If you’re a real estate agent and not using email marketing, you’re missing out. According to a 2021 study by DMA, email marketing’s return on investment is 38:1 on average, meaning that for every $1 invested, you stand to make $38 back. And while this statistic is not specific to the real estate sector, even InVideo’s research with realtors showed that email is their most preferred method of communication with potential clients due to its ease of use and high ROI.
That is why in this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about real estate email marketing to help you grow your brand in 2024.
Here’s what we’ll go over:
- Why is Real Estate Email Marketing Important?
- 6 Email Campaigns Every Realtor Needs To Create and Send
- How To Pick The Best Real Estate Email Marketing Tool?
- Top Tools for Real Estate Email Marketing
- 3 Things To Keep in Mind While Creating Email Campaigns
- Summing Up
Why is Real Estate Email Marketing Important?
Email marketing is a proven way to establish trust, build authority, and stay on top of your prospect’s mind with regular communication. The best part about email marketing is that you send out content to prospects who opted to get content from you, meaning they're a highly targeted audience segment.
According to a survey by The Close, 66% of realtors surveyed focused their attention on improving CRM and email campaigns in 2021.
Next, let’s look at the different types of emails you need to send out as a realtor to get the best signups and sales.
6 Email Campaigns Every Realtor Needs To Create and Send
A good email marketing strategy not only helps you get better leads but also helps you nurture those leads to create long-lasting relationships that drive business in the long run. To get the most out of your email marketing efforts and convert new prospects into paying customers by building trust and authority, you must use the following types of emails.
1. Create newsletters
Email newsletters are the most common type of email marketing campaigns. And realtors can use them to send new listings, buying advice, local real estate reports, and any other relevant real estate content that’ll educate the user and provide value to them.
For instance, look at Intown Atlanta’s newsletter that shows popular listings and shares the latest real estate news for the week. The newsletter’s simple and minimalistic design prevents an information overload and entices the prospect to check it out.
If you want to create an engaging newsletter that people will look forward to, you should share relatable, valuable, and interesting real estate content that’ll help readers and position you as an expert in the field.
Pro tip: You can even include videos in your newsletter to make it more engaging and increase chances of conversion. To create high-quality videos, check out the real estate video templates on Invideo.
Here are a few things you should keep in mind if you want to create a great real estate email newsletter:
- Don’t include too many pieces in your newsletter. An average American spends only 20 minutes reading every day, so ensure that you don’t link to too many posts in your newsletter, and instead stick to only those pieces that deliver value to your reader.
- Be Unique. Present your take on trending real estate news instead of simply stating information. For example, if you’ve found out that the real estate market in your area is picking up while slowing down in other areas, present your hypothesis on why there’s a contrasting trend instead of simply stating the news.
- Keep testing your newsletters to improve your content and brand. Testing your pieces helps you understand your audience’s interests in an ever-changing world and determine which type of content you should send out more often to stay relevant and get more leads.
2. Make sure you have a welcome email
Welcome emails have an open rate of 50% (that’s 86% more than newsletters) as they reach an audience at a time they’re looking forward to more from you, i.e. right after signing up to your list.
Moreover, subscribers that receive a welcome email show 33% more engagement with the brands. So, first impressions are important, and they set the stage for future communication with your prospects.
For instance, take a look at the email below from real estate agent Annie. She nails this welcome email by letting her prospect know what she signed up for and what she should expect in the future. The email also provides value right off the bat by letting her prospect know how she should prepare for buying a home. Moreover, it also makes her prospect feel important and exclusive as it tells her that she’d be the first to know if there are any new listings.
Source: Boomtown
Here are a few tips you can follow to create a great welcome mail like Annie
- Choose a simple template and start your email with a “thank you.”
- Introduce yourself and let your prospect know what they can expect from you.
- If you used a lead magnet to get a subscriber, link to the freebie. But if you used a pop-up form, direct your prospect to a guide or a valuable blog post as Annie did.
- Encourage them to stay connected with you on social media by leaving links below.
- Lastly, ask them to share feedback and queries to help you improve your content.
3. Send follow-up emails
Follow-up emails make many realtors nervous as they think it’ll anger their prospect for being too intrusive and salesy. However, sending polite follow-ups increases trust with your subscribers and helps turn them into customers as it shows that you mean business and value their connection.
