Twitter activity such as re-tweets and followers. Well, here's a fun idea you might want to give a try. The basic concept is to give a promotional code with an amazing discount on your product or service - but only once you reach a predetermined number of re-tweets. The incentive will help you mobilize your current followers and email recipients, and get them tweeting and re-tweeting. Here's how:

1. Create, Send and Post Your Email. Put your offer in an email solo and send it to your best customers (i.e., advocates, repeat purchasers, etc.). Your copy should state something like this:

For the next two days, we're giving out something very special. A $50 promotional code [insert your discount here] on our product line [insert product line here]. Is there a catch? You bet! We need 200 [insert your own number here] re-tweets of this offer before we post the code. So be sure to RT this offer to your followers to get the code. We'll tweet our progress to keep you up-to-date on the number of re-tweets before the final post.

2. Post a hosted version of this email online so you'll have a page to send everyone to.

3. Include the Twitter icon in your emails so it's easy for your recipients to post to their followers. You can do that in most email marketing programs including VerticalResponse.

4. Tweet the hosted version of the email to your own followers after you've sent your email.

5. Track in TweetDeck how many RTs you're getting by setting up a new column. Include tweet copy or a few words from it so you can filter and count how many RTs you get.

6. Tweet every hour or two how many RTs you're up to, or how many more you need to reach your goal.

7. When you reach your limit (or close to it) make a new copy of your email marketing campaign with the promotional code, send it to your list, and tweet the URL of the hosted version out to your followers.   

Viola! Your efforts should get you plenty of Twitter activity such as tweets, re-tweets, and even some new followers. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Related posts:

• How to Make Email and Social Media Work Together
• Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Use Twitter for Your Business
  
• Top 10 Social Media Blog Posts
  

Newsletter Content for Real Estate Pros

It's so important for Real Estate professionals to keep in touch with prospective buyers and sellers especially when it comes to residential real estate. There are many choices out there when it comes to choosing an agent so continuously keeping on top of mind with a client is something you know you need to do. It's tough when your clients only think about buying or selling every year, 5 years, or longer!

Whether they're first-time buyers or have bought/sold before people are always interested in the market. They like to know what's going on with interest rates and what their house might be worth. They're also interested in you since either they're going to, or already have used you for a transaction. In many cases the biggest one of their lives.

So how do you keep in their minds?

Here are some ideas for a communications plan to your clients.

Calendar it out - Do you know your client's birthday or anniversary? How about the anniversary of when they bought their home? It's a nice gesture on your part to remember dates and send an email or card to them.

Holiday cards - Each year I get a holiday card from our agent. It usually has a great picture of his family. Makes us feel closer to him.

Homes that sold - Highlight other homes that have sold in the area. People always want to know what their home is worth. Who knows, they may have a magic number that you don't know about.

Transactions that you've done - Everyone wants to be associated with a winner! If you're doing well, your clients will think about you when it's time for their next transaction.

Event calendar - I've highlighted a few great examples of Real Estate marketing here. Why not do the same for your city or neighborhood?

Content - It's always tough coming up with content for your newsletter or website. I was looking around the web for content that Real Estate professionals could use in their email campaigns. Here are a few sights you might find helpful:

• EZine Articles - Here there are close to 50,000 expert authors sharing their best ezine articles that you can use, for free. I clicked on real estate and got a pretty exhaustive listing of articles in the following categories: Real Estate, Building a Home, Buying, Commercial Property, Condominiums, Investing, Land, Leasing/Renting, Mortgage Refinance, Moving/Relocating, Property Management and Selling. Phew!
• RealEstateABC.com - I thought this site was pretty amazing. You can get a ton of content for free, BUT for just $25/year you can get "personalized" mortgage calculators, home-selling content home buying content even a "What's your home worth" tool. I don't know if the $25 is worth it but seems like there is a bunch of free content you can use for joining as a "guest".

Hope these ideas work. Let me know if any of this was helpful. If I'm off the mark here tell me! Give more ideas.

Realtors - Build Your Email Lists

I've already talked about how Realtors make great marketers here, but how can Realtors go about building an email list?

Keep your data clean and up to date! Collecting business cards? As you know this is how most realtors build their prospect and client lists. You'll absolutley need to put them into your TopProducer, Salesforce.com, Realty Star, ACT!, FileMaker or whatever contact management system you use. Then it's easy to upload your data to VerticalResponse or your provider for you to do email marketing campaigns. You can download specific lists of prospects, past clients, brokers or fellow agents and do specific email marketing campaigns to each group!

Include an opt-in form on your site - As an accomplished real estate executive, chances are you have a website. If you don't and need one fast, check out WorkZ Sites. Make sure that you have an opt-in form on your site to collect addresses you'll send regular newsletters to. VerticalResponse offers a free one so check it out here. Make sure the information you are sending is pertinent to what they'll expect. Housing prices, homes that sold, lending rates are all great pieces of information for you to send to someone. You may hit them at just the right buy or sell time.

Send snail mail postcards to build your list - Do a snail mail in a given zip code, then drive people back to your site to sign up, to email you or to call you. Give your clients a reason like "get your monthly update on what's sold in your area." If you want to rent a postal list in a certain zip code, you might check out USA Data or InfoUSA. You can get a one-time mailing or multiple mailings of lists. Then simply upload them into your VR account, create your postcard and click send. It's that easy.

One last thing, we released some new real estate email marketing templates today, check them out.

Got any ideas of how you're collecting email addresses? Bring 'em on!

Why Realtors are Great Marketers

Last week I got a GREAT piece of direct mail. It was from two realtors who market lofts in the neighborhood, Zephyr Realtors. I've never bought a place from them, the closest I've come to them is walking my dog Stan near their offices and talking to a neighbor that works for them. So how did they get me and why did I like it so much?

List

My guess is that they rented a list of people who live in certain zip codes. Could have been from InfoUSA or USA Data. They probably spent a few hundred bucks.

Creative

This is what got me. On the front of the 6 x 9 postcard they listed great restaurants in our area with addresses and  phone numbers with the message "What's Good in the Hood?" On the back a picture of the duo (a signature of a great realtor since they really are selling themselves before they sell any property) with a small paragraph introduction on who they are, what they specialize in, and a bit about the company. They focused on themselves first and foremost.

They also made sure to put a phone number, email address and address for quick contact information.

Offer

There was no hard offer included, it was simply an introduction piece, and that piece now resides in our drawer, the one where our take-out menus go so that when we need to look up ideas for where to go, we're staring at their card. We may even recognize them walking around since their picture is on it.

Realtors know how to get someone to keep their pieces around with ideas like this:

• A grid listing of upgrades to your house and increased value figures
• A sporting event schedule (One of these lies in our drawer too because we live next to a ball park)
• Recent homes in the area that have sold with pricing
• Just listed homes in the area or open house announcement
• Calendars

Got any ideas on how you market your product or service? Do share! And thanks realtors, you've given me some great ideas!