Wow. I can't believe I did it. I have been ignoring my email database...
Real estate is a contact sport. Stay in contact with lots of people.
Since my first day as an agent, I have been gathering information for my database.
Everybody I knew. Everybody I met along the way. I gathered contact information...
Email. Phone number. Address...
An occasional email to the database is such a great way to stay in touch with so many...
Free. Easy. And quite effective...
At first I sent email newsletters...
Then I switched to Just Sold/Just Listed emails...
But sometime in the last year, I have gotten away from using the email to keep in touch.
Sending emails started to seem primitive... 
In this age of social media, it was easy to believe I was speaking with "everyone" when I posted on Active Rain, Facebook or Twitter...
In reality, I was not. Not even close...
I realized this over Thanksgiving weekend. 
I decided to send out Thanksgiving themed email to my database, currently around 1000 people.
As I sent out the email, I couldn't remember the last time I had done it.
All these names. All these people. Would they still remember me? Do they still know I am in business?
It had been too long.
It was great to send out the email this Thanksgiving...
Great to stay in touch...
So easy to drift away from what we've done in the past. I make written plans in an effort not to overlook important things---trick it, I've gotta read the plan!
Ken,
I find myself in a similar situation. However, I am not sure how to keep doing it. First , even a technical level. People's e-mails change so often, so there will be quite a number of bounced e-mails. Can it hurt you?
So you need a special service or mail server, providing the full compliance with the law, and the option for people to unsubscribe?
What is you get several of them, who forget who you are, complain to ISP and they blacklist you?
What do you think is the optimal way to do it?
Hi Lottie and Jon. Thanks for stopping in.
Jon, you ask lots of good questions. Blacklist? Hmm. Sounds scary...
I don't know the optimal way. I do my best to keep my database clean of anyone who doesn't want to receive the emails...
I do get quite a few bounced emails. It also takes me a few days to send the email from Outlook. They only allow a certain number of outgoing mails per day...
Anyway, thanks again for stopping in.
Ken
This has been such a big deal for me lately! Love it! Great advice. Nurturing this means nurturing my business!
Even if you only contact 50% of your database at least your putting your name forward to 500 people. The emails that bounce back give you an opportunity to try and re-contact that person and give you a good excuse to get to know them again
Hi Larry and Al. Thanks so much.
Yes, the bad emails just clean up your database.
The people that say "Take me off your list?" I take them off my list.
No problems.
Thanks again and keep marketing,
Ken
Ken, email is a very effective and timely way to stay in touch. I so agree. There is a large portion of the populace completely not tied into Social Media (yet).
You are right not to forget your data base to generate some calls. I leaned here on AR about a company called Mailchimp.com it is free. It has been a good place to set up some attractive emails for my colder email leads.
This is a great idea, more of us need to add this to our marketing plan.
Hi Ken, I had to smile when I saw that you sent out newsletters when you were starting out. That's the stage I am at now -- trying to expand my sphere. I've been at it regularly for about 3 months and get very positive calls and emails from people who have begun to expect my newsletters on the first of each month.
I began using RealFutureCRM and it works great for me. I had friends using Top Producer but I went with RealFuture because I am trying to operate as inexpensively as possible. The free version may be a problem with 1000 people in your database, I think they only allow 500 contacts for the free version. The upgrade version will give you a squeeze page to import leads from your website and allow unlimited contacts. On either version, you can send bulk mailings at once and set them up in advace to auto-send any time in the future. I set them up weeks in advance so I don't have to remember to do it later. If you set them up in advance you can have the system send a reminder to you before allowing the newsletters to go out. That way there is a news item that may be updated by your mailing date, the newsletter will be held until it can be edited. I plan to upgrade in a couple of months.
Here is their link. http://www.realfuturecrm.com/public/
Hi Ken,
Yep, this is something I also need to do. As Mary suggested I'm looking into Mailchimp.com also ConstantContact.com. Will look into this so as to start the new year with email campaigns, just 3 weeks left. Thanks for the reminder.
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Hi Muhammed, Eva, Karen, Heather, Mary, and Gary. Thanks so much for stopping by.
I just felt silly. So much posting on websites, yet I had all these emails I was neglecting...
Don't neglect the database!:)
Thanks again,
Ken
you know with all the other ways to market...i too have been a bad agent and not using my email database....however, i was sent a silly cartoon slide show about friends and the new year...I forwarded it on to just a few hundred in in my database and i got back so may thank yous and "ditto" and the same to you...so someone is reading it