Last winter, Alyssa Curnutt was entering a raffle at an event at the Davenport in Spokane when the woman writing down her email address stopped and looked up at her. Alyssa figured she was about to hear the usual question about being that real estate agent on Instagram. Instead, the woman asked if she was the girl who sends out the weekly newsletters.
The woman told her she looked forward to it every Thursday and used it to plan what to do with her granddaughter that weekend.
“If someone’s recognizing me for my newsletters, that’s when I’m like, it works,” Alyssa said during a recent BAM webinar with Eric Simon, aka The Broke Agent.
Her weekly newsletter, Spokane Insider, goes to about 3,500 local subscribers and averaged a 55% open rate over her last 15 sends. A second, monthly market update goes to just under 1,000 people and opens at 65%. For comparison, Eric pointed to Chris Smith, author of “The Conversion Code,” who put the industry average open rate at 18%.
Here’s how both newsletters work, and why she keeps them separate.
It Started When She Lost Her Instagram Account
Alyssa didn’t start her newsletter because of a grand plan. She started it in July 2024, right after she lost her Instagram account.
She had already been thinking about a newsletter, but losing her account left her with nothing except her past clients’ email addresses. That’s when she got serious about building a list she owned.
“This is a platform that you control. You get the email addresses. You own all this.”
Eric added that a newsletter also lands on a schedule Instagram can’t promise. A post might show up in someone’s feed, or it might not. An email shows up when you send it.
“They do go into their email expecting that thing on a Thursday,” he said. “That is such a different power level of marketing.”
(Eric’s tip for anyone worried about losing their account: get verified on Instagram. Alyssa said she hasn’t had any issues since getting verified.)
Newsletter No. 1: The Weekly Spokane Insider
The weekly newsletter is where Alyssa builds the relationship, and it’s mostly not about real estate. She calls it a replica of her Instagram page, written for her audience: moms in North Spokane.
It goes out every Thursday afternoon so readers have it before the weekend. Here’s what’s in a typical issue:
- A subject line that teases the biggest news. She doesn’t overthink it. “I just try to pull the most important, relevant piece of information and put that as the subject line,” she said, like a new North Spokane restaurant opening.
- Local news. Usually a new restaurant or business, or what’s going on with the construction at a busy intersection.
- A sneak peek. When she shoots a reel somewhere, she grabs a few photos or a screenshot and gives newsletter readers a first look before the video goes up.
- A helpful list. Sometimes it’s a carousel she already made, like the best pumpkin treats in Spokane. Sometimes it’s a quick list of fall hikes or places to see the leaves.
- A business feature that links back to the Instagram reel she made about it.
- A light real estate mention. A banner to join her market update, a new listing or a quick note about rates. “Not hitting them over the head that I’m a real estate agent, but also not wanting them to forget that.”
- Weekend events. Usually seven to 10 family-friendly events happening Thursday through Sunday. This is the section the woman at the raffle was looking for.
- A social media roundup. Flodesk, the email platform she uses, automatically pulls in her last three Instagram posts.
Even with 35,000 Instagram followers, Alyssa said most of them aren’t seeing every post. The newsletter gives people a second chance to see her content, and a reason to go back to her page.
Newsletter No. 2: The Monthly Market Update
This is the one that brings in business. Alyssa sends it the first week of each month, after the Spokane Association of Realtors releases its stats.
It’s shorter, and it’s where she shows readers she’s an active agent who knows the market. “This is me showing I know what I’m talking about,” she said.
Each update includes:
- A quick take on the market, written the way she’d answer if someone asked her how the market is doing. Her October update covered rates climbing and what that means for buyers and sellers.
- Practical tips. For example, if you’re thinking about selling between January and March, get your exterior photos done now.
- A rate update from her lender, including a two-sentence take in his own words.
- Her current listings.
- A poll that gets people to raise their hands.
The Poll Is What Turns Readers Into Clients
For the first year, Alyssa didn’t include a way for readers to respond. People would contact her, but she couldn’t tell whether it was because of Instagram or the newsletter.
That changed when she added polls. “When I started putting hand raisers in, that’s when I obviously started seeing a direct correlation,” she said.
One poll led to four people reaching out and three phone calls. Her most recent one asked readers about their plans for buying or selling in 2027, with options like having questions, wanting to sell but not knowing where to start, or asking her to reach out when rates hit 6%.
When someone answers, she emails them, aims to be helpful and works toward getting them on the phone.
The key, Eric said, is that the poll has to match what the reader just read. If the update was about rates, the poll should be about rates. A random poll about something else is easy to skip.
How She Moves Readers From One to the Other
This is the part most agents get wrong, according to Alyssa. When they collect emails from a lead magnet or giveaway, they put everyone straight onto a market update list. Many of those people don’t care, so they unsubscribe or mark the email as spam, which can hurt deliverability.
Alyssa does it the other way around. New subscribers get Spokane Insider, the newsletter they actually signed up for. Then she invites the people who want market news to join the monthly update:
- A banner in Spokane Insider that links to a sign-up page
- A hyperlink whenever she mentions something like rates in the weekly newsletter
- Instagram stories with an email sign-up sticker teasing the next update, which she said convert really well (Read about Alyssa’s Instagram story strategy)
When she pitches it, she makes a point of telling people the update is short and to the point, not a data dump.
Because only interested readers are on that list, the monthly update opens at 65%.
How to Make It Sustainable
A weekly newsletter sounds like a lot of work. Alyssa’s answer is that most of it is content she’s already making.
- Reuse your content. Reels, carousels and captions turn into newsletter sections. Her assistant now builds the newsletter, often starting with the caption from one of Alyssa’s reels.
- Have a routine for events. She checks a local newspaper and Visit Spokane, and sometimes asks ChatGPT for family-friendly events that weekend. She also screenshots anything she spots on Instagram and emails it to herself.
- Keep the template. “I have not changed a template in mine since I started two years ago,” she said. It works, so she keeps using it.
- Be consistent. A simple newsletter that takes an hour or two and goes out every week beats a beautiful one that takes eight hours and goes out every other month. If weekly feels like too much, start every other week or monthly.
- Test every link. A broken link chips away at trust, and readers may stop clicking.
Alyssa goes deeper on marketing strategies every month in BAMx, where she leads live Hyperlocal Content Lab calls. Members can ask her questions on camera and even have their own content reviewed. Inside BAMx, you can also grab her Spokane Insider newsletter template and her full hyperlocal content training, the Hyperlocal Content Blueprint. Start your 7-day free trial today for access.
