When you’re sourcing clients for your real estate business, it can be hard to convert prospects into customers. That’s nothing new. The Online Marketing Institute reports that on average, marketers make seven to 13 marketing touches to get a single lead to pass through the sales funnel. In the real estate industry, where transactions usually involve significant sums of money and customers are often understandably cautious, it can be even harder to get people to convert.
Unfortunately, most real estate agents don’t have the time to personally follow up with each prospect seven to 13 times. How can you pursue your core business while also building a brand and client base?
Real Estate Drip Marketing
As part of their marketing strategy, many real estate professionals use “drip campaigns” to nurture leads into customers.
In a nutshell, drip marketing is an approach where you write messages (or “drips”) in advance, and then automatically send them to your potential customers at preset intervals (usually through email, although some marketers pursue social media drip campaigns as well).
Ideally, you make these messages as targeted as possible – you don’t want to send the same weekly newsletter to everyone. Instead, you create separate campaigns for separate categories of customers. If someone indicates interest in your service and then drops off the face of the planet, send them periodic re-engagement drips. If they approach you seeking information (“I’m not ready to sell yet, but I do have a couple of questions about the market …”) then send them educational content.
The key here is to send your drips at the right intervals. Drip marketing is useful because it keeps your brand in the minds of your customers. You don’t want them to forget about you, but you also don’t want to email them so frequently that they get annoyed. (In digital marketing, there’s almost nothing worse than waking up to a handful of angry “unsubscribe” emails.) Your goal is to send your customers valuable content and then wait just long enough that they’ve started to forget it, then email them again.
In a world where 70% of sales email campaigns trail off after the initial email fails to elicit action, drip campaigns are a powerful tool. They build your brand and give your potential clients a chance to get to know you.
Drip Marketing: How to Get Started
At first glance, email marketing might seem easy to do in-house using your own email client, but bringing on a third-party service like Constant Contact, SalesForce, or Mailchimp not only helps you monitor and report on campaign success metrics and maintain your lists, they also help you comply with commercial message regulations, like CAN-SPAM.
In real estate, like in any business, you need your potential clients to find you and get to know you. Drip marketing campaigns help stretch your resources to make the marketing touches that leads require before they convert into clients. Think about adding drip marketing to your real estate marketing strategy.
