Tips for increasing email engagement

According to SilverPop’s 2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study, real estate industry emails are receiving a 23.4% open rate on average. That means more than 75% of your emails are never even being read by the intended audience.

Bummer!

Here are some pointers for sending better emails to your clients to increase engagement and improve ROI.

Get the open

To start you want to hook your audience with a catchy subject line that gets them to first open the email. A good strategy to try is using a question in your subject. Questions provoke curiosity, resulting in opens.

Here are a few you could try:

  • When’s a good time to chat?
  • Did you see the new listings I sent you?
  • Are you looking to sell soon?

Keep it short

Part of the problem with email is that we simply send too many or too much information, and it becomes an ongoing problem. Respect your client’s time by being concise. According to a study by Boomerang, based on a collection of more than 40 million emails, the ideal length of emails should be between 50 and 125 words. Emails within this range resulted in the best response rates at just above 50%. However emails that were too short (under 10 words), received just a 35% response rate, so don’t be too brief.

Provide value

This might seem obvious but too often we write emails with the purpose of serving our own needs and not our clients. When crafting your email think about how you can provide a unique value to your clients.

Some examples might include:

  • A local market report tailored to your client’s specific criteria
  • Tips for first-time home buyers
  • Unique offering that your firm provides (i.e. – bilingual agents, specific neighborhood expertise, etc.)

Try these tips for yourself and make sure you track your results to continue to refine your messaging to deliver real results.