When used correctly, email marketing can be an incredibly effective tool for reaching new clients, communicating with existing ones and promoting your business. It also makes it easier for property managers to communicate with a large number of people with very little effort and expense. Here are some tips to get the most out of your email marketing efforts.
It All Begins With The List
No matter what content you’ve got to offer your audience, its effectiveness is only as good as the list you’re working with. Creating a list that accurately targets your audience is vital to making your email campaign as effective as possible. You may even have to create multiple lists, and multiple email campaigns to properly target each group within your list. When creating your form for email sign up, think about the ways in which you may want to target and segment those signing up and ask relevant questions to help you accomplish this.
Some useful email lists may include, current owners/clients, business or professional contacts, and potential owners/clients. Members on each of these of these lists would benefit from seperate messages tailored to their needs and wants.
Keep The List Clean
Having an effective email list doesn’t necessarily mean it’s got to be a particularly long list. Keeping your list clean means you’ve pared it down to those who are truly interested in what you’ve got to send them. There’s no use in having thousands of email subscribers, if there are only a few hundred who regularly open and read your messages.
There are a few things you can do to clean up your list and make each subscriber a more vital component. First, get rid of any email addresses that are bouncing. Second, if someone unsubscribes, get them off your list. And third, if you see there’s been no activity with an email address for more than a year, it may be a good time to remove them or segmenting them onto a different list.
Remember to follow email marketing laws, like those outlined in the CAN-SPAM Act. These laws include giving recipients an easy way to opt-out of subscribing, providing an address for the business sending the message, being honest about who the message is from and what the contents is about, and more.
Keep It Short
Nowadays, people either have no time to read for more than a few minutes, or they simply don’t want to. You’ve got a very short span in which you can grab and hold your reader’s attention, so make the most of it.
First off, if your subject line isn’t worth reading past, your subscribers just won’t click and read any further. All of the information held within your email, no matter how incredible, will never be in front of their eyes. Grab their attention and make opening your email irresistible. Then, keep the content of the email direct and to the point.
Give Them Something They Want
It can’t always be about promotion and sales. If that’s all you’re offering your email list, you’ll quickly see the numbers dwindle. People are always looking for useful and relevant information, so it’s important that you give them what they want.
Help educate them, or direct them to the pros who can. If you’ve got expertise in the industry, sharing it with potential clients not only gives them something of high value, but it also helps to build a trusting relationship, where they will eventually begin to seek out information from you.
Keep In Touch Without Being Annoying
There’s a balance you’ll have to strike between wanting to stay in contact frequently enough with your email list so they don’t forget about you, but not so frequently that all they want to do is forget about you.
Flooding an inbox is no way to get the positive attention you’re looking for, but steering clear for too long may make your audience question why they even signed up for your emails in the first place.
A regularly scheduled newsletter means your audience knows when to expect to hear from you, and can actually look forward to what you’ve got to say. It’s a great idea to also time your mail-outs so they’re more relevant for the recipients – like perhaps a Thursday or Friday afternoon, before they go house-hunting over the weekend.
Building Relationships
It’s not just about getting your content in front of as many eyes as possible each week. If you’re truly looking to have an impact on your audience, creating engaging and trusting relationships should be at the forefront of what you’re doing.
Trust is built when they know they can rely on you for honest, real and timely information. If you’re trying to withhold information in order to gain something, you’ll never be able to create that trusting relationship. Once there’s trust, they are more likely to open and read your emails and engage or share your content. Some of your best marketing is done by word of mouth, by those subscribers, followers and clients who can vouch for your trustworthiness and expertise.
Track Your Results
As great as your list and campaign may be, the only way to build on what you’ve got is to track what you’re doing, see where things can be improved, and work towards achieving that. Tracking your stats will show you exactly what’s working and when, so you can focus your efforts on creating the most effective email campaigns, targeted towards the right audience.
Make the most of your email marketing efforts, and give your clients information that’s valuable and relevant to them by following these tips.
