10 TIPS ON HOW TO REVIVE YOUR EMAIL LIST, GET MORE EMAILS OPENED AND MAKE MORE REAL ESTATE SALES

Your email list is your business’ biggest asset.  It’s the hub of your business. If Facebook and Instagram go away tomorrow you will thank your lucky stars you have your email list to fall back on.

But have you been taking care of it?  

Or, have you been neglecting it until you need to promote your latest listing or yourself only to be hit with a ton of unsubscribes (ouch).

Possibly worse is to be spamming your list on the regular with stuff they don’t want to hear about?

Your email list NEEDS to be nurtured and cultivated so that it’s constantly growing and your subscribers actually look forward to hearing from you.   

This is how you turn your email list into a client making machine that keeps your pipeline full and your ideal clients reaching out to you asking if you are taking on any new clients at the moment. 😍

So how are you gonna stand out and avoid the wasteland of unopened, junked, unsubscribed and deleted emails?  

Make email marketing a cornerstone in your business and learn the RIGHT way to engage with your audience.  

Most emails go nowhere because they are BORING.  They are corporate, stiff and uninteresting. Not yours, not anymore anyway 😉

Here are some tips:

1.  Make it personal.

What type of email would you want to get?  What type of emails do you open? Probably ones that are personal and from friends or family.  The rest usually get junked without a second thought.

The best emails you can write are the same ones that you want to receive.  

No fluff, no cheesy newsletter template, or words that aren’t your own.

Just plain old text from you, to them.   

Write your emails as if you were writing to your friend.  People want to work with people that they know, like and trust.  If you let them see you behind all the realtor garb they will have the chance to connect with you (or not! Which is fine too!).

Drop the buttoned up professional facade and be yourself.  

It’s so refreshing to watch, read or listen to people that drop the crap and just tell it like it is.  

Think of how people like Oprah or Howard Stern have developed cult followings.  They are unabashedly themselves and people either love it or hate it but the ones who love you will love you forever.  That is marketing gold.

2.  Speak to only one person.

Email is an intimate tool, you are speaking to just one person at a time.  This goes for all of your marketing actually.

If you are speaking to everyone you are speaking to no one.

People on your email list want to feel special and like they are the only ones in the room (because they are, people don’t open emails in a group).

Yes, it’s true, we know the email is sent to everyone on your list,  but it still feels good to suspend belief and think it’s meant just for us.

Avoid saying things like “hey everyone” or “I wanted to share with you all”.  Speak to that one ideal client’s needs and aim to solve their specific problem or challenge.

3.  Use plain text, not a templated newsletter.

Templated newsletters do not feel personal to your reader.  

They might be great every once in a while to promote listings but you will get better open rates and less unsubscribes with plain text email.

What do you do with emails that look like a newsletter?

Always be thinking back to what you would write to your best friend.

3.  Use clickable images.

Images within your email can be great and even better if they are clickable.  Let’s say you want to promote a blog post or a guest spot in an online article, grab an image so that you reader can click on it to take them to the post.

Images get processed by the brain a lot faster so it’s effective to have them included in your emails where appropriate.

Whenever I release a new blog post I will put in a clickable image that will lead the reader directly to my blog or youtube video.

This brings me to my next tip…

4.  Leverage your email list to promote.

As soon as you create anything you should send it directly to your list! 

This is free PR and who wouldn’t want to leverage that??

If you are nurturing your list with content that matters to THEM on a regular basis and they are used to taking action by responding to your call to action, they will be more likely to choose you when it comes to them taking the next step in their buying or selling process.

5.  Always include a call to action.

Your emails should always contain some sort of call to action.

This could be to promote your latest blog post, live Facebook or Instagram video, webinar or event that you have coming up. 

It could be anything, it doesn’t have to be a hard sale.  

Here are some examples:

• Check out this podcast I’m loving
• Are we connected on Instagram? Come find me there.
• Hit reply and tell me ____.
• What’s your biggest struggle when it comes to ____?

Just engaging with you will make your connection stronger.  

Better connection = stronger business.

5.  Ask them for feedback.

This is gold for your business.  What better way to find out exactly what your ideal client wants to know about, from you (the expert), than by asking them.

This is so simple and so valuable.

You may not be hitting the mark with what you are communicating with your email list and that’s ok, we all make mistakes but to hear direct feedback from your list on what they ACTUALLY want to hear about is so powerful for you business.  

PLUS, it will save you from wasting your time.

It allows you to pivot, change your approach and do better.  

The point is to always be listening and improving.  By doing this you will be getting closer and closer to hitting your ideal clients true pain points which you can then address in all of your marketing.  

The more you can get inside your prospect’s head and figure out what makes them tick, the more effective you will be in getting them to know, like and trust you and effortlessly turn them into lifelong clients.

Create a survey or ask specific questions where they can just hit reply and let you know what they really think. 

6.  Use the P.S

Sorry to say, but most people will skim past your thoughtfully created email.  

I always make sure to include a p.s at the bottom that includes my CTA or whatever the most important part of the email is.  

7.  Make emails an integral part of your funnel.

This is a VERY important piece of your funnel (if not THE most important part).

A funnel is another word for a sales process, or the “journey to buy”, or a business system.  

They can be extremely simple or complicated but essentially it’s taking cold prospects through an online process where they come out the other side as warmed up leads, eager to take you up on your offer.

Sales funnels are designed to make you money, and yes you are going to want one for your real estate business.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about register for my online workshop in January where I break down step by step what it takes to create one for your real estate business.

8,  Create a super valuable nurture sequence.

This is part of your funnel (see #7).  

This is also called a newbie sequence, an opt in sequence, an on boarding sequence or an autoresponder sequence.

When prospects online raise their hand and sign up for whatever you are  offering online you have to let them get to know you through your nurture sequence so that they can know like and trust you.  

If you don’t do this part right or even worse you don’t have one at all, you are gonna get hit with the unsubscribe button so fast your head will spin, and then all your efforts to get that lead are in vain.

Your email nurture sequence is arguably the most important part of your marketing funnel.

9.  Create subject lines that evoke curiosity.

Getting your email opened is half the battle, hence the importance of your subject line.

Avoid at all costs any words like “newsletter”  or your [brokerage’s name] in brackets.

Another tip to avoid is using too many caps or title case because it screams formal, business email.  Not something from a friend (remember to always be emailing like you would to a friend).

Use emoji’s from time to time if that’s your style.

Putting your subject’s name in the subject line is also very effective.

Evoke curiosity so that they are just dying to know what you are talking about on the inside.

Creating interesting subject lines is an art that takes practice, so play around with different styles and study your open rates to see what works best.

10.  Keep an eye on your stats.

Your email list should always be growing.  

Get used to watching the back end of your email service provider so that you can check in and make sure that you are getting new subscribers each and every week.

Your email list is the biggest asset to your business, and the bigger it is the bigger and stronger your business will be.

No matter what happens to social media, your list what you own.  Make it your central focus. All of you social media efforts should be centred around moving people onto your email list.

It truly is a numbers game and the more subscribers that you get the more sales you will have in your business.

So get comfortable checking in and making sure your subscriber list is growing, what your open rates are as well as your unsubscribe rates.  

Which emails are performing the best?  

Create more like those so that you streamline your communication with your audience effectively.

Creating great emails and connecting with your list is a skill that you will be working on your entire career but if you grasp it’s value and importance, you will put in the time to leverage it to make your business grow.

Let me know in the comments, could your emails use some work?  How often are you connecting with your list?