Now before your BS antennae go up let me tell you that we really will share a little known yet highly effective technique with you that will get you free advertising.
Actually it is so sneaky and effective it will actually position you as the endorsed expert by one of your valued referral partners. Ready? You’ve heard us talk about this before but here is a new twist.
Every single month you need to be sending a newsletter to your clients, prospects and referral partners. Yeah, I know you have heard that before. But you really do need to do it. If you are in the minority and actually do send a monthly newsletter than I am proud of you and I'm going to share a really neat strategy with you.
Before we go into the strategy, let me share with you the importance of having a monthly newsletter. I mean a written newsletter. Now I don’t disagree with sending an e-mail newsletter. Great idea! But you must also send a written one.
Why? Because the spam police are in over drive these days. Your e-mail must get through these filters, and then, it must get clicked on and not deleted. Finally, it must get opened and then read. That’s asking an awful lot isn’t it? Yes, it is cheap but you get what you pay for.
Let's look at the numbers for a minute. In our example, you have a database of 500 people who are clients, prospects, and referral sources. Each newsletter (ours is six pages) costs you $1 each to mail including printing and postage. So each month you are spending $6,000—$500 times 12 months.
Now let’s say you only get three deals a year from mailing these 6,000 pieces of mail and that you average $2,500 per deal. Well you still have a profit here of $1,500. Truthfully you should see a few deals each month. But let’s stay conservative here.
The easiest customer you could possibly sell to is the one who already knows and likes you. These are the same folks that you want referrals from right? Well the statistics say that for every month that goes by without a contact from you that you lose 10% of your influence on them. Meaning, in less than a year they have totally forgotten who you are. Think about it. What was the name of the salesperson that sold you your last car? See what I mean.
Here's the secret technique to free advertising. Now that we have gone through the importance of having a newsletter let’s talk about the technique you’ve been waiting for. In our newsletters we welcome guest columnists. In our case it is usually an elder care attorney, insurance agent, financial planner or other senior related resource. They get a whole column with their photo.
We then get to do the same for their newsletter. In fact, it’s as if we have been endorsed by that partner simply by appearing in their newsletter.
So, what to do now? Step one is to start identifying partners that produce a monthly newsletter you could write for. Assuming you already do a monthly newsletter offer to allow them to write for you as well (reciprocity).
If you don’t have a newsletter than I hope by now you realize how much you need one. We offer one at
In conclusion, let me just give you a few little tips. Please make your content interesting and timely. No one really cares about the bond market and curves etc. We try to make ours entertaining and interactive. Most of our topics and columns have nothing to do with reverse mortgages.
But we do of course have several important components that drive referrals and new transactions, which of course is the whole point. How about some type contest in each newsletter? Your newsletter must get opened and read. In order to do that it cannot ever be boring! Now go ahead and get some free advertising.
Sue Haviland and Brian Sacks are the co-founders of
