6 Emails You Can Use to Stay in Touch with Past Clients

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is assuming the life cycle of a lead ends once the home has been bought or sold. Not so! In fact, the life cycle of a lead can extend over a decade when you factor in the average amount of time that a consumer spends researching homes (18 months), the average lead-to-conversion time after raising their hands (13 months), and the average time before a home owner is ready to list again (seven years).

The key word here is "cycle," meaning your past clients can become active leads again once they are ready to buy or sell a home years down the road, and the fact that happy past clients are one of your top referral sources. So what do you do to stay top-of-mind with past clients? Here are six emails that we think should be a part of your past client outreach.

​​1. Ongoing Support / Newsletters

Your clients had a million questions during the buying / selling process, so you better believe there are even more questions flying through their minds once they actually own the home (especially if they are first-time home owners). Continue to be a solid resource for your past clients by sending out newsletters with home owner tips, articles about home improvements, product reviews, local events, market snapshots and reminders about when it's time to winterize, de-bug, or start on spring cleaning.

2. Housing and Market Updates

​That "seven years" number we mentioned before is only an average. You may have past clients who are ready to raise their hands again after just a couple of years because of their job, personal situation, the homeowner version of wanderlust, or a growing family (surprise!). For those who may be ready to go on the move, send out local housing market reports, new listings that pop up, or a preferred partner such as a title company or home inspector. Our subscribers have great success with simple emails stating, "What's your home currently worth?" that link to the latest market reports.

​3. Office Announcements and Team Highlights

The team is growing, you're earning awards and recognition for your hard work, and your clients are thrilled with the level of personalized service you provide. Showcase your services, growth, testimonials, and laurels! When clients (past or current) see your success, it helps reinforce in their minds that choosing you was the right decision, and can greatly increase their confidence in coming back to you again or in referring their family and friends to you.

​4. Holidays Wishes, Birthdays and Anniversaries

Spread the love by paying attention to important dates such as clients' birthdays, move-in anniversaries and special holidays. If you keep track of special dates in your CRM, set up autoresponders to automatically run with a personal greeting from you. Making a point to reach out to clients (past, present and future) during the holidays always earns you extra kudos as well.

​5. Referral Ask

A simple email to happy past clients reminding them of their great experience with you and asking for referrals for family and friends is an easy way to engage and build your business. Be sure to share some helpful information that can be passed along to make it easy to share and less 'salesy.'

​​6. Community / Local Events

However large or small, chances are you belong to the same community as your clients. Show how involved you are in your community by sharing announcements about local goings-on they may be interested in like street fairs, festivals, and charitable events with which you are involved. It's little things like this that add value to your brand and set you up as the local expert who has their best interests at heart.

Wrapping Up

The most important part of sending these kinds of emails out to your old book of business is that you have a system that makes it easy to target those past clients and send them good, consistent, professional-looking content that will provide value to them and help keep you top of mind for when they are ready to loop back through that life cycle again. Don't focus on just acquiring new leads—continue to cultivate and tend the clients you worked with in the past, and that garden will continue to yield fruit for years to come.

To view the original article, visit the eMerge blog.