Thoughts on Real Estate Marketing…

Have you noticed the new trends in e-mail marketing? They’re making me cranky, so I have to rant a bit.

In all fairness, I suppose the first one is an effort to get around spam filters – but what difference does it make if you get past a spam filter and then your message is immediately deleted?

I’m talking about this new habit some marketers – even top marketers – have of sending an email with an interesting subject line and then delivering nothing but a link to follow.

Just a minute ago I deleted one like that. I don’t know if it will be worth my time to click a link and wait around a while to get to the page, so I chose not to bother. Maybe for people on high speed this isn’t an annoyance, but marketers should remember that at last count (that I found) less than half of all consumers have high speed.

I heard one marketer remark that “People with money have high speed – and they’re the ones who can afford to buy my products.” In other words, the rest of us aren’t worth worrying about.

Hate to tell him – satellite costs more. No one would choose it if cheap high speed was available.

Some marketers, especially those with daily ezines, at least give a brief intro to generate interest in what they plan to talk about. Most of the time I still don’t follow the links because I don’t want to wait around, but once in a while that opening paragraph captivates me.

And then there’s video…

The second annoying message I deleted a few minutes ago was similar – except this one said “Look at the video I made for you,” and gave a link.

Thanks, but no thanks. Trying to comprehend a video on Hughes Net satellite is a prescription for a headache.

Worse – if the video takes up too many megabytes, it can shut down the system for 24 hours. It’s simply not worth the risk.

When I was on dial-up it was even worse – and millions of people are still on dial-up!

Hoards of marketers are now using video exclusively. If you’ve considered that, please re-consider. That is, unless you already have all the business you need and don’t mind missing half the population.

I know its fun and it probably does do a good job of selling. But offer your prospects a choice. Get someone to transcribe that video and offer the transcription as an alternate choice.

Make it easy for people to get your messages. They simply won’t bother with you if you make it difficult.