Here’s a sample follow up mail to a seller that shows them that the agent values their time and is willing to go out of his way to help them as well:
Source: Boomtown
Before you start following up with your prospect, give them ample time to consider their decision, as buying/selling a property is a huge financial move. And if they haven’t gotten back to you after the stipulated time, here’s how you craft a polite follow-up email that doesn’t make you look salesy.
- Use a question in your subject line to pique your prospect’s interest but don’t mislead them or use sleazy subject lines to catch their attention.
- Get to the point quickly and keep your emails as short as possible. Start by mentioning your previous communication and include the next steps in the process so your prospect understands why they should respond to you right away.
- Include a CTA in your closing statement so your prospect knows what they should do next. For instance, you could include a Calendar link to ask them to set a date and time for your meeting.
4. Send out referral emails
Referrals are the most affordable and quick way of getting new clients as you don't have to spend time and resources building trust and nurturing the lead before popping the question. This is because your prospect's acquaintance already trusts their recommendation, and you can convert them into a potential client easily as your prospect has already done the selling for you.
Moreover, referrals have the highest conversion rate compared to other acquisition channels, so not asking for them means leaving money on the table.
However, many realtors have difficulty finding leads with referrals because they ask for them too late. Think about it—a prospect who just bought a house from you a year ago won't have the same enthusiasm as someone who recently purchased a home from you. So, it's best to ask for referrals early after the purchase, like the realtor in this example. The email asks for a client referral in a non-sleazy and personal way. It's personal, puts the client first, and offers them a referral incentive.
To craft a similar email, here are a few things you should keep in mind:
- Start with a simple and professional subject line. For example, the email above asks how the client is doing in their new home.
- Gently remind them of the value you've provided while keeping it personal. For instance, you could say, I'm glad that I was able to help you land your dream home (reinforces value), and I hope Nashville has been treating you well (personalization).
- Provide value before asking for a referral, and don't forget to provide an incentive. For example, in the email above, the realtor suggests a great place to dine before asking for a referral and providing an incentive.
5. Announcement Email
Announcement emails create anticipation and build up your audience’s excitement for an upcoming event, and when done right, they bring leads. Here’s an example of an announcement email from Zabba Dabba.
It announces the grand opening and urges the audience to act soon and grab their space while the spots last. The email was a hit because it gives prospects in the area a reason to be excited, i.e. available spaces and urges them to act soon.
To create announcement emails that leave your prospects excited to take action, follow this simple blueprint:
1) Start by announcing the big event. For example, you could say, We’re pleased to announce the opening of EA mall at
3) Create genuine scarcity and give prospects an early-bird offer or gift to get them to take the plunge.
You can also create video announcements to embed in your email to make it more personalized and build further trust. Go to InVideo’s real estate video maker, choose one of the ready-to-use templates, and edit it by adding media and text. Export the video and send it to your mailing list once you’re satisfied with it.
6. Client Testimonial Emails
Prospects are aware that you’re going to try to sell them your services once they’ve opted into your email list. So, they're wary of emails, but you should reduce their hesitancy as realtors and make the sales process as natural as possible. The best way to do this is by inserting client testimonials into your emails, as they help build trust and reduce friction in the sales process.
Here’s an example of a testimonial email from Annie that highlights her ability to solve problems quickly and give her clients the house they need despite the adverse scenarios.
Source: Boomtown
Again, you can also have video testimonials from clients who’re willing to speak on camera. And you can easily edit these testimonial videos using a vast template library on InVideo.
But before you send out your testimonial emails, here are a few things you must keep in mind:
- Always start by providing value to the prospect before showing how you can be of service. In the above email, Annie gives her prospect a guide and outlines how the real estate industry works before telling her prospects how she helped them navigate a similar situation.
- Add short stories to explain the pain points your prospects might face and go into details of how you helped them before adding a testimonial.
For instance, some prospects might be hesitant to buy a home as they’re unsure how to finance it. In this case, you can create a story around financing problems and explain how you helped a previous client overcome them.
- Add a CTA at the end of the mail and let prospects know how to reach you if they need similar help.
Pro Tip: You can create a professional testimonial video that improves prospects’ trust by replacing the text and media in this InVideo template.
