How Jamaican Realtors can use Email Newsletters to their advantage

In a previous post, I mentioned the need for Jamaica Real Estate websites to have a sign-up form to build an email list. Building a list and following up with email newsletters is a key component of the real estate marketing mix that seems to be overlooked in Jamaica.


Email marketing via e-newsletters is an effective, low-cost tool to build brand awareness, loyalty and even bring in new leads. Some of the various benefits of email newsletters are:

• Keeps your brand in front of your prospects


• Helps to build and maintain relationships with your prospects


• Helps to position you and your company as an authority in the real estate industry

The key is to provide value in the form of information and not make it too much like a ‘sales letter’. If executed correctly, your newsletter will bring in leads in the form of referrals from current customers and prospects that enjoy reading it.


Getting Started The first thing that the Jamaican Real Estate Broker should do is to sign up with a newsletter program like iContact or Aweber. Upload your existing contact list to the program – people who have emailed you for property information through your website, classified ad or open house. Upload a sign-up form to your website asking website visitors to sign up for your newsletter, property updates and alerts and local real estate news.
Contents of the email newsletter The email newsletter should contain:

Featured Properties

Latest Rental Properties available

Helpful hints and tips about moving, buying a house for the first time, etc.

Testimonials, recent sales, awards, company sponsorship or charitable involvement

Real Estate Industry news

Leverage your newsletter program features Use autoresponder features to schedule newsletter deliveries ahead of time, send a standard welcome email and even segment your list. Provide an opportunity for the subscriber to forward the newsletter to a friend. Program your newsletter to use each subscriber’s name in the greeting section of the newsletter and at any other appropriate opportunity.


Build your subscription list Put a sign-up form for your newsletter in a prominent place on the home page of your company website or preferably on every web page. Put a sign-up form on your corporate blog if you have one and also on any of the social media platforms you use, like Facebook.


An increasingly popular way to build your subscriber list is to offer a free download to a special report such as ’10 things you should do before buying a house’ or ‘Make a good first impression – preparing your home for sale’. In order for your web visitors to view these reports they would have to submit their name and email address.


In summary, your newsletter, just like other advertising vehicles, reflect on your brand. Email newsletters should be professionally written, marketed and consistent. Check your statistics regularly, like open rate, bounces, etc. Also conduct surveys periodically to get a feel for what kind of information your subscribers would like to see. Statistics reporting and surveys can be done with most email newsletter programs. You may assign a point person, perhaps a sales manager who will handle aspects of email newsletter marketing or outsource to an Ad agency or digital marketing agency . For information on how Butterfly Publications can help, please click here.