Real Estate Marketing – Why Your Drip Campaign Could Backfire

Are you using a Drip campaign to stay in touch with prospects who have visited your website? If you aren’t sending them what they asked for, that campaign could backfire.

On a real estate website people generally opt in to hear from you via one of four methods:

• They say yes to a special report
• They do a search for a home
• They use the automated “what’s my home worth” form
• They send an e-mail through your contact me form

When they do this, they give you important information about themselves, and unless you use this information to be choosy about what you send them, your drip campaign can serve to annoy rather than impress.

As a real estate copywriter I have occasion to visit a large number of real estate websites. As a form of market research, I occasionally I leave my name, just to see what people are sending.

And what I’ve found lately isn’t pretty.

On one site I used the contact form to write the agent with a question. I never got an answer to the question, but I’ve been getting an avalanche of emails that are targeted to – no one. Some are about selling, some are about buying, and none tell me why I might want to choose this agent. In fact, they’re so poorly written that they’d have a negative impact even if they were targeted to me.

Another site sends me short e-mails telling me that if I’m still looking for a house, I should call. On this site I had asked to be included in his newsletter. Some news.

Another one sends a message each week telling me there are no matches for my search. What search? This was another site where I had signed up to get a real estate ezine.

While the purpose of the autoresponder is to make me think I’m getting special attention from the agent, and to reinforce the idea that this agent is THE one to call, these messages convey the opposite feeling.

So what should you do instead?

First, take the time to set up a separate autoresponder campaign for each type of buyer or seller. Let them opt in to get a special report, and when you mail to them, keep to that topic.

If they’ve asked for information about doing a short sale, talk to them about short sales. Don’t send them tips on finding a mortgage broker to handle their new home purchase or talk to them about making a list of “must have” features before they search for that home.

If they’ve asked for information about the First Time Buyer Credit, talk to them about the credit and then talk about how to find that first home. Don’t send them information related to listing and selling.

And for Pete’s sake… send something of value when you write. Those messages that say nothing but “I’m here, use me” are a waste of time for both you and your prospects.

If someone actually has done a search and asked to be sent new listings when they come into MLS, then letting them know when there are no new matches is a good idea. But if they haven’t done a search, or haven’t asked to be sent the new listings, why would you send that? For them, your message is nothing more than spam.

Yes, it does take a little extra effort to set up targeted campaigns. And yes, you do have to write or buy good messages to load into your autoresponders. But the results will be worth the effort.

Finally, if someone sends an inquiry via your contact form, that’s not an invitation for you to send them information they haven’t asked for. That’s a request for you to send a personal response to a specific question. You should answer that mail yourself, and not with an autoresponder.