As a real estate agent, email marketing is one of the most powerful ways to build your business and connect with potential clients. But with the average open rate for real estate emails sitting at less than 20%, it can be challenging to cut through the noise and have your messages stand out.
In this article, we’ll explore 11 highly effective email marketing tips tailored specifically for real estate agents to help you engage your audience, nurture leads, and triple your business.
Whether you’re looking to increase open rates, drive referrals, promote listings, or build better relationships, these proven techniques will transform your email strategy.
Importance of Email Marketing for Real Estate Agents
Email marketing is hugely important for real estate agents looking to grow their business and increase sales.
Studies show that agents who use email marketing effectively generate twice as many leads as those who don’t. What’s more, email converts buyers and sellers at nearly 40x the rate of other outbound marketing channels.
It helps you nurture relationships over time, promote your brand and listings 24/7, segment contacts to deliver targeted messages and automate communications to save time.
Set up correctly, a strategic email campaign can help you earn hundreds or even thousands more in commissions per year. The ROI and overall value offered by mastering this medium can transform your real estate business.
With such a significant impact on lead generation, client conversion, brand awareness, and bottom-line profits, email marketing should be a top priority for every modern agent.
1. Build Your Subscriber List
The foundation of any successful email marketing campaign is a robust subscriber list full of targeted, engaged contacts who have opted in to hear from you.
Yet as a real estate agent, gathering emails can pose a unique challenge compared to other industries. You must become skilled at capturing contact information during open houses, buyer consultations, listing appointments, after transactions – any touchpoint across the real estate journey.
Make it effortless for people to subscribe through tools like signup forms on your website, send in drip campaigns, include them within your email signature, and pass them out via business cards and flyers.
You might also consider giving away listings alerts, neighborhood reports, or market updates in exchange for an email address. Getting creative with lead magnets tailored to home buyers and sellers can work very well.
The larger your list, the greater your impact over time especially when segmented by property type, location, price range, and level of readiness to transact. Devote real effort here before blasting messages out to build potency.
2. Segment by Buyer/Seller
Once you have a healthy email subscriber list, resist the urge to treat all contacts equally. Instead, split your list into buyer and seller segments to deliver content tailored to each audience.
Messages designed for potential home buyers should educate about things like navigating the purchase process, securing financing, exploring neighborhoods, or comparing properties.
Whereas homeowners looking to sell will be more receptive to emails covering recommendations on listing price, staging, tips for faster selling, or market analysis.
Segmenting by buyer and seller status allows you to cater messaging, strengthen relationships, and position yourself as an expert to contacts based on their real estate needs.
This targeted approach can double your email open rates compared to generalized mailings. As your list grows over time, you may consider further segments around lead temperature, location of interest, price range, property attributes, and previous interactions.
Place prospects into buckets that make sense and watch engagement climb. Just don’t overcomplicate things early on. Start with buyer vs seller then expand as your list size expands.
3. Ensure Mobile Optimization
With over 50% of emails now opened on mobile devices, having a mobile-responsive design is no longer optional – it’s imperative. If your emails aren’t formatted cleanly for smartphones and tablets, you risk contacts missing info, not taking intended actions, or worse – unsubscribing altogether.
Test your email templates across iOS and Android interfaces. For most, a fluid hybrid approach utilizing percent-based column widths tends to have the best results. This dynamically sizes text containers based on screen size.
Additionally, enlarging buttons for fat finger usage while checking that background images scale without distortion are wise steps.
You might also simplify design elements to ensure fast load times as spotty cell service remains a reality. Having a mobile-friendly email presence demonstrates tech-savviness and professionalism to buyers and sellers on the go.
Don’t let legacy desktop-centric formatting deter connection attempts made during commutes, open house tours, or client meetings. Go responsive or go home.
4. Personalize Content With Interests
Beyond general buyer/seller status, take personalization further by incorporating known contact interests into your emails. If a lead mentions they’re relocating for a new job or school district, include neighborhood details on commute times or education ratings.
If they ask about updated bathrooms, share listings with modern designs or budget renovation tips. When prospects provide info related to motives for moving, use it. This level of tailored content demonstrates you listen and gives helpfulness that typical blasts lack.
Work these personal details into emails recapping showings, checking in post-tour, sharing new inventory that just listed matching their wants, and nudging when a comparable property hits contingent.
You might set up workflows based solely around interests like movie buffs getting neighborhood theater options; outdoorsy types receiving trail maps; and foodies obtaining area restaurant guides.
Whatever intel received, incorporate it to stand out. Just be sure to track these tidbits closely through your CRM as individual interests pile up. Letting personalization fall by the wayside after initial conversations is a lost opportunity.
5. A/B Test Subject Lines
One of the best methods for increasing email open rates is to constantly A/B test different subject line versions to determine what resonates most with your audience.
For example, you might take a planned message announcing an upcoming open house and create three different subject lines like the ones in the examples below:
- “Open House This Saturday on Maple St”
- “Maple St. Open House | This Saturday 1-3 pm”
- “Free Food & Map at Upcoming Open House!”
Send each version to equal segments of your buyer list then track open metrics to identify the winner.
Subject line testing can be applied to promotional outreach, follow-ups, newsletters, listing updates, and more.
Things to experiment with include: emotional triggers, curiosity gap style questions, urgency-building numbers, client name personalization, targeted content mentions based on known interests, competitive comparisons, seasonal relevance, free offer headlines, and any angle you think could hook more opens.
Just pick 2-3 variables per campaign, try it for several sends to allow data normalization, and then go with the best performer long-term. Keep testing too as preferences change over time.
