It’s becoming harder every day to grab buyers’ and sellers’ attention. Potential clients are being pitched round-the-clock and are wary of anything that comes off as a “sell.” Meaning, generic emails, flashy Facebook posts, and clever ad copy are going to be spotted a mile away.
Your clients and prospects have seen it all.
Knowing people have their guard up changes your job description as an agent: Now you’re here to offer value and win trust. Prospective clients want to know you have their interests at heart. Are you genuine? Are you educated? Do you appear trustworthy? Are you someone they can see themselves working with?
One of the most effective ways to nurture a potential client relationship is by communicating through email over time.
Emails used to nurture leads have anywhere from a 4-to-10-times higher response rate compared to a standalone email blast. Take a moment to let that sink in. That’s a serious surge in conversion.
The word to pay attention to hear is nurture: encouraging and caring for the development and growth of a possible relationship. Not only are generic email blasts impersonal, but they have a salesy feel to them and definitely don’t spark a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Learn how to connect with clients via email in 5 simple ways
As a realtor, it should be your goal to establish authority, build trust, and help prospective clients view you as the one agent they can’t imagine buying a home without.
So how is it done?
1. Get personal.
First and foremost, stop sending emails that feel like they could be sent to a crowd. Write each email as if it’s intended for one person — not five potential leads. And not a worldwide audience.
Try this:
- Write to your best friend. This is the personal voice you want to convey in your email message, while keeping it professional. Emails are an excellent tool for relationship building. They can help your clients get a grasp of your brand and begin to connect with you as an agent.
- Include a name at the beginning. Any email marketing program will have merge tags that you can use to insert clients’ names and personalize email copy. This allows you to send a mass email, while still ensuring that each lead gets an email personally addressed by name.
- Don’t overdo it. Studies have shown that “overdone” emails perform worse than minimalistic emails. Wondering why? Professionally designed emails look like they’ve been blasted out from a company and are more often deleted.
Take advantage of this time to connect by writing each email as if it’s to a friend you know, like, and respect. Keep that personal touch by avoiding fancy email designs and opting for a simple and clean feel instead.
Once you grab a new client’s attention, tell them the good news: You’ve partnered with a lender that can get them home in 10 days.
2. Start educating.
If you want to establish authority and build trust with your clients — without overselling it — nailing education is key.
Consider this:
- The average agent is sending out a steady stream of emails just to make a sale.
- But you’re using a different approach. You’re learning what it takes to improve email engagement.
- So, you’re beginning to send out emails that contain helpful resources and educational tidbits that your list won’t be annoyed by but will actually want to read.
Provide consistent and free value to your email list again and again, and your potential clients will soon realize you’re a housing market authority who can be trusted. You have a genuine desire to help them find a home they love, and you’re the only agent they should think about working with.
How do you regularly offer this value at no charge? Sharing your lender partner’s free content is a great starting point. We have a full library of videos, infographics, blog posts, flyers, guides, and e-books that our realtor partners circulate freely, leveraging themselves as an expert to their audience.
Partnering with a lender that churns out a wide variety of news-worthy content and co-marketing materials not only makes your job easier, but it’s a simple way to garner trust by giving potential clients the up-to-the-minute info they’re asking for.
3. Stop sending without segmenting.
If you can, segment your list. Segmentation is another way to say splitting email leads into separate groups. This is because you’ll want to send a potential seller different content than what you’ll send a first-time buyer.
Begin by tagging names in your list within your email provider. Use descriptive categories for each segment so you can better tailor the content to their specific needs.
Then, when you plan your next email, you can review its content and answer this question: “Which audience will this guide, graphic, or post better match?” Asking this question can help you decide who to send the materials to.
Many realtors initially separate their list into three simple segments:
- Potential buyers.
- Potential sellers.
- Past or closed clients.
This can be a helpful place to begin. As you get more comfortable with these segments, you can become more creative in how you break up your list with subsets like free home valuation leads, move-up buyers, first-time buyers, etc.
This strategy works because of its simplicity. Sending different audience groups exactly what they want to read and not sending them unrelated content is effective because:
- These groups are a lot more likely to open each email.