Now before you go ahead and create your first email campaign, let’s understand how to pick the right email marketing tool that can help you create stellar emails and nurture your audience.
How To Pick The Best Email Marketing Tool?
Choosing the wrong email marketing tool means ending up in your prospect’s spam folder despite following the best email marketing practices. That’s why it’s important to check a tool’s deliverability rates and consider other important factors like segmentation and automation before signing up for them.
We’ve explained the importance of these factors and more in the list below to help you choose the right tool.
1. Audience Size
Real estate email marketing tools have payment plans based on the number of contacts and emails you send every month. It would be best to choose your tool depending on the current size of your list and how far you want to expand. For example, MailChimp includes 2,000 contacts, 2,000 free emails/day, and 10,000 free emails each month, so it’s perfect if you want to send one email a week to 2,000 contacts.
Source: MailChimp
However, Sendinblue allows 300 free emails/day and 9,000 free emails a month but has unlimited contacts and superior analytics, so if you’ve got a small audience size but want to take advantage of analytics, Sendinblue is a great option.
Many other tools like Constant Contact also allow you to send unlimited emails during their free trial period, so if you want to start big with a small budget, tools like these are great for you.
Out of all the tools mentioned above, Mailchimp is the clear winner if you want to send emails for free to less than 2,000 people. But the costs blow up exponentially as your contacts increase.
So, if you’ve got a decent audience size and are looking for more advanced segmentation and targeting options that don’t break your wallet, Constant Contact is your best bet.
2. Audience Segmentation
Segmenting is the process of dividing your audience on the basis of location, time, date, the lead magnet they signed up using etc. so that you can create tailor-made campaigns for them.
It helps you collect important data that’ll help you understand your audience better and create more relevant campaigns they’re more likely to engage with. The creation of relevant campaigns in turn pushes your prospects further down the sales funnel and boosts your conversions and lead quality.
Most real estate email marketing tools offer basic segmentation options based on location, the number of emails opened, etc. but more advanced tools like Active Campaign and Get Responder offer segmentation options based on interests that can be created using lists, tags, and custom fields within the tool.
3. Automation
Email automation is the process of automating the messages to be sent to your audience based on predetermined parameters such as date, time, frequency, sign up to a lead magnet etc.
This is different from transactional emails, which are triggered when a user performs a certain action like completing a purchase or survey. Email automation is very beneficial for the real estate space as it helps you make connections and get conversions on autopilot without doing repetitive tasks.
Almost all real estate email marketing tools like Active Campaign, Sendinblue, offer automation capabilities. Still, if you want pre-written emails for various occasions and set up your campaign in a few clicks, Constant Contact is the tool for you.
Source: Constant Contact
It lets you automate sequences based on the segmentation and has options to send automated emails to first-time visitors and non-openers, so you don't lose prospects.
4. Analytics
It’s important to track different metrics like open rates, click-through rates, deliverability rates, etc., to determine if your email marketing campaigns are performing well and work out what you should do to improve your results.
Source: Active Campaign
While Mailchimp offers basic analytics, more advanced tools like Active Campaign, Sendinblue, and Constant Contact offer more analytics options like heatmaps, custom reports, etc., without compromising the tool’s simplicity.
Now that you understand what to look for in a real estate marketing tool, let’s go ahead and look at some of the best tools in the business.
Top Tools for Real Estate Email Marketing
An ideal real estate email marketing tool will help you not just craft stellar emails and high-conversion campaigns but will also help you customize landing pages, and sync with your website. We have rated these real estate email marketing tools based on their features, ease of use, deliverability, and price to help you make a more informed decision about which one suits your needs the best:
1. Mailchimp
Mailchimp’s users love the platform as it lets them set up email campaigns with just a few clicks without any coding experience. It can also integrate seamlessly with websites and lets you create beautiful newsletters with its templates.
Mailchimp is a great tool for you if you’re a real estate email marketing novice and want to get started with something simple without compromising functionality. It’s rated 4.1 on G2, and you can check out other reviews here and get started on their free plan if you’ve less than 2,000 contacts.
2. Constant Contact
Constant Contact shows the open rates of each email and has a heatmap tool that allows you to see where your prospect clicked next apart from offering an intuitive interface, segmentation options, and other essential email marketing tools.
