Effective Nurture Campaigns: The Key to Successfully Converting More Leads
Real estate runs on buyer and seller leads: sellers to list with your brokerage, and buyers to represent in their quest to find the perfect home. But it can take months, if not years, after you convert a lead for it to incubate and result in a transaction. This means a lot of time where your agents risk letting leads go cold. A long list of cold leads is every broker's worst nightmare. It's far easier to keep a lead warm than it is to revive a cold one. To keep this from happening, brokers need tools that help agents stay in touch with their leads. A great way to do this is through lead nurture emails. How does lead nurturing work? Your leads can interact with your brokerage in multiple ways: Visiting your website Viewing listings Searching for and saving properties they like Contacting your office directly Signing up for your newsletter Subscribing to your blog What's next? The answer: lead nurturing. Lead nurturing involves setting up touchpoints with these leads so they can stay in contact and interact with you and your brokerage. The hope is that when it comes time to take action, you'll be at the top of their minds thanks to the resources, tips, information, and expertise you provided in the meantime. In short, nurturing a lead means building a relationship of trust over time and guiding them towards deciding to work with you. What are lead nurture emails? Lead nurture emails are messages you send to leads who have agreed to be contacted to help move them through your sales funnel and towards listing with you or closing a deal. Good lead nurture emails are warm, encouraging, and make readers want to continue interacting with your brokerage and agents. What is a lead nurture campaign? When you send multiple nurture emails as part of a conscious plan to guide leads towards certain actions, this sequence of emails is called a lead nurture campaign. You can create a variety of different campaigns and assign leads based on their persona to make sure you're following lead nurturing best practices. Let's discuss these best practices below. Real estate lead nurture best practices Nurturing leads takes time. The winning formula involves a combination of consistency, expertise, and most of all… trust. You'll be surprised just how effective email campaigns can be when you do them right and follow these best practices. 1. Write catchy subject lines and greetings For lead nurture emails to work, your leads actually have to open (and read) them. To tempt your readers to click, keep subject lines concise and enticing, with emotional adjectives and action verbs. Reward the people who click with a warm and catchy greeting before diving right into the good stuff (the reason you're writing). Similarly, don't start your email with something like, "Dear Buyer Lead." It's important to be warm, fun, and always address leads by name. 2. Personalize your messages Your lead nurture messages need to feel personal and unique to be most effective, so your emails and campaigns should be tailored to your leads' personas. This means having separate content for buyers vs. sellers, investors vs. first-time homebuyers, blog subscribers vs. open house attendees, referrals vs. previous clients, or any other meaningful differences that are important to you and your team (for example, a special luxury category for high-end brokerages). The persona will tell you what you should write so that your content is as relevant as possible for your readers. 3. Use consistent branding and voice Part of building trust is teaching your clients what they can expect from your brokerage. This means consistent branding (names, colors, logos) and voice. Clients who come to trust you are likelier to refer you to their networks, too. 4. Share useful content Your leads have questions. You get to provide the answers. If each email you send answers a question or provides useful information, your leads will learn to open what you send and reach out to you with additional questions. This creates even more touchpoints for you to be helpful and win their businesses and loyalty. 5. Demonstrate your expertise Remember, you're the real estate industry expert. Your leads are relying on you to guide them through every step of the biggest transaction of their lives. So, position yourself as an expert and show them what you know. Just as you should be answering their questions, you probably also know a few questions they haven't even thought to ask yet. By providing this information before they know they need it, you'll be saving them time and earning their trust. 6. Focus on one topic per message We're bombarded day in and day out with messages from our jobs, our loved ones, and our phones. Leads don't have time to read a lengthy history of the real estate industry or an in-depth analysis of the politics of your MLS board. But they do have a few minutes to learn more about the transaction they're embarking on and how you can help. If you have a topic that really needs 1,000 words to cover it, write a blog post instead and invite them to read it, or ask them to give you a call. 7. Keep everything short and sweet According to HubSpot, the ideal email length is between 50 and 125 words. That's about the length of this paragraph! In short, keep it short! Your leads should be able to open your email and know immediately to keep reading it (and that it'll only take a minute or two of their day). If they open your message and see paragraph after paragraph, they'll simply delete it. That doesn't mean longer emails aren't useful and don't add value, but briefer is better. Use bullet points, a nice image, and clear, straightforward language. You can also encourage them to read more about the topic of your message on your blog. 8. Create a logical flow between emails The point of lead nurturing is to guide and encourage. That means starting at A, continuing to B, and ending at C. Don't start with C, backtrack to A, and then mention that you (oops) forgot B. For example, you wouldn't ask a blog subscriber to sign up for your blog (again), then give them tips on a successful close before sending them an email about the importance of preapproval. Let your emails flow naturally, and guide your readers towards the action you want them to take, based on what they already did to enter your sales funnel in the first place. 9. Test, track, edit, repeat How do you know if your campaigns are working? By tracking them, of course! You can create multiple campaigns with the same end goal, try them out, and see which one performs better. Sometimes very subtle changes in wording, timing, and tone can have a big impact on clickthroughs and unsubscribes. If your emails are never opened, try a catchier subject line. If more than 5% of leads unsubscribe, check your personas and how relevant your content is to them. Keep editing and tweaking all the time for maximum results. To view the original article, visit the Constellation1 blog.