Once you've helped someone buy a home, you quickly fade from their lives unless you give them a reason to stay in touch with you. Since everyone likes to save money, sharing articles about reducing homeowners' ongoing costs is a great way to make your clients keep opening your emails.

I see how well that strategy works when I look at which articles were clicked on by the more than 1 million homeowners who received the HomeActions e-newsletter in August.

The most-opened HomeActions article in August was Will Shutting Vents Cut Your Energy Bill?

The article, based on a blog from one of my favorite energy experts, explained why shutting too many vents can cause problems in your HVAC. The article worked because it delivered an "ah ha!" moment to viewers who thought they were saving money by closing off HVAC vents in their home.

You wouldn't expect an energy-efficiency story to be contentious, but this one was. One viewer suggested the article was funded by oil companies. Ironically, there was also an email from a viewer with an oil company email address arguing that shutting vents couldn't possibly harm the HVAC.

A few days later, a viewer wrote one of our Realtor clients and said the article was spot on. He'd had to pay $6,000 to remediate mold caused by shutting off about half the vents in a home.

Have Backup Experts

Anything that hits a homeowner's wallet will engage them. Another very popular story in August looked at changes coming to the FICO score this fall. FICO Changes Score Calculations: Will Your Score Rise? explained what's changing in FICO, when those changes will happen and why mortgage credit likely won't be immediately affected.

Explaining the details of the change (and the likely influence on how much homeowners have to pay for credit) positioned our HomeActions clients as experts in consumer credit.

Any time you explain something complicated, people are going to have questions. When HomeActions' clients received questions regarding FICO changes, I drafted email responses for them.

If you're doing your own content marketing, make sure to have expert support – like your affiliate loan officer – before you write about complex consumer issues. Those same experts will likely be happy to check the accuracy of your article before it goes out.

Join our webinar next week to learn more about how HomeActions can help your agents sell more listings this year!