6. Promote Listings on Social
With over 80% of real estate searches beginning online, having a social media presence is now essential for agents to showcase listings. Yet many fail to maximize visibility by inconsistently sharing property posts or avoiding paid promotion completely.
Savvy email marketing can fix this through dedicated messages and nudging contacts to follow your social profiles for exclusive home announcements in their saved areas, as shown in the example below:
Once a buyer signs up for listings alerts or a seller contacts you regarding representation, send timely notifications urging them to connect with you on Facebook and Instagram.
Organically growing your audience is still wise but paid social promotion can expand reach exponentially. Consider using lead gen forms in paid Facebook/Instagram ads to capture emails from prospective clients as they engage with property posts.
Then use this larger subscriber list for targeted email campaigns around new inventory, open house events, or market trends. Lastly, integrate email signup forms into your social media bios to fuel further growth. Enable channels to work synergistically so outreach amplifies.
7. Welcome and Nurture New Leads
When a promising new lead contacts you, special care must be taken during initial outreach to frame the relationship positively.
- Resist just blasting listings and instead welcome them aboard with an email focused solely on beginning an ongoing dialogue.
- Provide links to useful market guides, homebuyer checklists, or neighborhood insights tailored to their search criteria.
- Follow up this welcome message with helpful content over the coming days before ever asking about representation.
The goal is to demonstrate your breadth of knowledge while nurturing trust and rapport. Once they are engaged, create an automated email nurture track providing listing recommendations, market data, relevant blog content, and community happenings to buyers and sellers alike.
Continue guiding both with valuable info but also clear calls-to-action around meeting to tour properties, compare sale prices, sign agreements, etc at logical points. Making the first touch welcoming and then keeping it educational as relationships deepen works magic.
8. Share Market Updates
Both buyers and sellers alike greatly benefit from consistent market updates covering the latest real estate trends, average home prices, notable transactions, days-on-market metrics, and expert projections on where things are heading.
Share this intel strategically through email newsletters, mid-quarter reports, neighborhood spotlight messages, and listing-specific pricing comps.
Resist simply blasting detached statistics without context, though.
Blend data with on-the-ground perspectives only a local area specialist would know to demonstrate credibility.
For example, rather than stating “The average sale price in the Briarwood suburb rose 5% last quarter”, add unique neighborhood color by saying “Due to the new park planned off Main Street and renovated community center, we’re seeing increased competition and prices in Briarwood rise over 5% since last quarter”.
Adding reasons behind numbers shows a deeper understanding buyers and sellers relate.
Methods for obtaining hyperlocal insights include surveying past clients, monitoring community forums, and maintaining industry connections. Combine statistics with ground-level nuance for maximum impact.
9. Automate Follow-Up Sequences
Top-producing agents leverage email marketing automation to turn one-off conversations into seamless systematic follow-ups at scale.
After each listing appointment, buyer consultation, open house, transaction milestone, and more, set scheduled messaging to reinforce connections made. Build sequences covering the most common post-interaction pain points and opportunities to provide ongoing value.
For example, home sellers will appreciate automated updates around marketing reach, showing feedback, and offering negotiation tips in the days following the listing. Buyers searching within set parameters can receive new property notifications matching their must-haves that just hit the MLS without you lifting a finger.
Taking manual follow-ups off your plate allows you to focus on in-person dealings while ensuring no prospects slip through the cracks unlabeled.
Just be sure to personalize aspects of each auto-email with details from the initial exchange. With the set-it-and-forget capabilities now available, not having follow-up sequences in play 24/7 makes little sense.
10. Track Email Metrics
Understanding email performance through metric tracking is the only way to know what works and what needs adjusting.
At a minimum, monitor opens, clicks, email reply rates, and landing page conversions generated from each send. Dig deeper analyzing the connection between subject lines, content formatting, image selection, calls-to-action, and prospect engagement correlated to days/times emails are sent.
Review statistics not only in aggregate but broken down by segmented buyer and seller lists to identify preferences. If your Sunday evening newsletter produces higher interaction among buyers versus sellers, for instance, tailor it accordingly.
Depending on email provider capabilities, tracking recipient behavior post-send can also prove useful for fine-tuning follow-up timing should clicks occur multiple days after the initial open for example.
If not optimized based on past campaign analytics, future outreach efficacy will remain limited. So embrace your inner data nerd and let insights dictate better buyer/seller conversations.
11. Deliver Value With Each Email
With the average person receiving over 100 emails daily, breaking through the noise requires delivering tangible value and utility with each message sent.
Before drafting your next campaign, shift from a brand-first to a customer-first mindset.
- Determine what useful info the recipient needs most right now based on their stage in the buyer or seller journey.
- Educate home searchers negotiating offers on the pros/cons of escalation clauses for instance.
- Share advice guiding sellers on reality-based pricing during shifting markets.
Ensure subscribers gain something actionable after opening your email – a tip, new contact, refreshed perspective, or added clarity – that genuinely helps in some way. Over time, consistently providing value earns customer loyalty and referrals while lackluster emails are tuned out.
Aim higher than self-serving product pitches in favor of nurturing long-term relationships, demonstrate competency as a trusted real estate advisor, and stay top of mind so you become the agent to call when needs arise. Deliver on expectations through quality content and the rest follows.
Implementing even a handful of the email marketing best practices covered can transform your real estate business for the better. Focus first on growing your subscriber list through creative lead capture and magnets.
Then keep contacts engaged through buyer/seller segmentation, personalization, automation, and consistently valuable content. Master these fundamentals before layering on more advanced optimizations around testing, metrics analysis, and multi-channel synergies.
With a strategic email campaign in place, connecting with next-level leads, closing more sellers and buyers, and exceeding income goals become an achievable reality. Now is the time to take your real estate email marketing to the next level.