[EMAIL ETIQUETTE]: 5 Easy Ways to Engage With Leads Like You Make New Friends
Running a successful customer engagement program mirrors actions someone should take when making new friends. In these 5 engagement strategies, you can ensure that your program has a human component to help you gain (and keep) new city dwellers visiting your website and dropping you an email.
1. Welcome newcomers
Imagine showing up to a party and nobody turns to welcome you. At best, you will be wondering if you’re at the wrong party and at worst, You’ll be worrying that you did something to make yourself unwelcome.
That is not how we want your internet leads to feel after they dropped you an email and opt-in to receive your newsletters! Never make your leads scramble to pick up in the middle of an ongoing conversation — have processes in place to shoot them a message acknowledging that they are new here and tell them what to expect next from you.
An easy welcome message formula:
Remind them who you are and that they opted-in to receive messages from you let them know how often you’ll be in touch (set proper expectation) Hit them with a Call To Action that’s meaningful for you (Open House Tuesday, see what’s new, etc.)
My favorite welcome CTA is to invite your new leads to ask more about you, personally and or your track record:
Subject Line: Hey, you’re new here…
2. Take an interest in them
Depending on your ads, you may have online internet leads coming to you for different reasons. A quick Zillow example. When I connected with an agent, he immediately followed up with a strong welcome email (I’m happy to have you? *😄*) that invited me to tell them why I reached out.
Who am I? What do I want out of this exchange? Well, I’m glad you asked:
Subject Line: Welcome to our home
Not only does this ensure that as an agent I’m getting the right content and I’m having a great experience with my leads, but it’s a way to ensure that I’m also engaging with the messages. Nothing is worse than to send a ton of messages that nobody engages with.
3. Follow up when they go M.I.A.
When you have a friend you haven’t heard from, you check in on them, right? The same goes for your leads. Continually sending messages to leads who are not engaging tanks your etiquette credibility, so it’s best to address it head-on.
Send re-engagement notes asking what’s up and give them an option to take action such as tell you more about the status of their search even re-schedule showings, share feedback on why they may be disappointed/not interested in continuing to receive your messages, connecting with you for representation.
Subject Line: Are you ok?
4. Say you’re sorry!
You’re going to mess up — it’s inevitable! So what do you do when things head down south? Just own it. Depending on your mistake, it may then require an unplanned message expressing an apology for your mistake. And if you feel like it was off-putting for your leads, it may require a small token of apology.
Subject Line: Hey Liliane, that’s my bad…
5. Remember their birthday
Finally, and this may be a no-brainer, but an easy way to make sure your new leads feel special is to take note of and remember a seemingly fleeting detail about them — such as their birthday!
Subject Line: Make a Wish, Liliane
If you can make it applicable to your business as an agent or as a broker with a specific message, that’s even better!
Bonus Tip: Make new friends, but keep old ones
Attaining new leads who becomes eventually customers is a great goal, but losing your existing ones is going to make substantial growth more difficult. Make sure that you’re keeping an eye on your engagement rates.
Though it’s a great thing to get unengaged leads off of your list, make sure it doesn’t reach a point where it acts as a red flag that you’re consistently not delivering the time or care, homebuyers and city dwellers want from you.
Takeaways
A well-rounded customer engagement program treats a lead like the humans they’re. We like to feel welcome, appreciated as individuals, that our absence is noticed, that we receive an apology when warranted, and occasionally, we like to feel special and celebrated.
Whether you’re making new friends or hoping to gain and keep a loyal base of contacts as an agent, take the approach listed above when building your best practice or as we call it your killer etiquette. Sooner rather later relationships you start should be built to last!
Our passion is to help real estate professionals be more efficient and productive. We’re tackling real estate’s hard problem by creating relentlessly helpful habit-forming products that helps them understand and be responsive in seconds.
