It’s common knowledge that real estate email marketing is an effective way to connect with new leads and nurture existing clients. However, many real estate professionals miss out on the power of email marketing for real estate by sending simple, generalized content to their entire list. The right email marketing tools and strategies can help convert leads and build a loyal, engaged audience more effectively.
Here are nine of the most important email marketing tips for real estate professionals:
The first step to creating the best real estate email marketing strategy for your business is finding the right platform. There is a number of email marketing software that can help you build a variety of email campaigns and use this channel as an integral part of your sales funnel. Prices for these tools vary depending on the services you’re using and the number of lead contacts you have, so make sure to research the best email marketing software and consider the features most important to you.
Here’s a comparison of some of the best email marketing software for real estate:
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Best For | Professionals wanting a large library of templates and a variety of robust features | Agents wanting to start with an affordable, easy-to-use platform with automation capabilities | Individual agents or small teams wanting a free tool for basic email creation capabilities | Agents or small teams wanting an affordable email platform with basic features for large contact lists |
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Starting Price | $9.99 per month | Free | Free | $7.49 per month |
Read More | Visit HubSpot or Read our Review |
2. Establish a Consistent Email Schedule
When you send a personal email, you typically write it out and send it immediately. However, email marketing for real estate agents should be handled much differently. The emails you send should be created in advance for leads at every stage of the sales cycle. Creating and implementing real estate email campaigns with a strategy will help you send emails consistently and effectively.
For example, the majority of successful real estate agents start by setting up a “welcome sequence” that is automatically sent when a new lead subscribes to their newsletter or opts in for an incentive, like a free home valuation or market report.
A “welcome sequence” is designed to introduce you to the new contact and build trust with them. It can be any number of emails that are sent in regular intervals but typically consists of more emails than usual sent in a short period of time, like one email per day for four or five days.
Having this automated sequence prevents you from scrambling to reach out to new contacts at all hours of the day. Plus, welcome emails have an open rate of 46% across all industries, as well as four times the click rate and 23 times the average conversion rate of all other marketing emails.
Beyond your welcome email or sequence, determine what email frequency your audience prefers. There is no formula to calculate exactly what works best for your unique email list, but most of your contacts will not want to receive a new email every single day. Research varies, but the largest percentage of marketers say that sending weekly emails is most effective for them. Since every real estate agent’s audience is different, you’ll have to use trial and error to determine what gets the highest engagement from your audience.
Pro tip: To start crafting emails that engage your audience, download our free real estate email marketing templates.
3. Keep Email Marketing Campaigns Relevant With Segmentation
Even though you may think real estate market reports are extremely interesting, some of your potential clients may not. In fact, contacts who are interested in this information as they consider buying or selling their home may even change their mind and delete your market reports after they’ve finished the process. This is why one of the most important elements of a successful email marketing strategy is customizing your emails for every type of reader you have. In the world of email marketing, this is called segmentation.
Segmenting your email list means dividing it into groups, like potential buyers vs potential sellers. This allows you to continually create relevant emails for every person on your contact list. For example, here are some ideas of the type of email content that would best fit different segmentations:
- Hot seller leads: Examples of homes you have sold above the asking price or in unique circ*mstances
- Hot buyer leads: New listings that fit their wishlist, plus examples of high-competition homes you helped past clients purchase
- Current clients: Market updates, new listings
- Previous buyers: Seasonal home maintenance tips
- Recently closed clients: Check in on questions about their mortgage, neighborhood, or home maintenance
4. Use a Variety of Email Campaigns
Another way to keep emails engaging and relevant to every contact is by using different types of email campaigns. For example, if you only send a weekly newsletter, it will lose its appeal to clients after a few weeks. By sending market reports, birthday and anniversary celebrations, specific follow-ups, and a variety of email types, your emails will stay interesting and engaging to your leads. The main types of realtor email marketing campaigns include the following:
- Drip campaigns: These are automated email sequences that are often triggered by a user’s behavior, like visiting your website, searching your listings, or clicking a blog post link. This is the most common campaign type because it is fully automated and highly relevant. To learn how to create your own drip campaigns, see our article on How to Create Successful Real Estate Drip Campaigns.