- You can start to establish great trust by avoiding sending irrelevant emails.
- Your chance of gaining a new lead increases significantly as you directly address potential clients’ needs and questions.
For example, there are three different trending articles you could email to each of your list segments today:
- Potential buyers: You only need to ask 3 questions before you buy a house
- Potential sellers: Sellers, you’ll get the most ROI out of these upgrades
- Past or closed clients: How much is my home worth? Home prices rise 5.73% [INFOGRAPHIC]
You can also filter your lender partner’s blog content by category to find more helpful and relevant materials that fit the profile of each of your email groups.
4. Find your pain point.
Identifying and solving problems communicates to clients why they should care about your email message. In reality, no one’s going to want to read your content unless you’re giving them a solution. Just like no one wants to watch a movie without a villain that a hero can defeat.
The problem illustrates a story, one that’ll catch clients’ eyes. Not solving a problem means you’re sending out junk mail. But home in on a problem or pain point that relates to your email list or segment, and you’ll have the information you need to come up with an answer or provide a resource that offers a solution.
If you send an email with several topics or problems, then it may include more than one call to action. People are less likely to respond without clear direction. It’s easy to be guilty of giving an audience too many choices and forgetting to address their one request or need.
As we mentioned earlier, emails need to be written as if to one person. The same holds true for the topic you select. Write about a single problem or pain point like you’re talking to an individual client.
Some common problems you may help potential clients solve include:
- Pain point: A buyer thinking that saving up for a down payment may be holding them back from being able to buy. –> Solution: 4 simple strategies can make you a homeowner in 2019 [INFOGRAPHIC]
- Pain point: A first-time buyer not knowing that they need to get prequalified before they start house-hunting. –> Solution: Do this first if you want to buy a house this year
- Pain point: A seller needing to get a competitive price for their home sale so they’ll have enough to buy their dream house. –> Solution: It’s the right time of year to sell your house fast
Your goal is to be the guide that helps your clients come to that “aha” moment whenever they read your emails.
5. Stay consistent.
Understandably, many realtors worry about overloading their list with too many emails. But the reverse — emailing infrequently — may be just as detrimental. Obviously, your list doesn’t want to see an influx of content in their inbox. Still, touching base consistently keeps you at the forefront of their minds when they’re ready to start looking at houses.
Ideally:
- Aim to email your segmented list weekly or alternating every other week.
- Maintain consistency by sticking with a set day you pick, like Monday.
- Make sure you email your list segments once a month at a minimum.
Emailing less than the monthly mark means your list is likely to forget about who you are by the time they get an email. On the other side of the coin, shooting out over two emails a week is overdoing it.
It’s a good guideline to send out 5 to 8 content pieces per message that moves a recipient toward lead capture. Providing this content stream, again, facilitates trust. It tells your audience you’re there to help them — not just to gain their business.
It can also help to include a mild call to action in each email, directing the reader toward engagement. Just steer clear from writing up an email as sales copy. Focus on offering value above all else.
Continually giving the gift of relevant, helpful content to your audience opens the door for effective follow-up and the long-term nurturing of leads. This can increase conversion rates across-the-board, helping you to close more annual deals. With plenty of fresh content available from your lender partner in various forms, all you have to do is leverage the materials by sharing them with your prospective clients and offering value.
Think about how your audience will start to see you versus your competition. Now, you’re the one sending them useful content that’s been curated to meet their unique needs. More clients will want to work with you when they see you as a trustworthy advisor.
Partner with the lender known for getting clients home happy and fast
You’ve already put in the effort to connect with your new clients. This isn’t the time to leave anything to chance. If your lender partner doesn’t help create rave buyer reviews for you, come up with strategies that help you get more referrals and grow your business, and actively help you close more leads, it’s possible you and your buyers could be happier. Find out more about what it looks like to partner with a friendly, local loan officer who gets buyers home in 10 days.
For educational purposes only. Please contact your qualified professional for specific guidance.
Sources are deemed reliable but not guaranteed.