The Free Home Valuation Email Series that Gets the Listing

The offer of a free home valuation is a lead generator, but how do you get the listing from that free home valuation offer? When email and then drip email programs and services came along, businesses took note and loved the marketing power they provided. Drip email became a staple of Internet marketers and real estate agents became big users. Of course, once something becomes so popular, it then often gets abused. A whole lot of drip email is caught by spam filters. Even if it makes it to the inbox, the recipients often just ignore and delete it.

You may be offering a free home valuation on your website, as it has proven to be a good lead generation tool. They fill in some information about their home and you do a preliminary CMA and send it to them. At this point you haven't seen the home, nor have you spoken to the homeowner, in most cases. It's a form and a valuation email. What can you do with drip email to move them along a path to giving you their listing? Here is a simple and short three email series to get the job done.

Email #1: Thanks and Preparation

This is an auto-responder email that pops back to them right after they submit their home information to get their valuation. You thank them for their information and explain to them what you're going to do with it, not too much detail, but a quick overview of the CMA process. You let them know it could take one or more days, but you want to gather comps to give them the best results. Tell them to expect the next email with their valuation attached.

Email #2: CMA Delivery and Explanation

You'll be attaching the CMA to this email, but you want to explain a little more in the email as well or do it in the attachment. If you can, give them a value range and explain why. You haven't seen their home. This means you may not have selected the best comps because you had only basic information. You did this to keep the form manageable, but this introduces variables that can change the value. If they're surprised to the high or low side, it's probably because you need more information and to see the home. You're trying to get that meeting.

Tell them in this email that you'll be sending one more after they've had time to look the valuation over and note some questions. Of course, they can call you right away for answers (your phone number here). You know that you can fine tune their valuation with a visit to the home, and often this can make a significant difference in the price recommendation.

Email #3: Thanks and Their Plan?

This is the final email in this series, and you're thanking them for visiting your site and getting the valuation. You hope that they found it helpful in their plan to sell their home. Perhaps they're just exploring options now, so you don't want to rush them. However, if they are still thinking about it, you're going to send them a Sold Property Report for the previous six months for their area. This will give them valuable information about what homes are selling for in their neighborhood. If they are considering listing soon though, why not call you to schedule a visit to fine tune their valuation and discuss how they can improve their home for showings. If they do not call, send them the sold report and put them on a list to email them one every month or quarter. You never know when they'll make the decision to list.

That simple three email series should improve your conversion of free valuation leads to actual listings. Give it a try.

To view the original article, visit the WebsiteBox blog.