Automatic lead nurturing, more cold leads converted into closed deals, and 30x ROI... Get all of this and more with these 4 easy steps for real estate drip emails!
If you’re new to the game of online lead generation, one the hardest things to get your mind around is that many of the leads you work and pay to generate… Are NOT ready to do business with you right now… And that’s totally normal! But you do need a specific strategy for how to convert those leads later, when they are ready to buy or sell. And that’s where real estate drip emails come in.
What many agents wonder is… Is email still relevant? And the answer is, overwhelmingly, YES. Email has been the highest ROI direct marketing channel online for a decade.
On average, for every $1 you invest in email, you get $30 back.
30x ROI … Stop and think about that.
One of the other advantages of email is that you own the list. A good email list is an asset to your business that you control. You can move your list from CRM to CRM and continue marketing to those folks.
The same is NOT true of Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media platform. You can’t bring those people with you.
So one of the best ways to maximize the value of your email list is to send automated drip emails.
Once you set these up, your drip emails will build trust and close more leads long-term.
The trouble is…
Frankly, most agents are sending BAD drip emails.
When most agents talk about drip email, what they mean is that they send people a list of homes every week.
Or they pester people with the same “let’s talk this week” email.
Which can work.
Except…
1. Sending lists of homes, with maybe a few sentences of generic email copy, is what every agent does.
Not to mention people can get IDX info anywhere.
So if that’s all you’re sending, you’re not doing anything that sets you apart from other agents.
2. Not every lead is ready to meet with you. A LOT of people who give you their email address are going to be in the initial research phase of their real estate decision, and it may be months before they’re ready to talk to an agent (more on this below).
So, let’s recap: Most agents are sending emails that blend into the crowd or they’re sending emails that are irrelevant to the majority of their email subscribers.
^^^ Those are both bad options.
And there are MUCH better ways to do drip emails for real estate.
Done correctly, you can actively build trust with potential clients over time and position yourself to be the agent they trust when they’re ready to buy or sell.
Let’s get down to business:
NOTE: This article assumes that you have a website that captures leads effectively, and that you have some kind of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform that organizes your leads and allows you to create saved email sequences.
If you don’t have a website yet, check out LeadSites.
If you need a CRM or email service, try these free services: MailChimp, HubSpot
When people give their information to a real estate agent online, it’s going to be for a variety of reasons. If you work with both buyers and sellers, you don’t want to send both groups the same emails.
The help you offer to a homeowner thinking of selling will not be the same help you offer a first-time homebuyer.
That much should be obvious.
But many agents don’t take the time to create separate interest groups (In marketing, this is known as “List Segmentation”).
Different email categories you might consider, depending on how you capture leads on your site, are:
But if you’re just getting started, begin by creating 2 lists: One for Prospective Sellers and one for Prospective Buyers. These are the two core groups you likely work with most
Set these lists up in your CRM now.
So you have your leads grouped by their interests in your CRM. The next question is…
What do you send them?
As we said above, sending IDX info and asking “are you ready to look at houses?” is not the best approach for a lot of people on your email list.
Sometimes these leads need to be nurtured.
This is your opportunity to build trust with these people so they feel comfortable reaching out to you when they are ready to buy or sell.
So what do good, content-driven emails look like for these different groups?
Here are some good real estate drip emails that you can copy, paste, and adapt to your business:
Subject: why your dream home vanished…
<<First Name>>,
If you’ve watched some of the top homes on the market disappear before you could even blink…
You’re not alone.
This is one of the hottest real estate markets in years.
The best homes for the best prices are getting snatched up almost as soon as they’re listed (and sometimes before they’re publicly listed at all).
If you’re set on finding your dream home, there are 3 things you should know about buying a home in a market like this:
Click here to read more [link to a blog post]
Best,
Agent Realtor
Real Estate Company
Subject: how she got an extra 12k
<<First Name>>,
It’s no secret that if you list your home for the right price, it will sell…
Sooner or later.
But what a lot of people don’t know is are THESE 5 SECRETS [Link to a blog post] that can help your home not only sell faster, but for more money.
