In spite of all the new digital advertising opportunities available, email marketing continues to be the most powerful, cost effective way to generate and nurture real estate leads. In fact, according to a study completed last year by DMA National, email has an average ROI of $38 for every $1 spent!
It’s clear that email is an effective way to reach your real estate leads and past clients. It’s affordable, keeps you top of mind, builds rapport and reminds your contacts of who you are and how to get in touch with you.
If your real estate email marketing isn’t performing as well as you’d like it to, there is hope! Let’s explore a few reasons why your email marketing may be failing.
Reason #1: You don’t do email marketing.
Let’s get this one out of the way right off the bat. There are an alarming number of real estate agents who are not leveraging the power of email marketing (or reaping its benefits). Maybe it’s on the list of things you just haven’t gotten around to yet, but it’s time to prioritize this valuable form of communication!
According to a marketing study by McKinsey & Company, email is 3 times more likely to result in lead conversion than social media. Unlike other online marketing methods, email allows a direct-to-client conversation that is easily personalized and customized.
Email is also effective at building and nurturing long-term relationships, which helps convert leads to active clients. Email marketing helps you remain top-of-mind with prospects and former clients alike. Retaining the business of former clients, and obtaining referrals from them, is the best way to make your real estate business less reliant on outbound marketing. However, repeat business and referrals can only happen if your clients remember you, and if they can easily find you! Email marketing helps solve this problem.
Best of all, email marketing is affordable, whether you are a new real estate agent or a seasoned pro. This enables you to conduct marketing with consistency, which is the key to lead conversion. If you aren’t making email marketing a priority, you’re missing lead generation and commission opportunities.
Reason #2: You rely on your own words.
Some Realtors assume that setting up email marketing is a daunting and time consuming task. They think it means drafting multiple email campaigns, tirelessly proofreading, and sending them out individually. While some real estate agents have a flair for writing, it isn’t necessarily everyone’s cup of tea. The idea of writing real estate email campaigns intimidates some agents and prevents them from getting started, or has them using less-than-ideal email messages.
The good news is you don’t have to rely on your own words to be an effective email marketer! Make use of drip marketing plans included with your real estate CRM. Use your real estate contact management system and assign your contacts to a pre-designed drip marketing campaign. This helps you automate your email marketing because emails will be sent at various time intervals on your behalf. In addition to using drip marketing plans to keep in touch with prospects and clients, you can use your real estate contact management software to send out a professionally designed and written e-Newsletter. This saves you time because you don’t have to design an e-Newsletter, write articles for it, and send it out every month.
The email campaigns included with IXACT Contact are written by professional real estate marketing experts, so you don’t have to write a word! For Realtors who would like to edit the email content, it’s easy to make changes to individual emails or campaigns. Don’t let writing hold back your email marketing. Use professionally written content that consistently performs well and will generate the response you want.
Reason #3: You aren’t capturing and emailing leads in time.
One of the cornerstone concepts in marketing is to connect with a new lead as soon as possible. If a real estate lead fills in a form on your website, how quickly are you able to get in touch with them? You may be on the road, doing a listing presentation, or even sleeping.
Over 88% of real estate prospects expect a response from a Realtor within an hour (RETechnology) but these expectations are rarely met.
If you email a client days after you initially received the lead, your email is likely to fail. Because that lead could already have connected with another Realtor.
To increase the success of your real estate email marketing, close the gap between lead inquiry and response. It’s easier than you may think! With automated lead capture, your new leads can be automatically added to your real estate CRM, and assigned to a nurture campaign where they will immediately receive email messages from you. All of this without you manually entering the lead and typing an email!
When your emails are received promptly, they have a better chance of turning your lead into a real estate client. Use automated lead capture to increase the success of your email messages, while lightening your workload, thanks to automation.
Reason #4: You don’t have insight into what’s working.
Perhaps you’re a Realtor who is already sending good emails and monthly e-newsletters, but you still aren’t seeing the level of success from your email marketing that you desire.
Knowledge is power. When you can see how your real estate email marketing campaigns are performing, you can better understand the types of emails your contacts respond to and which they don’t. Then you can use this information to optimize your email marketing strategy going forward.
Email Campaign Reporting is a powerful feature from IXACT Contact CRM to help you understand more about your campaigns. You’ll see what’s working and what isn’t so you can hone your campaigns over time for maximum effectiveness.
With this reporting feature, you’ll gain insight into total and unique email opens, clicks, bounce-backs and more! These statistics can let you look at your email strategy as a whole, allowing you to see not only how many people are opening your communications, but interacting with them as well.
Armed with this insight, you’ll understand which email messages and subject lines perform the best, and when is the optimal time to send emails to your contact list.
When you see exactly who clicked on the call to action link in your email, you’ll be able to identify your potential hot leads, and reach out to them to connect.
Understanding which email messages are performing well and who is responding to your emails gives you a level of insight that can revolutionize your real estate marketing.
Now that you understand some of the reasons that your real estate email marketing might be failing, you know what changes to make.
IXACT Contact real estate CRM can help you achieve success with your email marketing. Try it out- it’s completely risk-free! Start your 5-week FREE trial today!
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