When it comes to drip email marketing campaigns, there are a few best practices. First of all, you need to utilise premier email marketing software that allows you to segment your email list. If all you have is great software, however, it will be difficult to determine how to structure your campaign and understand your efforts. Use these best practices to ensure you craft a successful drip email marketing campaign.
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Know Your Goals
Create specific goals that delve further than just increasing your leads or driving traffic to your site. Think through what you want to improve and the metrics you want to measure. When you know your goals, you’ll better understand the best way to format your emails in order to achieve those goals.
For example, do you want to get more traffic to a certain landing page that contains neighbourhood specific information? You can set up a workflow that tracks leads who are interested in purchasing homes in that specific neighbourhood and provide additional links to your site with more information about the neighbourhood. Monitor the open rates and click rates and continue sifting out cold and hot leads so you can adjust your message and content. Being meticulous and thorough in your goal setting and monitoring will help you see results with your email campaigns.
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Define Your Message
Writing the content for your emails and developing your message can be time consuming unless you use templates or delegate this step of the process to an assistant. There are many ready-made templates that can help you streamline the process and ensure you start off using a foundation that’s been proven.
If you do pick a template, make sure to properly brand it and focus on your message. If your goal is to drive buyers and sellers to the resources on your page, you might promote this differently than you would homes for sale. For example, you might:
- Send an email that lets your leads know you offer buyer and seller resources on your website.
- Send every lead who downloads any of your resources an email with relevant information regarding the market in your neighbourhoods.
- Send an email a couple of days later that features some of your blog posts with buyer and seller tips to help nurture and educate your leads.
By defining your message, you can strategically tailor it to each lead rather than bombarding your leads with random emails that are unsuccessful.
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Pinpoint Your Timing
There is lots of information online about the frequency and timing of sending out emails. This, however, differs for individuals and industries—even for real estate agents.
A rule of thumb is not to bombard your subscriber list, because it may cause leads to opt out of your emails. It’s best to nurture your leads with slow and steady emails and then as you move them along the sales process you can increase the frequency.
If you, for example, have a lead who has clicked on multiple pages on your site, including blog information about selling a home, you need to act quickly. Don’t send emails out once every two weeks, but be more aggressive by sending an email a couple or a few times per week.
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Monitor and Evaluate Your Lists
Examine your leads and monitor activity throughout your drip email marketing campaign, so it’s effective. Make sure the leads are included in the right drip of the workflow or you won’t properly nurture them through the sales process. Nearly all CRM software allows real estate agents to score leads, but the score shouldn’t be set in stone. Some leads may find certain emails applicable, but over time they won’t and vice versa.
A hot lead that’s gone cold and is no longer checking out multiple listings a week should be moved from receiving multiple emails a week or month to perhaps receiving local market news or information once or twice a month.
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Adjust Your Message
You can’t define your message once and then leave it. It’s imperative you monitor what messages are and aren’t working and adjust them. If data reveals a certain email is not successfully moving leads through the sales process, you should change it. An email that doesn’t receive a high open rate or click rate allows you to focus your attention on a message that resonates more. Testing is part of marketing, so use this as an opportunity to find your sweet spot and the right mix. Don’t get discouraged because an email isn’t working.
With these tips and best practices in mind, consider getting started on your next drip email marketing campaign.