- Targeted campaigns: Targeted email campaigns are highly specific to a subset of your leads. This helps you send extremely relevant and personalized campaigns that maximize conversions. Send targeted campaigns to leads segmented by location, interest, or even lead generation source.
- Event follow-up campaigns: After hosting an open house or real estate event, use the opportunity to connect further with each attendee by sending a follow-up email. You can easily automate these emails, but make sure to write them carefully so recipients feel that you are personally connecting. Start by using our open house follow-up email templates.
- Referral or testimonial request campaigns: Your previous clients are the most likely sources of referrals and repeat business, so don’t forget to keep in touch. Continue communicating with them via email, and regularly ask them for a testimonial or new referrals.
- Birthday and anniversary email campaigns: Be sure to add each client’s birthday and anniversaries into your real estate customer relationship manager (CRM) and/or email management platform. Create an event campaign to automatically send an email to each lead on their special day and check in with them. This can help them feel remembered and build your connection.
- Cold campaigns: Unlike other campaign types, cold emails are sent to people who did not voluntarily join your email list and may not have even heard of you before. This includes sending introductory emails to new buyer leads, FSBO (for sale by owner) leads, or expired listing leads. This can be an effective real estate lead generation strategy, but make sure to read your state’s spam laws before sending cold emails.
Segmentation tools in Constant Contact (Source: Constant Contact)
According to research from HubSpot, segmenting is the single most effective email marketing strategy. However, it can get confusing if you don’t have the right tool to sort, track, automate, and adjust your contacts and segmented lists. For example, Constant Contact offers an automation feature to help you pull first-sale or birthday dates from your online forms or your customer relationship manager (CRM) along with a predesigned template.
In addition, its drag-and-drop email builder makes it easy to create and schedule emails of all types with personalized greetings and special offers for each contact automatically. Start using Constant Contact for free today.
5. Present a Call to Action
One of the most important tips when using email marketing for real estate is always to include a call to action (CTA). Even when your email’s primary purpose is not to make a sale, CTAs invite readers to take some kind of action and further engage with you. Keep the CTA relevant to your email and easy for your lead to do—like clicking a button or sending a quick message.
For example, this sample email from Zillow provides multiple calls to action for both homeowners and homebuyers. This email targets people who are getting ready to purchase with “See What You Can Afford” and potential sellers with “What’s That Home Worth?” The formatting of these calls to action makes it extremely easy and appealing for house hunters, homeowners, and potential homebuyers to learn more about specific questions they most likely already have.
Example of real estate email CTAs from Zillow (Source: HomeSpotter)
Here are a few other examples of what CTAs could look like:
- Connect on Social Media
- Visit Your Real Estate Blog
- Search for Listings on Your Website
- Watch a YouTube Video
Social media CTA example
(Source: Email from Matin Real Estate)
Example CTA to real estate blog post
(Source: Really Good Emails)
Example of a real estate email CTA to website listing search (Source: Donna Kerr Group)
Example of an email CTA to YouTube (Source: Email from Matin Real Estate)
6. Create a Variety of Engaging Content
When you’re creating any kind of content for your business, focus on the needs and interests of your audience instead of your own. The best way to do this is by creating a variety of content instead of sticking only to market reports or new listings.
Don’t be afraid to inject your unique personality into your emails. Even for current buyers and sellers, receiving the same type of newsletter or report every few weeks will quickly become boring. Spice up your newsletter with fun local events, funny real estate memes, and reviews of new local restaurants. While you should maintain professionalism, using humor can be a powerful way to build genuine connections and find common interests.
