So, why isn't he getting significant business from his site? Mostly, it's because these visitors find or do not find information they want on their visit. But, they don't have a compelling reason to return to the site or to provide their contact information. Thus, there is no follow-through to keep in touch until the prospect is ready to buy or sell real estate.
Whatever method you use to capture that valuable email address, it's just the very first step in an extended process to generate a commission on the other end. The Internet has made it easy and anonymous for the home buyer or seller to do extensive research much earlier than in the past. They will start months to a year or more before they plan on a transaction. Our challenge is to continue to provide them with relevant and valuable information to make sure that we are the contacted real estate professional when they are ready.
So, let's assume that you have various special reports or other methods to get that all-important email contact information. What do you do to keep your name and site at the top of their mind when it comes to real estate in your area? Most real estate professionals are doing some form of drip email, but many complain that it doesn't seem to be bringing in hard leads to commissions. That's primarily because the emails are not being read, and they'll never know it. They are being automatically trashed with rules and filters, thus never generating any notification back to the sender.
If you want to continue to send out thousands of useless emails, just keep sending:
- How-to emails about sprucing up a home for sale.
- Top ## mistakes type of emails for buyers and sellers.
- Getting a home to show well with music and baking smells.
- Staircase safety (really saw this one).
- Removing pet odors.
You're getting the idea. There are so many of these out there, many purchased as a package from some vendor, that they are useless. This isn't going to bring you business. My discussion with this Realtor centered around a new way to do "drip" email; more like turning a faucet on and off than letting it drip. Here's what was successful for me on my site:
- Four initial emails, each with a description of some area of my site that provided information on the local market.
- The first email told them that there would only be four. This cut my "unsubscribes" in half, as they didn't have to wonder how much I was going to bother them.
- The last email told them it was the last in the series, and that they would be placed on a special market statistics reporting email distribution in the future. Four quarterly emails a year was the schedule.
- Each quarter, I would prepare a report from the MLS of the current market, as well as sold statistics for the previous quarter. This is the only email I would send them during the year.
This works. My subscribers stay with me, with hundreds on my list at any given time. They love the statisitics, and contact me when they get closer to a buying or selling decision. So, stop drip email, and take another approach for effective lead generation.