We just helped a lady in our community sell her home for twelve thousand over her asking price, just by doing a few simple things.
Want to know what they are?
You can read all about it in our latest blog post.
Just click here. [link to blog post]
Best,
Agent Realtor
Real Estate Company
Instead of constantly asking them to list their home with you, or always asking them to go look at houses now…
This builds trust and positions you as the first agent they think of when they are ready to buy or sell a home.
NOTE: This is not a replacement for cold calling, door knocking, or anything else you’re doing to get business NOW. This is your long-term pipeline that converts people later who are not ready to do business now.
Drip emails are all about maximizing the people who genuinely aren’t good prospects now, but likely will be in the future.
Now, the idea of writing a brand new email (and very likely an accompanying blog post) every single week sounds daunting.
But keep two things in mind:
1. Sending drip emails that offer helpful content works.
Because the average purchase cycle of a homebuyer is 18 months. If you can build trust with folks who are in the early research phase of buying or selling a home, you can crush your competition in the long run.
2. It’s work you only have to do ONCE.
Once you create these emails, and any accompanying content, you save them as a sequence in your CRM…
And EVERY future lead gets the same sequence of emails.
You set it up once, and those emails go to work converting leads for you for years to come.
The important thing in the beginning is to just keep writing emails, creating content, and saving everything to beef up your drip system.
Don’t look at it as “Oh my gosh, how will I ever create 100 emails for a drip sequence?”
Look at it as “If I write one drip email a week for a year, I have a year’s worth of marketing that will work leads for me for free, FOREVER.”
The trick to building an effective drip email system is to keep your mind off the up-front time investment, and keep your eye on the long-term payoff (which is MASSIVE).
The exact “HOW” of setting up drip system varies from CRM to CRM. But the basic idea is that once someone is added to your email list, they will receive a pre-determined sequence of emails on a pre-determined schedule.
So, let’s illustrate using the free email service MailChimp as an example.
After logging in, go to the “Automation” tab. You can then select a custom work flow, like this:
As you can see, this allows you to create a custom email series for your business.
You will then create a name for the drip sequence (eg: “Buyers Drip Campaign”), and select the list that these emails will go to (eg: “Buyer Leads”).
You can now create the drip sequence by adding “triggers” and writing emails. So your initial “trigger” will be that someone is added to the list. The next trigger might be that one day has elapsed since they received the first email. The next trigger is that one week has past since the last email, and so on.
Once you set it up, it looks like this:
You can continue adding emails to this chain endlessly and they’ll go out a week apart like clockwork.
And anytime a new lead is added, they’ll get the entire sequence… automatically.
BOOM. Automatic lead nurturing.
Which frees you up to focus on generating more leads and to work with those folks who are ready to do business now.
Once you have sequences of emails that offer value to your subscribers, based on their interests…
Your goal should be to get as many new email subscribers as possible.
The more people you have in your system, the better your automated drip emails are going to work in converting emails into real, qualified leads.
If you built a list of 10,000 email subscribers and put them into your drip campaigns for 12-18 months…
What would your business look like if only 1% of that list did business with you each year?
Would an extra 100 highly qualified leads who already know, like, and trust you make a difference in your business?
By leveraging content-driven real estate drip emails, it’s not a stretch to say you could build a six or even seven-figure business over the next 24 months.
We work with agents daily who are leveraging drip emails to multiply their businesses, year over year.
And you can do the same thing!
So what are you waiting for?
Go schedule your real estate drip emails RIGHT NOW 🙂
Looking to get better in real estate? These real estate blogs will teach you everything from social media marketing to advanced business building tactics.
Looking for the perfect expired listing letter templates to send out? I break down the exact top producer followup system that will get you results now.
Need more real estate listings but sick of cold calling? Here are some bullet proof ideas to get more listings this quarter without picking up the phone!
Let’s boost your lead gen.
Connect your local MLS to Facebook to promote all properties in your MLS or create any specific niche catalog of listing you want to sell using dynamic Facebook ads. Here are just some of the ways you can use these new types of ads to stand apart from the competition: