Real Estate Industry Discussion
Real estate businesses are essentially marketing companies. Unlike many other industry sectors where there is a physical, tangible product that is produced and distributed, the real estate sector relies on providing services to clients to sell property between themselves. Only in extremely rare occasions will a real estate company actually own the asset that it is selling. Given the fact that real estate is a marketing business, and combining that reality with the remarkable advantages of reach and impact—as well as superlative ROI that only email marketing can provide, it is not surprising that 85% of all real estate businesses are either currently engaging their buying and selling clients through the power of email marketing or intending to do so in the near future.
Email marketing should act as the core of your company's overall online promotional strategy, which must include social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. By harmonizing and synchronizing the various internet visibility opportunities available to you, you will engage your clients on a wide variety of online platforms and ensure that your company draws the lion's share of the vast and lucrative business that is awaiting out in cyberspace.
The various types and aspects of promotional campaigns that can be integrated as a part of your real estate email marketing strategy are limited only by your imagination.
Link to Your Blog - You can tie in your
email newsletter content to your blog in order to provide additional valuable information to your clients. Use the newsletter as a tease to get your subscriber to click through to your blog to increase your traffic and further inform your clientele.
Open House Events – Provide an online open house invitation via your email messaging to inform your buying clients of a highlighted property and list the most attractive selling points, including photos and perhaps even an audiovisual presentation like a 360 tour.
Neighborhood Reports – Focus on up and coming neighborhoods and communities within your sales territory that may be well kept secrets or "the next hot thing." Your clients will appreciate obtaining emailed insights based on your experience that they can profit from.
Home Improvement Tips – Prior to placing any property for sale, there are countless activities that can improve the curb appeal and the internal allure of a home that can be done quickly, easily and at low cost. Inform your selling clients how they can maximize the value of their property in your email newsletter and earn their loyalty and confidence.
FAQs – You have been asked the same questions over and over, so why not place them in a Frequently Asked Questions section that you send out as an integral part of your email newsletter?
Associates – You have nurtured relationships with the best local home inspectors, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, contractors, movers, lawyers, accountants, and other specialized professionals, so share these contacts with your subscribers through your email marketing, promoting them as a team that stands ready to assist them in every aspect of their real estate transactions.
Events – Your real estate company is continually having special events, fundraisers, and other community service occasions, so inform your clients about them through your email newsletter and provide them a special VIP elite pass to various areas or presentations. They'll get free hot dogs and you'll get their business.
Finance – Obtaining a mortgage has never been more difficult, so your buying clients will appreciate learning in your email newsletter about your lending partners who will be more sympathetic than their banker and will work with them to secure the best mortgage terms for their desired property and credit/income condition.
Closing – A closing can be a time of anxiety for first time buyers, so explaining in your email newsletter the process all the way from title insurance to escrow will ease their minds and build trust that you will be with them at every step of the way to assist them through what can be a prolonged and confusing period.
Tuning the content of your
email campaigns to suit the specifics of your office location, your sales territory, and your particular client profiles is critical to achieving success in any real estate business's email marketing program. One of the preferred ways to achieve this level of refinement is to focus on your subscriber list's segmentation. By sectioning up your list's various individual entries according to geographic, demographic, and behavior based segments, you will be able to create extremely targeted content that addresses the requirements and preferences of every section of your client base to a far greater extent.
It is remarkable that three out of every five real estate businesses engaging their clients through email marketing fail to segment their lists at all. They send out exactly the same email newsletter to both sellers and buyers, completely ignoring the fact that these two groups see real estate transactions in a completely different light. The ways to segment your list are effectively endless. You can identify first time buyers in your list and they will require much more basic information than seasoned buyers or even real estate investors. Similarly with sellers, they will vary according to the type and price of property that they have for sale, as well as many other factors that dictate what type of email marketing content is most appropriate for what they are seeking from a real estate company. Once you have identified the actual segments that exist in your subscription list you can proceed to determine and implement the most appropriate incentive rewards for your call to action.
The more engaged and active individual clients you have on your subscription list, the more solid leads will develop and the more property you will sell. Growing your list should be a primary concern and a significant amount of your time and effort should be dedicated to adding new clients to your subscriber base.
It goes without saying that email addresses must be collected by first obtaining formal and unequivocal permission from the client to be placed on your email subscription list. Maintaining your email address gathering procedures firmly on a purely ethical and legal standing will ensure that your list will continue to grow and allow for the important segmentation activities that will drive lead generation and fulfillment of both buying and selling clients, as well as boost the bottom line of your business.
