Email marketing is one of the best ways to improve your brand awareness and secure new business. Even if your lead list is small, sending emails can bring big returns. Real estate marketing firm HomeActions reported much larger open and clickthrough rates for emails it sent to lists of under 200 recipients than those sent to larger lists.
If you want to get leads to your site, reading your blog, and interacting with you in other ways, you’d be hard-pressed to find another real estate marketing tactic that’s as effective. The key to using email to bring in qualified leads, though, lies in learning the core types you need to send your real estate leads.
Keep reading to discover five kinds of emails you have to deliver to your leads.
Newsletters
Do you have a lot of in-depth content on your real estate blog? Share it with the world — and we don’t mean only through social media. The main point of a newsletter is to share recent news and updates with your audience (e.g. your views on the latest housing data or commentary on the local market) and stay top of mind with them. Newsletter emails can consist of the latest posts from your blog, along with any other content you’ve created recently, like ebooks or infographics. Updated landing pages, like ones that describe your business’ value proposition or mention your referral program, are also good to include. Here’s an example of a newsletter from the real estate site HousingWire. Take note of how the site structures its message:
- At the top it brands the newsletter.
- At the bottom the content is clearly laid out and explained.
Given the source’s audience, this newsletter is informative and appealing:
Digests
Similar to newsletters, these emails consist of more content you can promote, but in a quicker, slightly more digestible manner. Digests focus more on sharing the most important and pertinent links. Consider digests the optimal email type for your leads who don’t have a lot of time to read through newsletter emails.
In your case, you could send this email every week or every two weeks and include links to all of the new content you’ve created.
Don’t feel you have to limit yourself to your own blog posts, though: You can share content from other relevant sources you think would be of great interest to your audience — think the National Association of Realtors’ latest home sales report or an extensive blog post from an industry insider.
Yummly’s digest email below is a prime example of how to entice readers to click. Of course, it helps when the images included are of delicious foods. Still, take notice of how well the recipe site formatted its email, including attractive imagery and short, to-the-point copy that provides all the recipient needs to know to enjoy and consume the content in question:
Promotional Emails
Other emails can be used to nurture leads through the sales funnel, like promotional emails.
For instance, if you have a local market report that buyers and sellers would find helpful with their property decision-making, offer it to them via email. Post a link to a landing page with a form that allows them to download the content. Just be sure to optimize your landing pages so those interested know how to easily and quickly get the content. And for your email, make the link text enticing too. Something like “Click here to get my report” or “Download my report now” — phrases with actionable language — are great ways to get clicks.
Uber has done amazing email marketing. Take the example below from the company: It relays info about a promotion in the quickest possible way, but the business uses a relatable, conversational tone and optimizes the rest of the email perfectly to grab readers’ attention and interest:
Specialized Emails
Whether it’s a tie-in to a major event like a the Super Bowl, a holiday-themed message wishing your leads well, or commentary on a new social trend, there are numerous options for you to take advantage of timely events.
Even if it’s not closely related to your business (or at all), you can still capitalize on the popularity of a special day or social trend. Research the topic in question and think carefully about how you can tie it to your real estate business.
For instance, when the Super Bowl — an event that gets several millions social interactions — is around the corner, think of ways you can use the game to your benefit. An infographic with real estate stats and a football theme could gain you recognition and prove memorable with leads.
Spotfiy did an impeccable job of setting up an email campaign centered around the buzz for the Big Game:
Transactional Emails
This email is contingent upon sending the ones above. For example, if a lead signs up for your email newsletters, takes an action on your website, or requests information of some kind, send them a transactional email — also commonly referred to as a thank-you email.
Show your leads you appreciate their engagement. Just be sure to send personalized thank-yous to your leads as opposed to bulk mailings. Experian data shows personalization leads to far more clicks and a higher clickthrough rate for businesses than mass emails that are more general in nature.
The folks behind a biannual music event, the Boston Calling Festival, not only thank their audience via email, but even offer a reward to show their appreciation to those who took an online survey they sent out. Small, personal touches like this don’t go unnoticed by consumers, including buyers and sellers.
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