Why Aweber Makes A Huge Difference?

I am not going to coat this with any sugar. If you don’t have a mailing list you don’t have a business. If you have a business but haven’t thought of creating a mailing list then you have seriously missed the biggest trick. Today’s post is all about a real world example of creating a mailing list and what it can do for you. In the internet marketing world you are told that the money is in the list. In the real estate world it is imperative that the list is maintained and fed regularly with solid advice. So let’s go back to basics.

Aweber List Building

I have been working in real estate in Spain for a decade. That is a long time. It has been successful and it has been a disaster. Luckily for me it is now being successful again. Then again luck has nothing to do with it, aweber has a lot to do with it. As many of you reading this blog may know I suffered a bad football injury, soccer for my American friends, on the 22nd of November 2008. I now see this date as the tipping point, the before and after. I broke my collarbone and was forced to have my right arm strapped to my body for two months. Apart from the helpful fact that it happened in winter rather than the hideous thought of a sweaty two months of summer there were no saving graces at the time. Now I consider it to have been the single most important thing to have happened to me in the last ten years in a professional sense.

Those who know me will know very well that I am not the type of person to sit around moping and watching daytime TV while waiting for the healing to happen. I was lucky that I lived in a town with public transport into the centre of a big city, no mean feat in Spain, so I could still get around. So what did I do?

I studied. Lots. I spent the next two months studying, firstly through the Thirty Day Challenge and then through many other complementary courses and ongoing courses taken after the 30DC. In February 2009 after cramming so much work into two months while still trying to run a real estate business just after the meltdown in the markets I set out on the journey of my initial blog Houses For Sale In Spain. In hindsight this is a shocking name for a blog but I was caught between the two stools of focussing a blog at my business and writing a blog about life and lifestyle in Spain.

The most important fact though was that I started using aweber to keep in contact with those that got in touch with me through the blog or through requesting information about properties. The funnel is as follows. Somebody reads the blog or looks for a property on site. They get in touch and are offered the chance to get a free ebook about the buying process in Spain and now also seven things you must remember on buying property in Spain. They sign up for the emails through aweber. That’s it.

How has this made my business successful again?

Very simple. The mails not only give free information but they build authority and lots of it. Currently there are more than 100 messages in my autoresponder none of which are time sensitive, ok there is one. Those who sign up get a mail every few days and every time they get it they receive useful information that may well help them to save thousands of Euros on their Spanish property purchase. Are they thankful for that? Very. Many of them although they don’t buy in my area now use my consultancy services for buying the property as they know I am aware of the scams, can negotiate a better deal for them, will get them the best mortgage deals available and a whole host of other advantages. Without aweber or a similar autoresponder there wouldn’t be the chance to build up this relationship.

How does the relationship build?

All mails are personalized and end with questions. I then get mails in response to the mailing and answer them. The hard sell never comes into it. When the client comes to my area I am the first person they contact. When they are thinking of buying elsewhere I am the first person they contact. All mails are answered within 24 hours where possible and the client feels important.

Monetising the Relationship

I don’t have to. Long term what the list does is to make sure that I do not miss clients. Prior to having the list people would get in touch a couple of months before coming over and there would be little or no contact between us until they came or I found I had missed their visit, my fault of course. Also prior to their visit no relationship or trust had been built up meaning the chances of a sale or rental were inordinately lower. What is the return on investment? Huge as a result.

Does your real world business use aweber or a similar constant contact with your client? Can you give away huge quantities of information for free because you are the expert in your field? How can you do the same? Think about it and meanwhile sign up for the $1 one month trial of aweber. You will never look back in your online or offline business.

Related Reading

1) IMEye. Let the Keywords Find You?

2) The Immediate Edge

3) The Livescribe Pen

(Just a disclaimer here by the way. If you click on the aweber links here and buy it I will get a commission. If you would prefer to just get it without me getting a commission although it would cost you the same then just go to www.aweber.com. Try out the $1 trial if you have a website. It will change your business radically)

Originally posted 2010-04-09 23:48:27. Republished by Blog Post Promoter