3 Easy Steps to an Email Marketing Strategy that Converts More Leads

Did you know that using the word "video" in an email subject line can boost open rates by 19 percent? That's one handy tip from a free, new guide to email marketing for real estate.

Real estate agents are having great success using email marketing to win more listings--but only when they have a strategy and the right digital assets in place. In "3 Steps to Winning More Listings with Email Marketing for Real Estate Agents," you'll learn about the visual assets you'll need for marketing your listings, how to choose the right apps for the job, and tips on strategy.

It's a lot of ground to cover, so we're highlighting the basics here (and adding a few tips of our own):

The Visual Assets You Need for Every Listing

Visual assets are the core of a strong email marketing strategy. Here are the images and other types of multimedia that are key to cutting-edge digital campaigns:

• High-definition listing photos - From the MLS to print flyers to digital ads and, yes, marketing emails, high quality photos of your listing are crucial. In fact, a study from Redfin showed that listings with professional photographs sold up to $16,000 more than listings that didn't use pro photographs.
• Virtual property tour - Gone are the days when simple slide-show "property tours" were enough to satisfy online home searchers. Today, property tours have gone in a decidedly high-tech direction. Companies like Matterport are creating 3D property tours that home buyers can virtual "walk through" from the comfort of their computer or mobile device. 3D tours are proving to be a boon to lead conversion rates, as well. Home buyers are 65 percent more likely to email an agent and 95 percent more likely to call after seeing a property with Matterport 3D, versus those displayed only with photos.
• Floor plans - Too few real estate agents leverage floor plans in their marketing, so offering them helps differentiate your listings from the masses. Plus, they help prospective buyers better understand the size and layout of your listing, and how their own stuff may fit in the home.
• Virtual reality (VR) - Want a way to 'wow' consumers? Offer virtual reality tours that buyers can view through VR goggles like Samsung Gear VR or Google Cardboard.

Marketing ROI Tip: While you can procure each of the visual assets above from separate service providers, everything on the list above can be automatically be generated from a single Matterport shoot. And, bonus, Matterport can also create animated GIFs of your 3D tour that you can use in your email marketing campaigns (just link the GIF to your tour).

Choosing a CRM/Tools

Once you have the digital assets for creating an email campaign, next you need a great tool from which to send your campaigns. Agents looking to take advantage of their network and get the most bang for their buck should consider a robust email marketing platform capable of doing a lot for little. Free services, like Mailchimp, are potential options--but for agents looking to reach bigger audiences with more targeted messaging, should look into specialized platforms specific to real estate. With a robust platform and targeted messaging, you'll be winning more listings and referral business in no time.

The guide suggests you look for features like merge tags, A/B testing capabilities, and detailed contact profiles in your tool of choice. Download the guide to learn more about email marketing tools.

Execution/Strategy

We mentioned the CRM features above because they give you detailed control over what and to whom you send things. Here are a couple of examples:

1. Detailed contact profiles and segmentation capabilities let you send marketing emails to very specific audiences. You can segment lists by buyer or seller status, desired neighborhood, preferred price range, interests, and more. That way, you can send a home buyer looking for a 3-bedroom house uptown only those listings that interest him or her.
2. With A/B testing, you can continuously test your emails to see what connects with clients--and cut what doesn't. In the guide, Matterport gives an example of how you can test how an animated GIF performs versus an email with just static text and images. If the A/B testing results show that GIFs get more click-throughs, you'll know that you should use them in your emails.

That's just a brief overview of the email marketing advice in this free guide from Matterport. To get the full details, download "3 Steps to Winning More Listings with Email Marketing for Real Estate Agents" today!