Real Estate email marketing
by Tim O'Keefe
Published on this site: July 20th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month...
Do you remember the old School girl/boy game of "Around
the World", or "Around the Bases"? If you got
a kiss you got to First Base. A french Kiss was Second Base.
Read further to find out how to hit a Home Run!
Are You Trying to Hit a Home Run With Your Prospects Without
Asking Them on a Date?
Most prospects are only leaving their phone number about
1/3 of the time. So 2/3 are leaving just a name and email.
If you don't have a strategy to approach this group, you are
losing big time because your cost per lead skyrockets.
If you invest $9,000 a year into your online real estate
marketing campaign. And you get 500 leads a month, your Cost
per Lead is $1.50*. But if you aren't touching your email
only leads, then you are affectively only getting 165. Your
Cost Per Click jumps over three times to $4.55!
*$9000 a year/12=$750 a month.
$750/500 leads=$1.50;$750/165=$4.55)
Email marketing is the most important part of online marketing.
Yet, I find that it is the least understood, and least time
spent by Online Realty professionals. Some agents will spend
all day on their website. They will effort on SEO to capture
a real estate lead. Yet, they never spend the time to strategize
on how to court the opt in subscriber.
Marketing your real estate services thru email is about getting
to the first date. Then the second, and then third. Until
there is a marriage whereby you both swear allegiance to one
another. And of course like many modern day relationships,
this guy or gal will break this allegiance as soon as the
scent of the next "hottie" walks past.
You may not even get to First Base let alone hit a home run.
And your prospect may not even let you go on a second date.
But one thing is for sure you will never get to a sale unless
you start at the beginning. Then you can get to First Base
and second and so on. But most agents try to steal a kiss,
without even asking the prospect out!
Instead of being "easy", think of your prospect
as that guy or gal you have to beg and beg to go out out with
you. And then after all that finessing she only agrees to
go to breakfast! You have to strategize to win her over. You
bring flowers. You do apparant random acts of kindness just
to get to a second date and maybe first base. Before Free
Love, this was called Courting.
Your prospect is not a product of the 60's. They believe
that their loyalty comes with a cost. They want to be courted
and you to prove yourself worthy. And making your listings
available or offering a free report is a nice olive branch,
but this frigid Diva expects some major courting. Do you really
want this gal? Are you going to take care of her in good times
and bad? Then you gotta pah-roove it.
The fact is that the vast amount of your prospects will not
leave a phone number, and most won't take any serious action
for several weeks. As I explained in one of my Ten Commandments
of Online Marketing, people typically come to a real estate
website to compare property. And they just do not know what
they do not know.
At this point there is very little or no loyalty to you or
your website. As long as the info flows, and they can get
your MLS listings they will be happy enough to revisit your
site, if for only the new home listings.
So in order to breed loyalty and afinity you must do a few
specific actions.
Get yourself an Autoreponder/Drip Email system.
These automatic email systems communicate with your prospect
while you sleep. You write your letters and articles once.
And the system will send a mailer on pre-programmed days for
ever. Until your prospect raises their hand and says I am
interested to take this relationship to the next level.
Take your list and segment them.
Why would you segment your visitors? Because they think they
are the most important person in the world. And if you want
them to think you are the most important Realtor in the world,
you have to make them important first.
This goes eons beyond dividing your prospects into buyers
and sellers, and hot, medium and cold. Your email communications
to a 30 year Vet at IBM should convey a unique tone and context
diferent than your typical communication with say a self employed-entreupreneiral
Contractor.
Educate & Interact
When you can get someone to have an "aha" experience,
you often times will etch out a piece of their brain for you.
Congratulations! You have now risen above just Real Estate
agent. You are above the rest because you have become not
just someone who sells real estate. But someone who cares
enough to take the time to care for this person who is the
most important person in the world.
How? Teach them and get them to move along the sales funnel
by bringing them to your site to learn and or get valuable
and free reports.
I am not talking about the typical pre-written Real Estate
articles and newsletters. You need to pour blood and write
from your experience, from your heart. Would you send the
object of your affection a templated love letter from a book?
What would her reaction be? Thats the same reaction you will
get from your prospect.
Your personality and expertise will shine thru and you will
seperate yourself from all the others whom are too lazy to
prove that they are an expert. Which is why when you do it,
you will profit handsomely.
As you get your real estate prospect to interact with you
and your site. You can ask them to reveal more and more until
you have enough information to segment them, and take them
to the next level of your relationship. And then perhaps they
will want to do more than just "go out with you".
Tim O'Keefe is President of Spider Juice Technologies
and is an expert at all phases of online marketing from Search
Engine Optimization, Lead Capture and Converting Leads to
Sales. Tim O'Keefe Spider Juice Technologies http://www.spiderworkz.com,
http://www.houseblogger.typepad.com
310-533-9145
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