This article features the five most compelling, but often overlooked, aspects of creating an effective email marketing piece designed to grab attention.

Successful Marketing & Promotion

Successful real estate agents must be excellent marketers because marketing lies at the core of all that they do.

They must be outstanding at marketing, because after all, they need to:

• Market themselves as the best choice to potential clients, in order to gain the listing
• Market home listings to the right prospective buyers
• Market their clients to home owners and sellers (this is especially true when there will be a board interview or multiple buyers)
• Market themselves to other real estate professionals to create a successful referral program and build long lasting relationships.

Email flyers allow real estate professionals to show potential clients that they use every available marketing tool, making them a great choice as the listing agent. Email flyers also allow them to expand their reach when marketing listings and creating referral programs.

Being armed with email flyers in your marketing arsenal does not automatically generate successful results. Once your email reaches your potential customer, you only have 3 seconds to make an impression. That means your email flyer must be compelling enough to read and, ultimately, it must move your customer to a desired action.

Here are five easy ways to craft a marketing message that gets results:

1) Provide only enough relevant information to create interest

Remember, the purpose of email marketing is to create interest, not to close the sale. Including too much information (everything but the kitchen-sink so to speak) is not necessary, and can make an overwhelming to the recipient.

Decide on two or three important points and determine what a potential customer/buyer needs to see in order to want to get more information. By paring down the information, the email is less cluttered and the message much clearer.

2) Have a clear, single, call to action

Decide on a clear, concise call to action before creating your message. What do you want your customer to do once they have read your email? Do you want them to call, signup for your newsletter, or click through to a specific listing?

Make sure you define one singular action clearly and plainly, so that there is no question as to what you want them to do (Call for more information or, Click here to learn more etc...).

3) Have a balance of images and copy

The best way to drive your consumer to a desired result is through relevant, actionable content. Images are important, especially in the real estate industry. But the content plays just as important a role and, in real estate email marketing, is too often given short shrift.

The content should be short. To the point. Include a clear call to action. And lack excessive punctuation or capital letters (there's no need for exclamation points and words in all caps).

As an added bonus, it is less likely that a SPAM filter will stop an email with solid content.

4) Contact information should be easy to find and read (separate from the call to action)

The contact information should not be the first thing a user sees when they open an email, but it should be prominently displayed and large enough to be noticed.

Contact information should not be a pre-made image that is sized-down to fit in a given space on the flyer. Often, it becomes too small and blurry and is missed or impossible to read.

When designing your email, test it on a few coworkers and see if they can easily find your contact information. If they have a difficult time, then you may want to adjust your design.

5) Like all solid marketing, email flyers must be scheduled and repeated

Email marketing is part of an ongoing effort to keep your marketing message at the forefront of your potential customer's minds. That means maintaining a consistent and balanced delivery schedule that is not too frequent or far apart.

Do not send emails out more than twice a month, but do remain consistent and timely so that you begin to build trust with your users.

Infinite Possibilities

Follow these five steps and you can create effective email campaigns that speak to your audience and drive them toward the next step in becoming your customer.

Always keep in mind the following tips when developing your email marketing campaigns:

• Provide only enough relevant information to create interest
• Have a singular and clear call to action
• Deliver your message with relevant content and support that message with email friendly images
• Make sure your contact information is clearly displayed
• Be consistent and timely with your campaigns

Like all marketing, email marketing is about building trust between you and your potential clients by giving them information that is useful and relevant.

In the competitive real estate industry, email marketing, done right, is a valuable addition to your marketing efforts. By following these simple suggestions, you can win the battle of the inbox with smart, professional marketing practices.

------

About the Author:

Thomas "Bill" Robinson IV, Vice President, XL Technologies, parent company of eCampaignPros.com ( http://www.ecampaignpros.com )

Mr. Robinson is an industry veteran with over 10 years of management experience. Bill has a proven record of success in sales, marketing, product development, merchandising, brand management, and customer service. He is a former real estate agent and has been involved with real estate software application development since 1993.