Free Way To Stay In Touch With Your Clients!

How often do you mail a letter, newsletter or postcard to your client database?

With first-class postage stamps at 41 cents, your expenses continue to go up again unless you change your method and frequency of communicating with your clients.

What's one way to keep your postage expenses down? Start blogging!

What's blogging? It's a web log (an on-line journal) that you can write in your own words. Now I have to tell you, at first, I thought blogs were dumb and a waste of time, but one of my mentors has a blog and it's really had an affect on me. He's writing about things that are of interest to me as well as sharing bits and pieces about his own life. I now believe that this is better than buying and sending a non-personal, pre-printed, 4-color newsletter to my client base.

I just started writing a blog for my clients and I'm not an expert writer at all. You can check out my blog address at: http://www.cincinnatirealestatenews.com/.

It's real easy to start your own blog. Just go to: http://www.blogger.com/ and get started. It's Free. There are other free or inexpensive blogs out there, but this is the one I chose.

I look at a blog as a place where I can communicate with my clients in my own style, offering them information that will hopefully add some type of value to their life, whether through real estate, financial issues, or every day aspects.

It's my recommendation to NOT purchase a blog-writing service where you would pay about $400/yr for them to write your blog. It defeats the purpose of writing a blog and sharing your thoughts and beliefs to your clients and others.

It's also a place for them to find out a little more about me and my family and what's happening in our lives. When information comes from you personally, instead of being regurgitated from another source, it's so much more powerful and your clients know you care about them.

You can also add photos to your blog entry. It makes it more interesting. Make sure that you aren't copying someone else's photos.

If you don't have many clients' e-mail addresses, just make a list of those you need to call and ask them for their preferred e-mail address and that you won't give it to anyone else. Let them know that you'll be sharing information that will be beneficial to them.

Also, imagine how much time and money you'd save every month by not printing and mailing a snail-mail newsletter. I believe today that e-mail is getting to be a tougher medium to communicate with people through, but even with all of the spam out there, I'm still always looking for e-mail from people that I know and trust. Aren't you?

So here's the steps you need to do today:

Step #1- Go to http://www.blogger.com/ and register for your own free blog.

Step #2 - Get as many of your clients' preferred e-mail addresses as possible. I don't care if you only have 5. It will grow. If your clients like it, ask them to forward it to their family and friends. Ah-ha! Yes, future referrals!

Step #3 - Make an entry into your blog as least once a week. Feel free to look at mine to see the different topics I write and then do your own. There are articles and short topics all around you every day. Make a file to save everything you want to write about. After you get the hang of it, it will only take you 10 - 15 minutes write an entry.

Step #4 - Send an e-mail to your client base with a link to your blog, adding the headlines of your posts. I would only do this once every couple of weeks to once a month depending on how much you write.

One other place to start a free blog and gain valuable real estate information from many of the best agents and lenders in the country is ActiveRain Real Estate Network. You can register for free at my link. Click here: ActiveRain Real Estate Referral Network. If you don't join this network, you are really missing out.

Go ahead and start your own blog. Don't wait!