4 Secrets Real Estate Agents Use To Nail Email Marketing

“Email marketing”… it’s all in the name, right? It’s no wonder so many small businesses think emailing their databases takes a certain level of finesse and marketing know-how. 

But, what if we told you that most one-man-band marketers are sending email marketing campaigns that are better left to the sales team? These marketing managers are sending emails, organising expos, printing t-shirts… they don’t have time to sift through their sales teams’ email database and make informed changes for the best results.

So, when is it time to hand the email marketing power to sales? The time is now. 

Let’s take a look at how real estate agents have perfected this model in sales.

How Do Real Estate Agents Nail Email Marketing?

Hear us out. They may not sell capital equipment, but they sell something just as expensive: property. 

The commercial real estate market and the capital equipment market might not be exactly the same, but they definitely mirror each other. The buyer’s journey is pretty similar. It takes on average 2 years for a property buyer to make a purchase, and for capital equipment around 3 years.

It’s not like popping to the shops and buying a new pair of jeans. And it makes sense—jeans won’t set you back 500K. It takes time, research and consideration for larger purchases. You’ve got to think about financing and how your purchase will bring you a return on investment. It’s a lot to consider, and it’s not much different from buying capital equipment.

On average, real estate agents achieve open rates of 28.5%, whereas construction industry emails achieve just 21.01% opens. So, how do they do it?

The secret isn’t in the how, but the who.

Real estate agents are constantly cleaning their email lists, adding new prospects and sending through relevant emails to these prospects. In short: they know their clientele and what they’re looking for. That’s why their open rates skyrocket, and how they achieve a higher percentage of sales as a result.

Using The Real Estate Strategy To Sell Your Machinery

Here’s how your sales team can take what real estate agents are already doing to sell your machinery.

1. Realtors send different emails to different people

When you inspect a house, you know it’s expected to add your name and email to their inspection list. This is how realtors know who is interested in local property.

And it’s effective. Nearly all email marketing campaigns work better with list segmentation. According to Robben Media, segmented email campaigns deliver click-through rates that are 100.95% higher than regular “entire list” sends. 

Why? List segmentation is a way of targeting your emails to a smaller group of people with the same interest or buying behaviours. This means you’re catering to your clients and taking their best interests into account.

There are a thousand ways you can segment your list, but all you have to do is think about how your clients have behaved in the past. Want to know more about how to do it? Check out this article.

2. They nurture prospects and gain their trust

Another benefit realtors have is the ability to establish a relationship with potential clients quickly. They instantly connect with buyers and make themselves memorable.

So, why not have your emails come from your sales team? No one knows your audience better than they do. Your sales team spends all of their time on the phone, visiting and interacting with your customers. They’ve built a relationship, they know your customers and, better yet, your customers trust them.

Customers react best when they receive emails from people they know and trust. Think about it. How do you feel when you receive an email from a random email address? Pretty unimpressed, right?

Compare that to how you’d feel when receiving an email from someone you interact with regularly, have a great relationship with and genuinely trust is sending you valuable information.

There’s a big difference there. That’s why your sales team are the perfect people to leverage email marketing and can even use it to sustain that relationship or maybe even re-engage some customers. 

3. Realtors meet, or exceed, expectations 

As with anything, people have expectations around what they should, or shouldn’t, be receiving. And email marketing is no different.

You need to be sending relevant content to the right people. A real estate agent wouldn’t send a property in Sydney to a prospective buyer looking at homes in Perth, just as you wouldn’t send excavator attachments to someone interested in buying a tractor.

So, you’ve got to meet your clients’ expectations. Which is something all good sales people know how to do. But, that person stuck doing all the marketing won’t be the most experienced at knowing exactly what your customer, Steve from ABC Machinery, really wants, but your sales person, on the other hand, will.

4. Realtors always send from a personal email address

Have you noticed emails from realtors always come from their personal email, and never ‘info@’ or ‘services@’, etc.? 

Turns out, that’s a pretty pivotal part of email marketing that your sales team can leverage.

Campaign Monitor suggests sending emails with personalisation has an 18.8% open rate, compared to 13.1% of those without.

So we’ve established people like to receive emails from people they know.

Having your sales team email their own customers is a sure-fire way to further build the relationship, as long as your sales team are offering something relevant and valuable to your customers.

Using a quick and easy email tool like Machinemail can help your sales team connect with customers and meet their targets. Find out more about sending instant email marketing with Machinemail today.

Sources: benchmarkemail.com, campaignmonitor.com, realtrends.com, robbenmedia.com