Get More Listings With Your Online Crystal Ball: Your Email Database, Part 4

November 18, 2009

Ideally, when you had people sign up for your mailing list, you let them indicate a few things about themselves such as when they’re planning to buy or sell, if they’re currently renting, if this is their first home, and so forth.  This makes it much easier to rate each prospect accordingly so you know how to market to each one properly.  

Let’s assume you only have each person’s email address.  With each email you send your database, your subject line should be very clear about what the email contains.  That way, each time a prospect opens one of your emails, it’ll give you further clues as to where they’re currently at with buying or selling.

For each prospect rating level, you want to think about ways of getting prospects to the next rating level or higher.  For instance, if you find 25% of your prospects have opened one email on a given topic, there’s a high chance they’ll open another email on the same topic.  Keep trying different topics in your emails with prospects who have never opened until they finally open one.  Over time, you should start to see definite patterns of what information your prospects respond to and what they ignore.

You should first think about your ideal prospect and only send your database information of interest to those types of people only.  For instance, to help you identify listing prospects, send emails to your database with information home sellers typically want to know.  For instance, home owners are usually more interested in home prices than home buyers, so if you want to single out home owners, consistently send emails to your database with market analysis on local home prices.  Home owners usually want to make some improvements to their home before selling it, so you can identify home owners by the prospects who consistently open your emails with tips on home renovations or interior design.  People often buy a larger (or smaller) home in response to a major life event like having a child, losing a child to college or university, or getting a divorce, so try sending the odd insightful article on any of these topics.

For prospects who have listed with a competitor or went FSBO, try sending them emails with tips on home staging.  If they respond well to these types of emails, it may indicate they’re having a hard time selling their house.  Try sending them market analysis information thereafter.  If they’re housed is priced wrong, your analysis should them what it should be priced at.

Filed under: Attracting Buyers/Sellers With Email,Marketing Tips,Networking Tips,Using Email For Attracting Buyers/Sellers

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