What Agents Should Know About Email Drip Campaigns

By Realty Times Published Jan 11, 2022 10:56 am

Email marketing is one of the most important things to turn prospects into your long-term real estate clients. People use email for up to six hours a day, so they’re constantly interacting with it. However, that doesn’t make it easy as far as a marketing strategy.

That nearly constant access to email is actually what can make it more challenging—people are constantly hit with messages from every direction. They’re discerning about what they decide to engage with.

As a real estate professional, your goal with email marketing should be to make yourself stand out above the noise.

One particular approach to email marketing is using a drip-email campaign, which we talk more about below.

What is a Drip Campaign?

Drip campaigns are aptly named because they’re emails sent at regular intervals, or the messages may be triggered when a lead takes a particular action, like replying or clicking a link. Therefore, they’re sent as a drip.

For any given action, you can decide how many emails you want to send. You can determine the rate you want to send them, and even though they’re automated, you can still personalize them with details in a targeted way.

Drip email campaigns are an excellent part of a strategic automation plan.

The drip is slow and steady.

Why Should You Use This Type of Email Campaign?

Using drip campaigns, you turn prospects into buyers or customers into long-term, loyal clients. You can also re-engage an otherwise dormant audience. You’re building a deeper relationship with drip campaigns.

You can connect with the right audience at the right time, depending on where they are in their journey, but it’s also something that’s on autopilot for you.

Developing a Strategy

If you’re committing to drip campaigns and upping your email marketing game in 2022, there are some things to keep in mind as you build a strategy. You want to plan it around your client’s journey.

It would help if you didn’t try to push every lead into making a purchase right away. Instead, you want to make sure you’re sending emails that will resonate with leads regardless of the stage they’re in, in their individual journey.

When you’re strategizing, first, consider segmentation.

You’ll need to separate the leads on your email list, so you’re sending relevant information depending on the audience segment someone falls into. For example, you might have previous buyers, previous sellers, and groups for leads depending on the source.

The next significant consideration is timing. It would help to choose how often you want to send emails to any given segment in your list. You’re not going to send a daily email, particularly if the segment you’re sending to isn’t ready to buy.

A third factor is the use of event-driven triggers. These triggers might include someone filling out a form on your website or clicking a link on an email you sent in the past.

You’ll need a tool like Mail Chimp or Constant Contact to start creating and sending out drip marketing campaigns.

As you’re beginning, it can be overwhelming, so a good starting point is the most valuable segment you have within your more extensive audience. The most valuable audience will be the people you’re most familiar with. For example, maybe you start with people you’ve already closed as a client.

As you focus on one particular group, you can start to answer the questions you know for sure they have, making the campaign relevant.

Be Mindful of the Entire Experience

With drip campaigns, you want to be mindful of the entire experience you’re creating for the people receiving the emails, rather than just thinking about each individual email in a vacuum.

For example, what will their journey look like as they open each of your emails, and how will those messages relate to one another?

Finally, you want each series to achieve a specific goal particular to each segment. For example, if you’re creating a series of drip messages for potential first-time homebuyers, you want to think about what their needs will be throughout that process and how you can best provide guidance and information to them.

You want to combine the needs of the segment and the journey into a cohesive set of value-creating emails that will resonate.