Real estate email infographic example (Source: Grafitify)
Real estate email with design and decor tips (Source: MailBakery)
Real estate infographic with neighborhood details (Source: Twitter)
Real estate email with a testimonial (Source: Flyer Co)
Real estate market report example (Source: Regent Property Group)
Real estate email with just sold property details (Source: Etsy)
Real estate email with new listings (Source: GetResponse)
Sample real estate email with open house invitation (Source: Canva)
Real estate email with engagement survey (Source: MailBakery)
Example email with real estate-related news article (Source: Mailerlite)
Tab through the images above to see examples of email real estate marketing idea topics and email types that you could send, including the following:
- Infographics
- Home improvement or maintenance tips
- Neighborhood spotlights
- Reviews and stories from previous clients
- Market data
- Recent sales information
- New listings
- Open house invites
- A fun house-related survey question
- Mortgage news and advice or interesting local market information
Email templates in Canva (Source: Canva)
An easy way to engage your audience is by creating unique, eye-catching, branded graphics with Canva. Canva is a graphic design tool with thousands of templates for infographics, reports, social media, emails, and everything in between. Even if you don’t have graphic design experience, the templates and customization options will make it easy. Plus, Canva is free to use.
Pro tip: Make sure that you select email templates that are branded in the same way as your other real estate marketing materials. This helps build brand recognition across multiple marketing channels, including emails, social media, and direct mail.
7. Include Testimonials
Since the primary goal of email marketing is to build your business, regularly including testimonials from clients is an ideal way to build trust. In fact, 98% of consumers in 2022 searched for reviews to determine the legitimacy of a local business. By including reviews in emails that are already unique and engaging, you can build a strong foundation of trust and familiarity.
As you grow your business along with your real estate broker email list, make sure you ask clients to leave testimonials in a specific location. Since online reviews carry so much weight, consumers also view reviews on specific platforms differently. Recent research shows that 87% of consumers used and trusted the reviews on Google over every other review platform.
This is especially important in real estate since Google uses local services ads to promote real estate agent profiles. Make sure to optimize your Google Business Profile and ask all clients to write their reviews on your profile. Then, you can share reviews directly from Google in emails to further prove your authority and trustworthiness to leads.
Pro tip: Thinking about leveraging Google to generate leads and build brand recognition? Start by reading our guide to Google ads for real estate.
8. Be Authentic
No one likes to be thought of as a dollar sign, so there is no quicker way to end up in someone’s trash than constantly pushing for a sale. While your emails should include CTAs and invitations to open houses or new listings, that shouldn’t be the primary focus of every email you send. Remember that connecting with your contacts is the most important part of email marketing for real estate. Sharing natural, unpolished content about yourself, your family, or part of your job will help build a connection.
For example, Ryan Serhant seamlessly posts pictures of his family, selfies with his kids, professional presentations, interviews, and property tours on all of his marketing channels. As one of the most famous real estate professionals in the industry, his marketing strategy shows that not every email or social media post needs to be extremely long and strategic—sometimes, you can just show that you’re a regular person with a sense of humor who wants to connect with others.
9. Combine Emails With Additional Marketing Channels
Although real estate email marketing can yield powerful results, it’s never ideal to put all your eggs in one basket. Instead, leveraging emails along with other marketing channels will expand your reach and impact. Luckily, email marketing in real estate works especially well with a few other key marketing channels, like:
- Real estate text message marketing: SMS marketing is an incredibly effective method of getting your name and message in front of your contacts’ eyes. However, you can only send a small number of characters through text, so it naturally complements email marketing.
- Social media marketing: Similar to email, social media requires consistency for the best results. A strong real estate social media marketing strategy can provide plenty of content that is easily repurposed in your emails.
- Content marketing: One of the best ways to build your email list is by publishing compelling content on your website. From there, you can offer something appealing to potential leads in exchange for their email address, like a home valuation, real estate meeting, or market report.
Real Estate Email Marketing Statistics
Many agents view email marketing as a low priority on their overflowing to-do list. However, email marketing statistics prove that email is still one of the most effective channels for nurturing clients and ultimately generating revenue. Make sure you’re aware of recent email marketing data so you can accurately prioritize email marketing within your sales funnel.
Here are a few key email marketing statistics for real estate agents:
- The average email open rate in the real estate industry is 33%.
