Email Marketing

Understanding Email Marketing

• Email is a tool that nearly everyone uses today, and it continues to grow and be more prevalent in the lives of people around the world.  

• While initially on-line marketing was once seen as a risky endeavor for most businesses, but the gap between it and off-line marketing has narrowed.

• By sending personalized emails to your subscribers, you show them that you're a live person with their concerns and interests in mind.  

Understanding Email Marketing

• 66 percent of consumers have made a purchase as a result of an email marketing message.*

• Email is almost 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined in helping your business acquire new customers. **

• It's an effective way to keep customers informed.***

• It's easy to customize and integrate into other marketing tactics.***

• Email marketing is inexpensive. *** * DMA, 2013**McKinsey, 2014***http://bit.ly/1RAvzYR

Why use? Success stories

• “Five years ago, we started with zero contacts, but we have a great database now – we have 7,000 email addresses. That means I can push out a social event or a holiday and let 7,000 people know instead of advertising it for $500 in a newspaper. “

• Frank Galuppi Owner, Galuppi’s Restaurant Constant Contact customer since 2010

•“Email marketing is great, because it doesn’t have to take a lot of effort to have a BIG effect.”

•Terri Jasen Program Director, Pajama Program Constant Contact customer since 2008

Understanding Email Marketing

Why Use in Real Estate

• A newsletter with specific information for new homeowners or other recent clients can help you keep in touch, and may result in referrals.

• Be sure to include interesting content and tips about real estate that will encourage your clients to read your newsletter long after they have done business with you.

• By putting popular, relevant content in the newsletter people will share it. That’s been invaluable

Understanding Email Marketing

• New Listings• Open Houses• Just Solds• Office Events• Monthly Emailers (holidays etc)• Newsletters containing helpful info

Understanding Email Marketing

Uses for Real Estate

Social Media? You got it!

Understanding Email Marketing

• Email Newsletters and posts can be posted to Facebook (& other mediums) automatically

• You can schedule your posts• You can design and reuse templates to save

time• You can preset settings on campaigns

(forever)• You can resend campaigns

Key Points to remember

Understanding Email Marketing

• Strong content (content is king)• Strong Subject Lines• Visually Appealing• Contact & Social Information• Calls-to-Action

Understanding Email Marketing

There are MANY different email marketing programs. We will focus on three of the favorites. Like CMA programs they all do the same thing, but with (mostly) miner differences.

- MyEmma- MailChimp- Constant Contact

Free emails:

List Management Services:EmailMonthly NewslettersSocial Network

Delivery OptionsTriggered Campaigns

Integration w/Content Management Sys

Google AnalyticsSalesForce

Understanding Email Marketing

MyEmma MailChimp Constant ContactFree emails: 2,000

List Management Services:EmailMonthly NewslettersSocial Network Delivery OptionsTriggered CampaignsSMS Delivery

Integration w/Content Management SysDrupalGoogle AnalyticsJoomlaMagentoSalesForceWordPressZencartContactually

Free emails: 400

List Management Services:EmailMonthly NewslettersSocial Network

Delivery OptionsTriggered

Campaigns

Integration w/Content Management Sys

DrupalGoogle AnalyticsJoomlaSalesForce

EmmaEmma has a large number of tastefully designed templates, but it is also easy to create your own or import templates from elsewhere. Emma's engineers also released a drag-and-drop interface for all templates. The design flexibility is excellent. List segmentation is very easy in Emma. Autoresponders are a snap. You can build out automated campaigns over days, weeks, even months. You can create and send surveys from within Emma and link to them in your newsletters. Reporting in Emma is plain vanilla. You can get an excel spreadsheet of your results. Integrations are few. 

Understanding Email Marketing

Design flexibility - Excellent 

List segmentation - Excellent 

Reporting - Good 

Customer Service - Excellent 

Constant ContactConstant Contact has the best marketing of all the providers The customer service is strong. Constant Contact's pricing is competitive. Constant Contact's design interface is clunky and there's a lack of flexibility in the templates. You tend to get locked in to their templates and then your newsletter looks like everyone else's. Importing HTML templates is possible, but it's frozen in HTML so you have to know HTML (or get a designer who does) to make any changes you need.  You can segment your lists into targeted sends so that only those you want to receive your email will get them.  There is a decent reporting.

Understanding Email Marketing

Design flexibility - Bad 

List segmentation - Good 

Reporting - Fair 

Customer Service - Excellent 

Multi-User  Platform:  No

Understanding Email

MarketingMailChimpMailChimp makes doing a newsletter more fun than the other providers. There are a wide variety of templates available. You can write your own in HTML and import it into MailChimp with a little effort,MailChimp makes it easy to segment your list, slicing and dicing to your heart's content. You want integrations?  MailChimp has them, with Salesforce, Freshbooks, Highrise and lots of other CRM applications. Standard reporting on MailChimp is good.  You can export a PDF with lots of nice graphicsMailChimp has the strictest policy about who can use their service. They don't like real estate agents or PR people much. If your emails bounce (become undeliverable) MailChimp won't help you much with that. Some of their templates can even be tagged as spam but they won't help you fix them.

Design flexibility - Good 

List segmentation - Good 

Reporting - Good 

Customer Service - Fair 

Multi-User  Platform: 

OthersAweberTemplates are bland and your emails can end up looking like everyone else's on Aweber.  AWeber does one thing hugely better than other providers, however: They make available an absolutely huge variety of sign up forms for your list. Sending to segments is easy. Reporting is good.

Pricing: $19 for the first 500 subscribers.  Unlimited email sends. Add $10 per month to have up to up to 2,500 on your list

Vertical ResponseVertical Response can be one of the most economical email newsletter options, with plans starting at $8.50 per month.  It's solid, but uninspiring. The design interface is blah and the templates aren't much better. You can import HTML and make your own, however. You can segment your list and reporting is good.  Vertical Response will give you a deal on postcards, and you can send customer surveys.

Pricing: Starting at $8.50 per month

Understanding Email Marketing

Ratings on Aweber Design flexibility - Okay 

List segmentation - Okay Reporting - Good 

Customer Service - Good Multi-User  Platform: 

Ratings on Vertical Response Design flexibility - Poor 

List segmentation - Good Reporting - Good 

Customer Service - Good Multi-User  Platform:  Yes