Working for rezora gives you an opportunity to see a lot of email marketing done right. What's more is that you quickly learn that consistently high open and click rates are never an accident - the marketer is adhering to certain "best practices". Whether you're new to email marketing, or just looking to make some improvements, chances are that adopting any or all of these should greatly improve the effectiveness of your marketing and begin to generate promising leads.
1. Segment your contacts.
One of the most common mistakes new marketers make is to market to all their contacts as a "whole" -- the "eBlast". The problem with this is that "one-size-fits-all" marketing fits no one well. And the more that your content is "generalized", the more that it will not apply to some contacts, resulting in unsubscribes and reports of SPAM. Instead the best practice is to segment your contacts into meaningful lists that you market to separately: contacts that have attended a recent open house, or who have expressed interest in a particular type of property, or who you met at a particular event, etc. Grouping contacts in the ways you intend to market makes the conversation more meaningful, reduces unsubscribes, and raises the value of your emails to your contacts.
2. Plan your content around these contact segments, and around clear goals.
Every email has a goal, even if it's a long-term one. While there are many ways you can look at this, one helpful way that we use here at rezora is to split the goals into listing marketing, and nurture marketing. Listing marketing is the content you send that has the express goal of the sale of a particular property. Nurture marketing is the content you send that has the goal of acquiring additional listings by staying top-of-mind and relevant to your contact base. As you are segmenting your contacts, think of the type of emails you want to send for both of these goals, and the intended audience.
3. Look for ways to automate repetitive tasks to save time.
Email marketing should support your full time job, not become it. As you segment your contacts into the audience you want to market to, keep your own time and resources in mind, and automate as much as you can. This might involve using a CRM to track contact interactions or using a feature like rezora's Listing Automation to immediately market certain events. In rezora, your marketing team can also create scheduled marketing pieces for you to review and assign contacts to - a huge time saver. The more you can do to automatically ingest and segment your contacts, and market to them, the more time you can spend following up with them in meaningful ways.
4. Understand the basics of engagement, deliverability, and reputation.
This one covers a lot of ground, but knowing these will help you avoid big mistakes and keep the conversation going:
- Engagement: How does a contact interact with your email? The more that they open the email in their email client or browser, or click any link the email, the higher the engagement. Engagement indicates level of interest/value to the recipient, and the higher the engagement, the higher your online reputation will be.
- Deliverability: Does your email reach the recipient's inbox or spam folder? Do the images download automatically, or does the recipient need to first "allow" them to download? The higher your deliverability is, more contacts will be able to engage in your emails.
- Reputation: Are you known for sending "spam", or are you regarded as a "reputable sender?" The higher your reputation, the better your overall deliverability will be.
To sum these up: make sure that you are doing everything you can to market the right content to the right contacts, and to avoid the spam folder. This will avoid unneeded loss of reputation or engagement, which could cause a loss of deliverability.
5. Follow-up: don't wait for a reply!
After each email send, check the results to see who opened, and who clicked on your main call to action (CTA). Many may not have replied to your email, but they still showed interest by engaging with it - follow up on this! A quick follow up email to these contacts can help recover these leads, and move the conversation forward.
6. Build in some routine contact list clean-up.
Has a contact stopped opening your emails? It is possible that their interests have changed, but it could also simply be that they have a new email address. Or you have the right email address, but your emails are not being delivered because of a technical issue (ex: a "bounce"). Typically, the best thing to do here is to contact them directly and confirm you have their best contact info. It's a great way to confirm their best email address, and gives you an opportunity to check in and see if you should adjust how you market to them.
7. Set a goal around a metric.
As you market, use the engagement metrics (opens and clicks) to make changes to future sends. Check to see which of your email sends had the best open or click rate, and then take a little time to try to determine why it was successful. Small changes can really add up over time!
- Open Rate: This metric is most influenced by your subject lines, send times, contact nurture, and send frequency.
- Click Rate: This metric is influenced the most by the content of your email, including branding, use of prominent calls to action, etc.
8. Connect with other marketing professionals.
There is a lot that goes into effective email marketing, and a lot of great resources to help you get more from yours. If you're a rezora user, you have access to our amazing and friendly support team, who can help answer questions and provide some good advice on your email. You can also subscribe to the rezora blog for helpful tips and marketing advice delivered to your inbox.
Helpful Links:
What's Under The Hood at rezora: Deliverability, Your Reputation, and How You Can Improve Them
How a CTA Can Improve Your Marketing
The Gmail Promotions Tab: What Is It and How Does It Impact My Digital Marketing
What To Do After The Email Is Sent
The Red Pen: How You Can Learn From Your Less Than Ideal Email Marketing Results
The Best Time To Send An Email According To 10 Years of Data
