Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
The real estate market in the United States is creating untold opportunities at the moment, with current sales in 2021 easily over $150 billion. This incredible boom means that real estate agents are keeping quite busy at the moment, and that goes true whether agents specialize in first-time home buyers, companies shopping for commercial sites to expand their business, or investors looking to grow their portfolios.
Agents need the best tools at their disposal to avoid leaving money on the table. This means ensuring they can locate and convert as many prospects to clients as possible. One of the best tools to do so has always been email marketing, as the ROI on this marketing method has traditionally been remarkably high. In order to make it easier for agents to incorporate this type of marketing into their own practices, we’ve identified the top 10 email marketing services perfectly suited for use by realtors.
One of the oldest, most well-known, and most beginner-friendly email marketing platforms ever, MailChimp has long been a favorite for anyone looking to get into email marketing, and not just in the real estate sector. Known for its clean, intuitive, and easy to understand interface, its reliability when it comes to automation, and advanced reporting and analytics features, MailChimp is a solid choice. However, this platform can be limited when it comes to trying to build automation workflows that feature more complexity or if you’re looking for robust A/B testing.
A relative newcomer to the field, MailerLite is an email marketing software platform great for smaller-scale businesses. If you’re a small agency or a freelancer the features of MailerLite may be advantageous, as it includes landing page editors, subscriber management capabilities, embedded forms, RSS campaigns, and A/B split testing. A simple-to-use interface makes it easy to get started. Downsides include limited automation and the lack of a spam testing feature, but the attractive price point still makes MailerLite a popular choice.
With a much-touted 91.5% deliverability rate, Constant Contact has certainly seen some major growth to its email marketing platform. Its functionality includes an integrated site and online store builder, social media campaign integration, and advanced event management, making it an excellent choice for any realtor looking to flesh out their email marketing and incorporate other online media. However, all this functionality does come at a premium price. Lack of spam testing and only basic automation round out Constant Contact’s disadvantages as well.
Ideal for larger agencies with lots of data to manage, HubSpot is a complex, inbound marketing software solution that offers high deliverability rates, allows for the creation of striking email campaigns, and provides some of the best automation workflow anywhere. Its “HubSpot Academy” free online resource library offers many opportunities for marketing education, and its social media scheduling capabilities are highly advanced. However, lower-tier price plans are hobbled by limited A/B testing and the software, while comprehensive, tends to be so complex that it tends to be overwhelming to the uninitiated.
Another well-known and traditional email marketing tool that is nearly as venerable as MailChimp, AWeber offers advanced list management that allows you to collect, manage, and segment subscribers based on different actions. A variety of templates are included to make newsletter writing easy, robust RSS publication support, and full compatibility with Canva to make creating good-looking graphics as easy as dragging and dropping. Downsides include a relatively low deliverable rate, a per-subscriber rate charge system that can be hard to keep on top of sometimes, and a rather strict keyword violation policy.
Another attractive choice for smaller agencies, SendInBlue takes a unique cloud-based approach to provide better email and social media marketing capabilities. The platform is known for its advanced automation features, its integration with SMS messaging, its highly competitive pricing options, unlimited contact storage, and the inclusion of a CRM platform with its free-to-use tier. The downside to all these great perks is a relatively low deliverability rate and a slower-than-average response time when it comes to the resolution of customer support issues.
A well-known email marketing platform known for its comprehensive offerings, GetResponse includes a high level of automation, making it a true stand-out in this area. Additional checks in its plus column include robust conversion funnels for sales, webinars, lead magnets, and opt-ins. GetResponse also has some great list management features when it comes to segmentation, and the platform’s ability to host webinars puts it head-and-shoulders above most other marketing platforms. That being said, GetResponse has no free plan, making it less affordable than other platforms. This, plus its low deliverability rate, tarnish some of that shine.
A powerful tool in the right hands, ActiveCampaign is ideal for advanced users thanks to its thorough reporting, its advanced automation and list segmentation capabilities, solid A/B split testing, and its built-in CRM software. However, these advanced features come with a stiff price tag. Additionally, beginners are likely to be highly overwhelmed by all this complexity, making this platform better for experienced email marketers.
Positioning itself as a direct competitor to MailChimp, Moosend certainly does give that venerable email marketing tool a run for its money. Moosend has made a name for itself thanks to the considerable automation options it offers to users and its scalability across all price points. It’s highly personalizable, offers a drag-and-drop builder, and some excellent reporting and analytics. It’s also considerably cheaper than MailChimp. Where Moosend doesn’t necessarily excel, however, is in its list management and its third-party integrations, something its direct competitor does better.
Unlike ActiveCampaign, BenchMark is specifically targeted towards beginners and boasts an easy-to-use interface that still offers some robust features. It offers responsive emails, the ability to schedule emails across different time zones, and even has support for an HTML editor that makes importing email templates easy. The downsides to BenchMark, however, are poor automation, occasionally spotty server issues, and, according to some users, some truly abysmal deliverability rates. This makes BenchMark a great platform to get your feet wet, possibly before migrating to a more advanced option.
