CRM Marketing for Real Estate
Detailed description of our CRM campaign for a major contractor: strategies, examples, results
The client is a well-known contractor
The client is a well-known contractor Urban Group. The contractor needs to sell the apartments in 6 residential complexes in Moscow and the Moscow Region. To stimulate sales we’ve built communications with the clients in several channels.
At the beginning of our interaction there were 25 000 email addresses and 500 000 telephone numbers in the database.
We’ve organized the communications
Before cooperating with us, five divisions of the company were sending their emails to one contact base and some managers were sending emails individually. As a result, the subscribers received emails about snow removal, about residential complex holidays, and loyalty program emails. Not many of these were relevant to the subscribers’ interests.
First, we developed parameters that consider a client’s stage of interest before sending him emails. For example, if they have recently become interested in an apartment, they shouldn’t receive the “bring a friend” promotion emails.
We chose Mindbox for emails and collecting data
As there wasn’t a sole platform for all emails in the company, emails were sent via Unisender, SendGrid and several RetailRocket accounts. The main problem with this approach was that data wasn’t accumulated in one place. It was impossible to understand the way the subscribers interacted with the emails: what they read, opened, and what interested them on the website.
Because apartments are a sector where the process of persuading the client is long and difficult, we chose the Mindbox marketing automation system. It can keep the data on users’ behavior on the website and depending on this data it can perform some actions — if a client has been watching the appartements in a particular residential complex,they will get an email about this complex.
We used sms and Viber together with emails
The company has been doing sms before we came on board. The problem was that sms are expensive and they were not connected with other communications, although they could work together with emails.
To send sms we picked a new provider because they were more cost efficient and we could integrate the sms system with Mindbox. Now we send the sms according to the emails.
Aside from that, we set up cascading messaging. First we sent a Viber message, and then, if the message wasn’t received we sent an sms. It helped to reduce the expenses as the Viber messaging is cheaper than sms.
We set up the triggers
All of the clients are on different levels of interest and all of the communications should be built depending on whether they are ready to buy an apartment or not. A person that is only looking for an apartment and is checking different Moscow districts is completely different from a person that has already been in the office to discuss the details of the deal. We set up several triggers flows, which fire depending on the clients’ behavior.
A secret selection of the apartments to collect the contact list
There was an option to subscribe to the promotions on the website:
After subscribing the user got an email with the actual discounts for apartments and the content in the email remained relevant automatically — a manager tagged the apartments with a discount on the site on the client’s side and they got dragged into the email messages.
An abandoned view
When the user is already in the base, Mindbox writes about their actions on the website and we can warm their interest further.
If the user was looking at the apartments on the website, they were automatically sent an email with the last six viewed apartments.
Email and sms messages for those, who’ve visited the office
For those people who have visited the office, i.e. those who are nearly ready to buy an apartment, a mixed email and sms message series turns on. But first, we had to juxtapose the client with a contact in the database. If there wasn’t a contact we needed to add it. We integrated the CRM system with Mindbox in order to do this . When a manager left a mark about the client having been at the office, this event started the messaging in Mindbox. There was information about the residential complex the client was interested in and links to the drone shots of the construction process in the emails and sms. Here is what this series looked like:
And here is an example of an email from this flow:
When the client made a deal or, vice versa, refused it, the messaging stopped.
Subscriber reactivation
For those contacts that got into the base, but haven’t gotten any emails in 10 days, a reactivation email was sent to remind them about the company. But, in order not to tire a subscriber, they could get this email only once.
Loyalty program members email series
Urban Group was offering an affiliate program — those who bring a client get 10% from a deal. For the program members we’ve set up 16 emails about the way the program works, what to do to participate, and what advantages the Urban Group residential complexes have.
Sending promo messages
We were sending promo messages manually. They were very beautiful emails with information about interesting offers, discounts, and a selection of apartments. Here’s one of our email — its topic was New Year sales:
In conclusion:
Email, sms, and viber messages were influencing two parameters: primary and secondary appeals. They had strictly defined criteria. Primary appeal is a new client that hasn’t begun communications with the developer and is showing interest in buying an apartment or is ready to buy it on the stipulated terms in the last 90 days.
Collecting mailing base, promo messages, and abandoned carts were helping collect the primary appeals from the contact base. As a result, the price for a primary appeal attraction turned out to be 5.5 times smaller than budgeted for.
Secondary appeal is a client with the same stable interest in buying an apartment, but in the last 90 days they have reached out to the company. Their number has grown thanks to the email series that was launched after their visit to the office. 4–5% of the general base were converted into secondary appeals.
