How to Use Email Blasts Effectively
Let’s talk about one of the most effective marketing tools that costs you next to nothing, if anything at all, but can be your biggest money maker if used effectively:
Email marketing.
There is an art to it and, as always, it comes down to knowing your audience. Email marketing fails, and fails badly, if you start blindly emailing people without any personalization.
That’s like throwing spaghetti at the wall just to see what sticks. It rarely works, and let’s be frank, you’re going to annoy your client base.
Want to know how and when to use it effectively and efficiently? There’s a few do’s and don’ts, when and when not’s, and who’s to be aware of!
Once you’ve implemented some of these strategies, you’re likely to see an increase in your client’s interest and ultimately more listings!
Why implement email marketing in the first place?
You may be asking yourself this knowing that you’re getting leads in, and probably paying for lead gen services to continuously add to your roster. Which is amazing!
Simply put, it is key in maintaining and growing your client relationships.
Let’s say you’ve paid all of this money for great leads, but for whatever reason they weren’t ready to make a move quite yet… so you lose touch. Bummer!
If you had a great rapport with them and had a system to keep in touch, you could easily continue to build your relationship with them and have an organic referral system by staying top of mind with clients you already trust.
This is how agents grow their clients exponentially. In fact, my first year of real estate I worked tirelessly sifting through leads to find clients I could help and found several that I not only could help find their next home, but also enjoyed working with.
The next year, my client list doubled… also my closed deals, with half the effort. I received referrals and repeat clients quickly.
How does it work?
There’s a few ways to keep track of your clients and make sure your email lists are the most up to date to the needs of your clients.
First, you’re going to want to create lists and keep them updated when your clients respond. Also, you’re going to create different types of campaigns, but we’ll get to that in the next section.
Here’s a few tools to help you create your lists:
- Mailmeteor – If you’re an agent just getting started excel is a perfectly fine way to get your email marketing campaigns started. You’ll use Mailmeteor through Gmail to send personalized emails to batches of clients through mailmerge.
- Follow Up Boss – A great CRM program that has a robust organizational system for communicating with your clients. You can create multiple lists and bulk email them directly from Follow Up Boss with automated responses.
- Happy Grasshopper – A company that helps design your campaigns for your with content writing, which I recommend if you’re a more experienced agent who knows exactly how to communicate your marketing needs to their teams. Definitely worth exploring as your business grows!
Now let’s get started with a few examples of your lists you can create:
- You can organize by budget and clients who are actively looking to purchase as soon as possible.
- These are the clients that you’ll want to send out more personalized emails alerting them to new houses on the market more frequently.
- If you’re not seeing new houses coming up, it’s worth setting up an automation for a check in to see where they are still, and reassure them you’re actively on the look out for them.
- Keep a list of clients who move frequently
- Pretty straightforward, perhaps you’ve helped them purchase, a quick check in to see how they’re doing once a year, or holiday cards, can help nurture the relationship for when they are ready to sell.
- Lists of clients who have purchased their starter homes
- You can set a reminder to reach out after a few years to touch base with a new listing that would be a good upgrade when they’re ready. This is a great way to stay in touch and reconnect.
- People who have moved from out of town
- A nice way to build relationships is to keep them posted on some community events happening in the neighborhood.
- Occupational lists – Students, Doctors, Lawyers, etc.
- This may seem odd, but these types of professions draw in clients at a certain time of year, who then also move in predictable waves. Once you catch that rhythm in your community you can start setting automated emails to strike up conversation again and check in.
These are just a few examples of how specific you can get in your list creation to stay relative with your clients. Enough to let them know that you care and that you’re always there if they need help, but not too much to annoy them – and always personalized so that they know they are not being spammed.
With these above and beyond methods of communication, you can almost guarantee that you’ll be getting referrals even if these email campaigns don’t result in direct sales. Ultimately, being genuine and thoughtful in your approach will render results one way or another. Check out this guide to get 7 ideas for email marketing content if you feel stuck.
Should you buy your lists?
Unequivocally, no. You should not buy your lists.
It could be extremely enticing to buy bulk email lists to start your email marketing campaigns, but the key to implementing this strategy effectively is genuine connection to promote organic growth for your target audience.
Your copy and content in your email marketing campaigns should not come across salesy at all. Don’t be too pushy with your email subject line. There is no way to avoid that with cold leads, which can ruin your reputation before you’ve even had a chance to connect.
We’ll talk about your content in an upcoming article… so be on the lookout for that soon. That too is an artform.
If you are just getting started and are looking to find new clients there are several lead gen companies that can help get you started. One of my top picks at the moment is:
If you are planning ahead on how to start creating your email marketing lists to build a solid foundation for repeat clients and earn your referrals, I do recommend a platform like Conversion Monster.
What I like about what they offer is lead nurturing. They get cold leads and continue to contact them until they get a response. In other words, there can be a long list of follow up emails, which is great for staying top of mind. When they do make contact they are making sure they are a good lead for you to convert.
So, by the time the new leads get to you they are already more than a cold lead. Your reputation is intact and you can start building your relationship with them right from the start!
In Summary
If you’ve been on the fence about starting email marketing campaigns, I hope that now you can see there are simple ways you can get started without feeling overwhelmed. First things first, just make sure to nail the introduction email. That’s the most crucial part when getting the ball rolling.
In the long run, starting an email campaign can save you a lot of time in building your client lists. Trust is everything in this industry and when you’ve established a relationship with clients you’re working with and they send you a referral.
You’re one step ahead of the game, which makes closing so much easier. You’ll be closer to having leads come to you… and can say goodbye to chasing leads! Doesn’t that sound nice?
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