Email marketing is one of the most profitable forms of digital marketing in real estate. With an estimated ROI of $38 back for each $1 spent, there are 3x more email accounts worldwide than there are Facebook and Twitter. 

However, there is a craft to creating an email marketing strategy that helps you build brand awareness, generate warm leads and does not burn through your database. 

As leaders in the Australian real estate marketing industry, the iRealty team believe that the foundation of a successful email marketing strategy centers around an informative property newsletter. This newsletter is then supported by automated sequences designed to nurture every contact at every step in their property journey. 

With nearly 60 million emails sent over the last 12 months we were determined to create the perfect formula for a lead generating property newsletter. Here are the key elements we found. 

1. A short and personalised introduction 

According to Campaign Monitor once an email is opened the average amount of time a reader will spend looking at your email is 51 seconds. By including a personalised introduction to your newsletter you have 14% higher chance of click throughs and 10% more chance of a conversion. By simply using a personalisation or ‘mail merge’ feature you are improving your email marketing success already. 

2. Local market information 

According to realestate.com, local knowledge is considered highly desirable for a vendor. Your marketing is a way to demonstrate your local expertise to your database. According to hubspot ‘neighbourhood expertise’ is the second most valuable information you can provide in your email marketing. With a quick Google search people can easily find market stats on their suburb. However, the mistake here is relying on your audience to start seeking this information, when at that point they are likely already in property mode (and have an idea of an agent to use). By ensuring you have accessible information in your property newsletter you are meeting your audience where they need to be met. Passively making this information available to them may even spark interest from those in the very early stages of property research (returning to market). 

3. Non real estate based content 

On average around 5% of your database is in property mode at any one time. This aligns with the Australian average with 442,000 properties sold across Australia in the 12 months ending March 2019 

Over the last 2 years 49.8% of total clicks on any email sent from iRealty were not property related. That means nearly half the engagement and the reason people are reading agents emails is not always for the latest listings. 

When it comes to lifestyle content, there are some topics that achieve strong engagement and regularly appear in some of our top performer’s campaigns. 

• Giveaways – This is great for cross promotion with social media
• Local good news stories
• Local business support

When including non-sales based content in your newsletters the best thing to do is look at your campaign reports to see what resonates best with your audience.

 4. Calls to action and service offer

A call to action or CTA is a phrase or word that provides an instruction to trigger a desired response. CTA’s usually use urgant phrases and words like “Request an Appraisal” or “Find out what my property is worth.”  to gain a response from the reader. 

Including a CTA in your marketing can help you generate over 80% higher conversions and 300% more clicks. 

In real estate, CTAs commonly used are requests for appraisals and calendar bookings for events like open homes and auctions. A simple banner, text link or button enables your database to enquire about listings and your services which helps qualify the warmest leads.

5. Feature listings

As mentioned above around 5% of your database are in property mode at any one time. Let’s say you have a database of 1000 people, 50 are in property mode there to see listings and your detailed market advice. Whilst it is important to have information on your listings, we suggest only including key or features listings in the body of your newsletters. 

Don’t worry we understand the main reason for your marketing in the first place is to sell and list more properties. That’s why we have the two following complementary factors: 

1. The iRealty property page: Each iRealty account has access to a unique property page where clients can display their listings. This is perfect to link to in the newsletter so those in property mode can view all of the listings in one place (while we track every interaction for you). 
2. Automation: Complementing your newsletter with automated alerts. These alerts are sent to those who are engaged in the market and help avoid you from high unsubscribe rates from your broad database.

6. Client case studies

Testimonials can influence up to 90% of people’s decisions to use a service or purchase a good. People are more likely to trust the words of another consumer than that of a sales person or company. Share recent sales success, or feedback from recent buyers and sellers. iRealty templates can include sections that allow you to quickly add a text and image testimonial or a thumbnail linking to a video case study from a recent client.

Key takeaways: The strong foundations of email marketing success comes from a well designed and informative content newsletter. While the formula of the perfect lead generating newsletter will depend on your business goals and audience, there are a few things we can be sure of. These are, personalisation, local knowledge, and to include more than just listings.