Email Marketing for Realtors: Benefits and Strategies

Successful real estate agents employ a suite of marketing strategies that not only sell but also nurture and grow their customer base. Email marketing is one of these strategies. When done right, email marketing boosts sales, brand awareness, social media footprint, brand advocacy, website visits and leads, and much more. Here is an in-depth overview of the main benefits derived from email marketing for realtors.   

Why Email Marketing for Realtors?

Here are five statistics to consider for email marketing in 2021. The numbers are relevant enough to encourage any business owner to consider this strategy:  

• The global email marketing generated $ 7.5 billion (USD) in 2020, and is likely to increase to $ 17.9 billion by 2027. (Statista) 
• There were four billion email users in 2020, and the number will likely grow to 4.6 billion in 2025. (Statista) 
• About 64% of small businesses use email marketing – only 5.6% of these work in real estate. (Campaign Monitor) 
• In August 2021, the average email open rate for real estate was 14.66%, the click-through rate 5.38%, and the bounce rate is 13.17%  (Constant Contact) 
• 31% of B2B marketers agree that email newsletters are the best form to nurture leads, 13% consider blog posts and articles useful, and only 9% prefer in-person events. (Content Marketing Institute) 

Real estate agents use email to communicate with clients and business partners, but email marketing is not their preferred communication tool. It comes in third, with 89%, after telephone (90%) and text messaging (93%). (NAR)  

Email Marketing Tools for Real Estate Agents 

There are many email marketing tools for real estate agents. Among them, the ones performing best when it comes to subscribers who open their emails include HubSpot (26%), GetResponse (25.48%), and Campaign Monitor (19.70%). (Kinsta)  

HubSpot

HubSpot offers one of the best email marketing tools available on the market. Within the real estate industry, the average click-through rate (CTR) is  7.1%. HubSpot only calculates CTRs based on opened emails, whereas other providers count delivered emails.  

HubSpot email marketing tools are free, with added functionality in paid-for Marketing Hub packages. But even the free version of Marketing Hub offers benefits for small businesses:  

• 2,000 email sends per calendar month. The only disadvantage is that you cannot remove the HubSpot branding; 
• Form follow-up emails, however only one automated email per form; 
• Email reply tracking; 
• Email health reporting (with limited features);  
• Only one shared inbox; 
• Plus a few other tools, like ad management, ad retargeting, live chat (with HubSpot branding), reporting dashboards (three with up to ten reports each), messenger integration, etc.  

If you are serious about email marketing, you should consider a professional or enterprise plan. They are pricey, but they include more lead-generating tools, analytics, and so on.  

GetResponse 

A GetResponse basic plan includes the email marketing software for less than $15 if your list of subscribers is less than 1000. After that, the pricing gets higher as you add subscribers. Other tools included in the plan are autoresponders, one sales funnel, unlimited lead funnels, website builder, unlimited landing pages, Facebook Ads, and Google Ads.  

The GetResponse email marketing software has excellent features, including: 

• Drag-and-drop email creator to customize professional templates;  
• Design preview on desktop or mobile devices; 
• Free GIFs and stock photography to enhance your design;  
• Customize your design with your branding and content; 
• Build your template library;  
• Schedule emails to your audience's preferred time; 
• Personalize emails with dynamic content;  
• Analyze opens, clicks, bounces, and more  
• A/B test email subject lines  
• Track user behavior for better targeting 

Of course, the premium plans include more tools and better features, but you can work well with the basic plan,  which is free to test for thirty days.  

Note that the average percentage of opened emails per campaign with GetResponse is 25.48% for the real estate industry, and the CTR is  3.07%.  

Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor is another software provider with powerful email marketing software for realtors. In general, it has an opening rate of 19.70% and a CTR of 2.6%. But, of course, you can achieve better results for your real estate agency depending on how well you design your email campaigns. More about this later.  

The basic account for Campaign Monitor is $9, and the features that come with it are exceptional.  

• Send emails to up to 2500 subscribers; 
• Drag-and-drop email builder for customizable templates; 
• Import your own, custom-coded, templates;  
• Audience segmentation based on your criteria;  
• Free image gallery from Unsplash;  
• Signup pages and pop-up forms, for your site; 
• Mobile optimization tools for emails and newsletters; 
• A/B testing; 
• Real-time reporting analytics; 
• Automated emails;  
• Transactional emails: send emails automatically, based on a specific subscriber action such as invoices or account confirmation; 
• Dynamic content for better email personalization for each subscriber; 
• Time zone sending and send time optimization;  
• Email verification to remove bad addresses and keep your lists healthy. 

These are only some of the features you get with a Campaign Monitor basic account. With an Unlimited or Premier account, which are both very affordable compared to competitor email software, you get even more.     

Benefits of Using Email Marketing Software

The benefits are evident if you review the features listed above for the email marketing software providers analyzed: HubSpot, GetResponse, and Campaign Monitor.  

• You can send bulk emails and newsletters targeted by audience segment and timed to specific time zones. Example of segments: buying vs. renting, property location, property features, family size, budget, etc.  
• You don’t need coding experience to design a compelling newsletter: drag-and-drop features do most of the work for you. 
• Analytics dashboard shows how well your email campaign performed, how many subscribers opened, and how many bounced.  
• You can use dynamic content to personalize emails for each customer.
• You have access to mobile optimization tools, essential to satisfy users who open their emails on their smartphones or tablets.  
• Automation saves you time: you no longer need to answer each email individually. Now you can schedule newsletters and send automatic welcome emails to new newsletter subscribers.  
• Integrate signup forms provided by the email software on your website and collect new leads with ease. Integrate signup buttons on your Facebook page. Use the signup link in your email signature, and other social media profiles to get even more leads.  

Email Marketing Ideas for Real Estate Agents 

There are many ways to engage consumers with emails – use your imagination and creativity to capture their interest and make them respond, share, or visit your site to browse listings. Here are a few popular ideas: 

• Automated welcome emails: when a user subscribes to your newsletter, you can send a welcome message full of relevant information, like how to get started, find an agent, search listings, or simply find information about a neighbourhood.  
• Newsletters: use this form of email marketing when you have new listings or upcoming events. You can cluster your latest blog posts in a newsletter too.  
• Listing announcements: based on your audience segment, send listing announcements only to those people interested in the property's location and features.  
• Open house: again, these types of announcements should only be emailed to people interested in the type of property, features, and location.  
• Follow-up emails: only when you close a deal or when you need to send a client more information. Follow-up emails may include a request for a referral.  
• Neighbourhood guides: interesting even for subscribers who already bought a house. You keep them active and remind them of your brand and services with such emails.  
• DIY or home improvement guides: again, a great strategy to keep former clients interested in your brand.  
• Real estate market trends: ideal for your B2B partners but simplified can work well for B2C subscribers to help them make educated real estate buying or renting decisions.  

Instead of Conclusion 

Do not spam and keep your emails relevant and professional. While many companies send 3-4 emails weekly, less is more. Limit your newsletters to once weekly or as you have essential and interesting news to share. Don’t forget about audience segmentation: do not send rentals to customers interested in buying.  

Whatever strategy you choose for your email marketing campaigns, never buy email addresses in bulk, never “farm” them from third parties. Instead, always built your list from scratch to have a database of real, interested consumers. Buying or farming email addresses is a mistake, resulting in bad publicity and litigation as privacy and data protection regulations become stricter. Besides, this unreasonable, black-hat practice may also lead to account suspension with your email software provider. 

And, of course, always offer subscribers the option to unsubscribe when they no longer want to receive your emails.