Make your marketing emails stand out

When was the last time you updated your marketing emails? Have you noticed a similar “blah” feeling about the real estate marketing emails you receive?

As you know, email marketing is a valuable tool. However, just getting a client, or potential client, to even open the email can be a struggle. Then to actually read it?

Ask yourself. How many marketing emails do you open and actually read?

Probably not all of them. So how do you get your marketing emails to stand out?

Writer Joel Burslem, of 1000 Watt, recently lamented the lack of creativity in the real estate emails. Calling them “for the most part, terrible and uninteresting,” Burslem wants to help. Here are five tips for Realtors® to update their marketing emails.

1. Design matters. I can’t emphasize this enough. A little design goes a long way. So much that’s sent out by real estate pros is just bad, bad, bad. Stop the bad habits and look at what others outside the industry are doing. Learn what works. Study resources like Campaign Monitor’s Top 100 Email Marketing Campaigns of 2014. Good design isn’t just about making it look pretty, though. It’s thinking through the information design and content to make sure that…
2. It’s relevant. In real estate, there’s so much good data to mine: market data, website activity data, public records data, pricing trends. There are tons of building blocks to play with, which is a good thing because it is OK if…
3. It’s dense. The going narrative is that “less is more,” but that’s not necessarily true – especially if you’ve paid close attention to the first two points. The trick is to present all of the data in a way that is interesting, usefull and fun. I think this is because…
4. It’s alive. Create little movements in the email, not overkill, but something definitely eye-catching that makes a reader want to dive into the content. This is an area ripe for abuse, but I think if done with restraint it can add a new dimension to a previously flat medium. But it really only works here, since…
5. It’s simple. There is a temptation just to dump everything into a recipient’s lap and let them sort through it. The harder, but much more valuable exercise, is choosing what to say no to and then focusing on displaying only those data points that matter.

How do you try to make your emails stand out? Any tips from Burlsem you plan to try?