Email marketing can be a cost-effective marketing strategy for Realtors. You can set up a monthly email marketing campaign for about $20.00 a month if you do it yourself.

Unfortunately, the spammers have given legitimate email marketing a bad name. But if you do it right, email marketing can be a very effective marketing tool.

Because of this, you probably haven’t taken a serious look at how you can use email marketing in your real estate business. My recommendation is that you  investigate how you can use email marketing to help you attract even more sellers and buyers.

When executed properly, email marketing is more cost-effective than bus benches, head shot photo ads in newspapers and mailing flyers. Yet the majority of realtors are not taking full advantage of email marketing.

So how do you go about setting up an email marketing program?

I suggest you do some research and then develop a written plan. Things to consider are: who do you want to email? What type of content do you want to email? How often are you going to send your emails?

Your current clients and prospects would be good targets for your email marketing program. It’s important that you send information that will bring value to peoples lives and provide relevant content to buyers and sellers.

 

How will you send out your emails?

You can use an email program like Outlook because it’s free, but I don’t recommend it. To start with, Outlook will only allow you to send out about 60-80 emails at a time, this can be a real pain if you have hundreds of email addresses. I’ve been down that road, it’s very inefficient and time consuming. I recommend you subscribe to an email marketing service like I use to send out this newsletter. There are hundreds of them, go online, do your research, the investment is well worth it.

 

How to you build your email database?

Building your email database is critical. You should build your own “Opt-in” email list. Opt–in basically means building your list with people who give you their permission to send them your marketing message by email. If you have a list of your current customers/clients, you probably have their email addresses. If you do, ask them if it’s ok for you to send them information via email. Give them an incentive to say yes to your request. I recently completed a Valentine’s Day promotion for a client that netted 83 email addresses in three weeks.

Implement some kind of strategy to encourage visitors to your website to voluntarily leave their email address before they leave. An ethical bribe in the form of a free newsletter has proven to be effective in many cases. Contests,  sweepstakes and free online home evaluation will work too. It’s important that you assure people that you will not sell, rent or share their contact information with anyone and follow through on your promise. You’re trying to build trust with  past clients and potential buyers and sellers.Breaking your promise is not a good way to start.
 

What should you email to clients and prospects?

The newsletter route is definitely a good way to go. Make sure you give specific, compelling reasons why people should subscribe to your newsletter. Tell them what they will receive when they subscribe. And give them the opportunity to unsubscribe whenever they want. E-flyers, e-postcards and sales letters are all options that you can implement for a reasonable cost. Remember to send content and offers that are relevant to your target market. Informative articles, audio and videos work well.

Email marketing is effective at building relationships, keeping in touch with your current clients and converting your prospects to clients. The cost is so reasonable that every agent should look into adding email marketing to their marketing mix.

If you need some help setting up your email marketing program, give me a call with all of your questions.