So, it’s the ideal tool for you to get into the minutiae of your email marketing campaigns and determine what works best for you.
Although the tool doesn’t have a free plan, it does offer a 14-day trial (and is rated 4.0 on G2), so you can check it out here.
3. Active Campaign
Active Campaign is your best bet if you want a tool with a simple user interface and advanced automation and segmentation features at a nominal price.
It offers features like lead importing, unlimited emails, split testing, advanced reports, etc., apart from email essentials like drag and drop editors, even on the most basic plan.
The software has 8,000+ ratings (overall rating 4.6) on G2 , and customers love the tool for its simplicity, reporting, workflow management, custom reports, and various integration options.
You can get a free 14-day trial and check out their pricing plans (it starts from $9) here.
4. GetResponse
GetResponse helps you create landing pages, build automation, and even set up funnels in a few clicks apart from offering email basics like drag and drop editors, segmentation, and reporting – making it a great tool for realtors.
So, if you’re a beginner looking for an email marketing tool that also doubles as an essential marketing tool, GetResponse is your answer. This tool also has a good rating (4.1) on G2.
You can check out GetResponse’s FREE plan, which includes a website builder (5GB bandwidth), automation, webinars, and advanced analytics here.
5. Sendinblue
Like GetResponse, Sendinblue also doubles as a marketing tool and lets you create Landing pages, FB ads etc., within the tool. Although some of the tool’s features may be overkill, you can unsubscribe from those you don’t want to use.
Sendinblue’s most noteworthy feature is its powerful and reliable segmentation features that help clients create campaigns that drive better results. While most users praise the tool’s features (it has a rating of 4.5 on G2), few reviews have also warned users about their incredibly long verification process and the lack of customer support.
The tool has a FREE plan that allows you to send up to 300 emails a day. And for more information on the pricing, you can check out other Sendinblue’s pricing plans here.
Now that you have a fair idea of the kind of tools to pick, let’s look at a few things to keep in mind before you start crafting your real estate email marketing campaigns.
3 Things To Keep in Mind While Creating Email Campaigns
1. Create and embed opt-in forms on your websites
The most important reason to include opt-in forms (apart from doing business in good faith) is to prevent yourself from legal liabilities. Most countries have laws like CAN-SPAM, GDPR, etc., that prohibit you from sending unsolicited emails to people, therefore opt-in forms are essential.
Opt-in forms let the user confirm whether they want to receive emails from you or not, and they also help you get in touch with prospects who might be genuinely interested in what you’ve got to offer.
Here’s an example of an opt-in form from Sotheby’s realty
Most email tools mentioned above also come with the option of including an opt-in form or integrating with other plugins via an API. For example, MailChimp allows you to create opt-in forms to embed in your website.
2. Include social media buttons in your email
Adding social media icons to your emails and encouraging users to follow you on social media will help you stay in touch with your prospects consistently, even on other channels.
This will increase your prospect’s exposure to your content and improve the chances of converting into a customer. Here’s an example from White Picket Fence Real Estate in Camden
To include social media icons like this in your emails, search for social buttons or look for a social option in your email marketing tool and add it to your email’s footer.
3. Create Split Tests
Conducting split tests helps you understand what your customers are receptive to and ultimately boost your revenue. You can split-test email sequences and a variety of elements like images, subjects, preview headers, etc.,
Here’s a screenshot of the split testing feature from Active Campaign. The tool allows you to split test elements and sequences and determine a winner using click-through or open rates.
Summing Up
Now that you know how to choose email marketing tools, draft killer emails, and some real estate email marketing best practices, start implementing them to convert contacts into customers. You can read our definitive guide on Evergreen Real Estate Marketing Ideas if you want to learn further how you can execute your real estate marketing plan.
You can also add videos to your email newsletters to grab your reader’s attention. Sign up for a free account on InVideo to start leveraging the 5000+ templates available which allows you to create stunning videos in minutes!
And if you prefer learning via videos, you definitely should check out our YouTube channel, where we share daily video creation tips and tricks, the latest video trends and ideas and help you make more money as a video creator.
This post was written by Mrignayni and edited by Adete from Team InVideo
