Are you one of the thousands of agents with an email address such as betty295@yahoo.com? Although free email is a good thing cost wise, is it good for your business. There are many things that people want out of real estate professionals and the key is in that very title, “Professional.” Unfortunately we are inundated with people who may know real estate but do not know how to market themselves out of a paper bag.

When was the last time you actually read an unsolicited email that had a number in the address or was from a free account at Gmail,Yahoo, MSN or heaven forbid AOL. Most of us simply rely on our spam filters to get rid of those emails. So why would it be any different with out clients or prospective clients. If you want people to at the very least see your emails, think for a moment about where they are coming from.

I know, many of you are now thinking about how much money this is going to cost. You are saying to yourselves, “My marketing budget is already spread thin I can’t afford my own email system.” Well guess what, with a little legwork and very little money you can have that email that says I am a “Professional” and that is why you need to hire me!

Here is an example, let just say you are Betty Rubble and you work for yourself or in a very small office and your agency is Rubble Real Estate. For less than $10 per year (it could be a lot less if you sign up for multiple years) you can own the rubblerealestate.com domain. Think of it, just eliminate two trips to Starbucks and you can own your own professional domain name. Now here is the best part. Almost every domain registrar allows you to create forwarding email addresses, and they allow you to do it for free! So now you set up betty.rubble@rubblerealestate.com as an address that forwards to your betty295@yahoo.com address and your clients or prospective clients are none the wiser. You can even force most email clients, such as Outlook or Outlook Express to include betty.rubble@rubblerealestate.com as the reply to address. They simply never need to know you are using a free service on the back end.

Now the likelihood of your message getting through to your customers and clients is much greater. More contact means the potential for more business. Don’t let two cups of coffee prevent you from solidifying your brand as a “Professional” real estate practitioner.