Email marketing is alive and well in 2020. With 260 billion emails opened every day, it’s not disappearing soon.

But in a world where attention is king, many real estate agents have opted out of email marketing for the more trendy social media marketing.

BIG MISTAKE.

The biggest mistake is with ownership. You don’t own the lists on your favourite social media platform and that is costly. Get shut down by Facebook and your ’25,768 followers’ are gone.

But email is totally different. You own your lists!

The other big mistake agents make with email is that they are boring and don’t know how to engage with prospects. With lousy open rates and pathetic engagement it’s no wonder why real estate agents have moved away from email marketing.

But they shouldn’t. So let’s fix that.

According to Emma here’s how we should start:

1. Real estate email marketing strategies – start with an actionable welcome
Let’s start with the first, and most important, email-the welcome email.

A welcome email is a great way to introduce both cold and warm leads to your services. Your customer may have opted in at an open house or your website, or they may be someone you’ve gotten through a referral.

You could also send a welcome email after your first contact with your prospects. This could be after the first day of house-hunting or following an initial consultation about selling their home.

At any rate, a welcome email will thank subscribers for opting-in and give them two critical pieces of information:

What kinds of emails to expect from you in the future
Why you’re the best agent to help them buy or sell their home.
Competition is fierce among realtors, so this is your way of getting the jump on the competition and positioning your brand for success.
No matter how you design your welcome email, make sure it’s clear and actionable.

That means there should be a prominent call-to-action (CTA) to schedule a phone call or meeting, connect on social media, or even a request to be “white-listed” so that your emails don’t end up in the spam folder.

And our friends at Steppsagree:

Strong Email Subject Lines
Strong subject lines are the secret sauce of email marketing. It’s the first thing people see when they open their inbox-a first impression of your content.

A recent Sendpulse survey revealed that roughly 62% of subscribers read emails when the subject line is interesting. If your content is compelling enough, consumers won’t care too much about how often you send them emails.

That said, anything too vague will immediately get sent to spam or be deleted by the email user. Same goes for anything too direct (like an obvious sales pitch) or something that implies that the mailing is part of a big email blast.

A strong subject line can capture the reader’s attention immediately, but not give anything away in the process.

Sacha Ferrandi of Source Capital Funding gives a good example of this:

Bad – “Learn About an Amazing Property (Address) In the Centennial Park Area”
Good – “Updated Information Regarding Your Neighborhood Property Values”
Notice how the second option entices the audience to read more? The “Bad” option gives everything away immediately and users don’t need to look any further to know what this is about.
Best Practices for Email Subject Lines

Short and Sweet: Campaign Monitor found that email subject lines containing just 65 characters have hit the email sweet spot and that most email subject lines have 41-50 characters (which is about 5-9 average-length words).
Personalize it: Experian Marketing Services found that personalized subject lines-think names, neighbourhoods, listings-result in a 26% higher open rate.
Take note of the pre-header text-also known as the first 40 characters of the email. Make use of this section to expand on the email subject, and ensure you’ve strung together the characters that drive clicks.
Do A/B Testing: Test out different lengths, different sentence structures, lines that use numbers or statistics versus ones that don’t. Don’t forget to test how the subject line length reads across different devices, too. Most email service providers offer a function that allows you to preview how your email will read on iPhone, laptops, etc.
GetResponse has a feature that shows you the effectiveness of your subject line and it also has an A/B testing feature. If you haven’t yet picked an email service provider (ESP) to use for your real estate email marketing, it’s a great option for beginners.
Interesting content keeps readers… interested according to Emma

2. Add value with a newsletter full of relevant, interesting content.
Your prospects want to know that you’re an expert in the local market. There’s no better way to convey your expertise than in an email newsletter packed full of relevant, helpful information.

Not only do newsletters feature your own realty services, but they also keep you at the forefront of the prospects’ minds while they’re deciding how to proceed.

Newsletters can also keep you connected with former clients-especially the ones that might refer you to their friends.

Provide interesting, relevant content like the articles and tips found in newsletters, can be incredibly effective for your real estate business. Your newsletters should be short, skimmable documents with content that’s engaging and shareable.

Here’s a sample of one that also includes a video and visual graphics for those that want to skim for important information.

Be careful with your newsletters, though. Don’t ever send one withou