Best Practices for Sending Real Estate Marketing Emails
Email marketing for real estate made easy
The general rules of engagement for email marketing in real estate are not much different from those that apply in other industries.
Once you’ve managed to make a fine first impression (not an easy task these days), it’s basically over the hill and boils down to keeping the leads interested and engaged, right?
The truth, however, is that many real estate professionals still struggle to harness the power of email communication.
Especially for agents in new development, marketing emails need to be consistent, on-brand, and engaging in order to keep potential buyers interested in your upcoming development. If you want to make sure your next email campaign is up to scratch, here are a handful of best practices you should observe.
Use Technology to Make Your Job Easier
Nowadays, email marketing is all about using automated solutions that optimize the accuracy and efficiency of your marketing efforts. The real estate sector is no different.
A common email marketing tactic is setting up automated campaigns that will launch when triggered by a specific action. Whenever a potential buyer browses your inventory or scrolls through local listings, the software will kickstart a series of drip emails designed to move that lead down the sales funnel.
For email marketing in real estate, it’s essential that you make full use of such tools and pair them with a CRM solution. Especially in new development, where your team is managing a large number of leads, it’s vital to keep them engaged with correspondence that is relevant to them. Employing technology in your email marketing efforts will help you reduce the time needed for launching and maintaining a successful campaign.
Make sure your CRM solution comes with built-in nurturing tools such as lead segmentation and a scoring system. The CRM should also integrate with or include an email service so you don’t have to transfer information manually between the two.
Another essential for real estate marketers are analytics tools for measuring the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. You should constantly evaluate the performance of your campaigns and see what works for particular groups of leads and what does not. Key metrics include clickthrough rate, unsubscribes, deliverability and open rates.
Employ Different Formats to Drive Engagement
If we were to describe the majority of marketing communications sent out by companies these days, “boring” would probably fit the bill nicely.
Email marketing in real estate is more effective when executed in a series of drip emails. But it’s also very easy to deter prospective customers with uninspiring and long-winded correspondence.
Daily blocks of text focused solely on pushing the sale don’t exactly make leads warmer!
Instead, you should try different formats to make your email campaigns stand out from the crowd. For example, why not set up a Pinterest board and share home-decor tips for leads who are a bit higher up in the sales funnel? Or you could even send out an invitation to a property tour live-stream.
The goal is to offer relevant, interesting content, but not in a transactional manner. By focusing on what your potential buyer would want to see, you can pique their interest and encourage them to purchase with you down the line.
Make Your Email Mobile-Friendly
A 2016 study by Adestra found that poorly formatted emails that do not display properly on mobile devices can end up being deleted within 3 seconds. The subpar mobile experience was also responsible for a 15% unsubscribe rate.
If you don’t want your email marketing budget go down the drain, see that your emails are mobile-friendly and will preserve their structure regardless of the end device. An email building tool like Carpenter has built-in functions to help test responsive email layouts — make sure to preview your emails in both desktop and mobile view for the best result.
Adjust Sizes for an Optimal Experience
Smartphones and tablets are bound by data plans and hardware limitations. If you regularly push newsletters with high-quality photos of your inventory, consider reducing image file sizes for smoother browsing experience. Ask your graphic designer to provide smaller files where possible, or use an online service like tinypng to shrink the ones you have.
You should also increase the size of elements such as CTA buttons (Call-to-Action) or essential links. Test them in the mobile email view to make sure that they are visible and accessible on smaller screens.
Nail the Right Frequency
Finding the right frequency for your marketing emails is tough. Given the especially lengthy nature of real estate sales, it’s difficult to settle on one pattern that will suit leads from different levels of the funnel.
Some customers may expect a weekly update on industry news while others will be satisfied with a handful of interesting upcoming projects or listings once a month. Regardless of the preference, you should keep an open and consistent line of communication with your leads, even if you don’t have a project coming up at the moment.
Personalize Whenever Possible
Personalization has become one of the most important aspects of email communication, and for a good reason. According to Campaign Monitor, segmented campaigns can provide a 760% increase in revenue and stronger relationships with customers.
Whether you choose to introduce your business, follow up after a sale or rekindle leads that have gone stale, personalize your emails with the recipients in mind.
Remember to segment and track leads using a CRM! By keeping your database of potential buyers tidy, you can more easily personalize emails to their preferences. Ultimately, this will help you keep track of the most interested potential buyers, and give you a starting point when you’re gathering leads for the new project launch.
How to Win with Email Marketing in Real Estate
Whether or not you have a development project launching soon, a well-organized email communication plan allows your team to keep in touch with potential buyers and contacts in your database.
Keeping them engaged over the long term via email pays off when you’re looking to build out that contacts database on the new project. Buyers who have been hearing from you for the last little while, who remember your company brand, and have positive associations with you, are more likely to reach out, easier to manage, and overall quicker to close.
This blog was written with Dawid Bednarski, freelance copywriter and blogger at OctoScribe. When he’s not writing about tech, he’s enjoying the simplicity of analog photography and daring bike trips with his wife.
Do you love or hate email marketing? Let us know in the comments!