- Email converts at significantly higher rates than social media, with studies showing it gets 50 to 100 times more click-through rates of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
- According to Litmus, the return on investment (ROI) of email marketing is 3,600%—meaning it brings in $36 for every dollar spent.
- Segmenting subscribers is the most effective email marketing strategy (HubSpot).
- Segmented emails get an average open rate that’s 46% higher than other marketing emails.
- 82% of marketers get higher click-through rates with personalized emails.
- 81% of people prefer to open emails on their mobile device, and about 70% of people will delete an email if it isn’t optimized for mobile reading.
These statistics show that sending emails doesn’t automatically grow your business. However, developing a strong email marketing strategy helps you generate more leads and build a loyal audience.
Now that you know how powerful email marketing can be, start by following these eight real estate email marketing strategies and tips:
Real Estate Email Marketing ‘Don’ts’ (+ Tips & Tools to Help Avoid)
Email marketing is an extremely effective marketing channel for thousands of real estate agents and brokers, and it’s relatively simple to start. However, there are a few mistakes that can prevent you from getting the best results.
Here are four of the biggest realtor email marketing mistakes to avoid:
The Can-Spam Act is a strict collection of federal laws for advertising and marketing, and violating it can quickly result in tens of thousands of dollars in fees. These spam laws make it extremely clear that you cannot market to email addresses gained without the recipient’s consent.
How to avoid this mistake: Never purchase email lists or add contacts to your database if they have not given their written consent. Another way to ensure that you stay fully compliant with the Can-Spam Act in real estate is to generate leads directly from your website. With a real estate website builder like Placester, you can get a professional, customized real estate website in a matter of hours.
As powerful as email marketing can be, you should also remember that your contacts are likely receiving many other business and personal emails every day. There are approximately 347.3 billion emails sent every day. The quickest way to get your emails ignored is by sending generalized emails that don’t provide any specific value to your contacts.
How to avoid this mistake: Choose an email platform that is built for email marketing, with features like segmentation, tracking, and custom campaigns. For example, HubSpot provides robust customer relationship management (CRM) and email marketing software with extensive customization features. You can easily create A/B tests, automatically customize sections of each email for different members of your audience, and organize contacts into segmented lists.
Even though email marketing is undeniably effective, your emails can easily get lost if they aren’t sent intentionally and consistently. You should be prepared to reach your audience with automated sequences that start as soon as a new subscriber signs up for your list. Even if you wait a few hours to send an email, it’s possible that your new lead won’t recognize your name or that they are already connected with your competition.
How to avoid this mistake: Plan your emails in advance. Create monthly or bi-weekly newsletters and schedule them ahead of time. By mapping out your email plans, you’ll be able to have a long-term strategy and produce higher-quality email content.
Sample real estate automated drip sequence (Source: Real Geeks)
This is easy to do with a real estate marketing platform like Real Geeks, which helps you plan an email campaign visually. This allows you to not only customize each email for the audience but also zoom out and ensure that every email is sent at the optimal time.
Writing and sending emails to your audience is only half the battle of email marketing for realtors. You need to pay close attention to the analytics of your email marketing efforts to accurately understand what’s working and what isn’t working. Start by tracking each email’s open rates and click-through rates, and evaluate what makes certain emails more engaging than others.
How to avoid this mistake: Choose an email marketing platform that provides easy-to-understand analytics. The best email marketing software for real estate will automatically gather data and show you the most important data.
Sample email analytics from Constant Contact (Source: Constant Contact)
For example, Constant Contact provides a click-tracking heat map that shows exactly how readers interact with every email. It also provides recommendations based on the user’s behavior. Using Constant Contact will help you understand your data more easily and create the most effective emails for your business.
Bottom Line
Out of all the potential real estate marketing ideas available to grow your business, email is arguably one of the best, most efficient, and most effective marketing strategies. It’s uniquely suited to nurture potential clients on a personal level and increase brand awareness in tandem with your other marketing strategies.
By intentionally creating topic-specific campaigns, you’ll have a greater chance of securing clients and increasing sales and commissions. Given the success of email campaigns, all real estate agents and brokerages should consider it as part of their marketing strategy.
