What is a Real Estate Drip Campaign?
To put it simply, the term “drip campaign” refers to a method of marketing that real estate agents use in which they send a series of automated emails to individuals who meet certain criteria, like first-time buyers or a buyer in general.
Real estate agents can set custom settings on how many, which emails get sent, and the rate at which they are sent. These automated emails can also be customized to include the recipient’s name (using merge tags).
Drip campaigns allow real estate professionals to widen their network and strengthen the trust that existing leads have in them. It also allows them to more easily identify which leads are hot and should be kept top-of-mind, as opposed to those who are clearly not yet ready to make a move.
Types of Drip Campaigns
The concept of a drip campaign is simple enough, but there are also a few subtypes of drip campaigns, each with its own purpose.
Lead Nurturing
A lead, as you already know, is someone who has been identified as a potential client. The first type of email drip campaign is meant to entice said leads into becoming actual customers or at least begin to engage with you as a real estate expert.
These emails are meant to be enticing by providing a few comprehensive paragraphs to help educate the leads about the specific services offered and more about how their expertise can help them with their real estate needs. These kinds of emails also decrease the need for hand-holding by answering some common questions. The purpose of this email is to convince potential leads to sign up for a newsletter, follow social media pages and visit your website.
Welcome Email/Onboarding
Once you have successfully led potential leads to sign up for a newsletter with the nurturing email, you need to make them feel more welcome at your company by telling them a little bit more about it and why it is that they should choose to do their real estate business with you, as opposed to others.
Auto-response emails are a great way to handle this. Not only does it save the effort of actually sending an email manually, but some surveys have shown that auto-response emails have a higher click-through rate than your typical human-generated email.
Update Emails
Once the lead has committed to receiving newsletters and potentially becoming a client, it’s always a good idea to keep them updated when new listings come up, when any changes to your company or website are made, etc.
How do you Create Real Estate Drip Campaigns?
We’ve established what real estate drip campaigns are and why they’re important, but how do you create real estate drip campaigns? The process isn’t hard, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s easy to get lost. The first step is to find an email marketing provider to send the emails. Then you have to create a drip campaign strategy and design the campaigns. Agent Sauce has some drip campaigns that you can easily customize or simply use as they are written. Your branding is automatically included.
Tips for Creating/Using Real Estate Drip Campaigns
Focus on the Experience, Not Individual Emails
Individual emails are important, but it’s more important to provide the contacts with a pleasant overall experience. When clients sign up to receive email newsletters on your website, they should receive an email follow-up welcoming them and continuing the experience from that page.
Separate your Contacts into Groups
Not all of your clients will have the same needs or expectations, so you can better their experience by separating them into groups using tags based on their needs. From there, you can further customize the emails to fit the groups’ presumed needs. Examples of these groups would be buyers vs. sellers, current vs. previous clients, etc. You can even tag certain neighborhoods or groups that you are involved in to personalize the message further.
Write to an Individual
Rather than writing to the group as a whole, imagine one specific person that summarizes the group and creates the email as though it were addressed to that individual. This makes the email feel more personal, thus enabling you to increase the client-agent trust, which is vital because relationships are one of the most important parts of success in real estate.
Simplify
While detailed designs make for a good design for advertisement emails, simplicity is key for drip campaigns. Simplicity is also good for relationship building, making the email feel more engaging. Simplicity makes it seem more professional without getting robotic.
Deliver on your Subject Line
The subject line is the main deciding factor as to whether or not recipients will read an email or simply delete it. Your subject line should be attention-grabbing, but you don’t want to set up expectations that the email won’t meet. It should be an accurate representation of the contents to come.
Give more than you Ask.
Don’t make your contacts feel like you’re trying to force them into taking action. Instead, give them plenty of information and be patient. Focus on providing them with what they need and keep your requests minimal but specific. Provide more value than you ask for in return.
Be Specific
The more accurately you segment your audience, the more you can customize and tailor the information and guidance provided in the email. This garners more interest and contact engagement as well because you can provide the group with the specific information that they need.
Get Permission
Most people don’t like getting emails they didn’t ask for. Permission is key, and the contacts like feeling like they’re in control. Instead of having website triggers that users are unaware of, offer sign-up forms, text-to-join, and landing page options. Ask prospects and clients if it’s ok to provide them with valuable real estate and housing tips via email. Be sure to offer an opt-out option should they change their mind.
Use the Series to the Contact’s Advantage
Research what the client hopes to gain from signing up for the drip campaign. Different clients will want different things, so test things out and try to pinpoint the most effective method. For example, first-time homebuyers would want help finding a home and tips about being a homeowner, whereas those selling a home would want advice on the market.
Keep in Touch
Lastly, finishing the drip campaign doesn’t mean you should stop contacting readers. You should still keep in touch so that you don’t fade out of the reader’s thoughts. Different contact groups will stay engaged if you provide them with the right content. Ideas for different updates you could consider include property availability, seasonal home tips, bits of homeowner insight, etc.
Wrapping Up
With so many different methods and tips, email marketing can be a great way to generate real estate leads. Agent Sauce makes it easy to create a drip campaign that will bring success. Use Agent Sauce’s platform to easily create and schedule drip campaigns, stay in contact with automated real estate newsletters, and create your own emails that catch the attention of your readers! Learn more about how Agent Sauce can help you with Email Marketing and Drip Campaigns and sign up for a free trial now!
