Are Digital Ads the New Drip Campaign?

E-mail marketing is a proven, affordable way for real estate agents to earn new and maintain existing relationships.

It's not quite as easy as the popular term "drip campaign" suggests it might be, however.

Drip campaigns imply that the same message can be left to "drip" into inboxes month after month, sent with the hope that eventually someone either gets annoyed enough to unsubscribe or hopefully, calls to inquire about a listing.

In short, the idea that any marketing effort can be run totally hands-free and still pay off represents a rather fundamental misunderstanding of how marketing works. This is why every few months, major consumer brands adjust their message and run new commercials. They test and measure to find out what resonates.

Making matters somewhat worse is the growing number of CRMs that automate not just content delivery, but content creative, too.

Marketing can indeed be automated and effective. But it can't be left unmonitored, only to eventually drip its way into the SPAM folders of forgotten clients.

Enter: retargeted digital advertising.

You've no doubt by now noticed that when you browse online for a new car, you begin to see ads for that car and that dealership everywhere online.

That's retargeting. The first place you shopped used a piece of code called a "pixel" to record your presence and interest in Toyota SUVs. That pixel then tails you around the web to place impressions for its services into the sidebars, footers, and banners of other sites you visit, including Facebook and your mobile device.

Retargeting is highly effective, and used by major brands and websites across the Internet. It can also be a tremendous alternative to active outreach like email and postcards because you don't even need an email address for it to work.

The concept is as old as marketing itself. Instead of media mixes consisting of bus stops and black and white neighborhood circulars, real estate brokers can blend their messages on ESPN.com and The Huffington Post.

Digital ads require significantly less effort to be as effective as a drip email campaign.

The creative is typically brief and relevant, and doesn't demand the creation of long-form original content or the umpteenth regurgitation of the same MLS market data used by 30 of your competitors.

Agent advertisers can build a series of ads to run interchangeably to mix-up the messaging. Anything from new listings to open house events to the latest team hire is worthy of your audience's screen-time; each one sends a new message from the same brand, communicating activity, professionalism, and market awareness.

Target ads to your email database

Adwerx, for example, which has a heavy focus on the real estate industry, blends the power of your email database with its retargeted advertising platform.

The company built a method for using email addresses to track down your audience when browsing the web. Once your database is uploaded and a contact is matched, Adwerx begins delivering your advertisements to their browser. This technology offers real estate agents an entirely new reason to collect email addresses.

Email remains a powerful way to reach an audience. It has to be done right, though. Content needs to be relevant and fresh, thus: thought about. There's a reason The Skimm has become a legend in email marketing in a few short years.

Digital ad campaigns also have to be thought about to be effective, but they don't take a great deal of time to be effective. Collaborating with an established partner can make the process fast and easy. By its very nature, online advertising delivers better consistency and relevancy with less time commitment.

And since when have real estate agents had a lot of extra time?

To view the original article, visit the Adwerx blog.