Email Marketing 101: When a list is not a list

Marketing homes by email is the second most abused tool in the realtors arsenal.  The first most abused, ‘Blogs’, I’m saving for a much larger rant at a later date.  First, the basics:

1. Email marketing is an effective method to build your business.
2. It needs to be done ‘right’, and opposed to ‘wrong’.
3. There are rules to email marketing.  Break those rules, and not only will you hurt yourself, but you will hurt your brand as well.  (Email me on why Sutton® realtors are killing their own brand.)
4. Yes, you can do it yourself (cheaply).
5. Yes, you can do it better with help from a professional.  Services can work, but most don’t.

The Basic Eight Rules for List Email Marketing

These are very important – and if you follow them, I guarantee you will minimize problems later; problems like getting banned from AOL, COMCAST,  Shaw, or TELUS, automatically being classified as spam, grey listed (or worse black listed).  If you don’t understand the previous sentance – stop now. Never email again.  Consider a new carreer.

1. The list must be valid, meaning in simple english that you have permission to send them email.  Permission based lists are easy to generate, and most web site software systems have the means to collect them for you.  If you lack the means to gather email addresses, your web developer can set up an account with a free service like Campaign Monitor.
2. Email addresses must not be older than 2 years. If they are actively conversing with you, then they can be included.  If you have not exchanged anything in 2 years, delete them.
3. Email addresses cannot come from purchased lists, or from you ‘mining addresses’ out of others emails or from web sites.
4. If you are sending from your own computer, use the BCC: field for the addresses. Why?  reread point #3.
5. If you are sending from your own computer, do it in groups of 10 addresses. Why? most service providers are now scanning for bulk email being sent from home, and they could automatically delete those messages in transit.

   Really important points:

6. Have a proper subscription / unsubscribe method. If it takes you a day to edit the list, you’re wasting your time, and making customer angry.
7. If your using a paid service like RealtyFolio or Campaign Monitor, make sure you have the following safeguards in place:
   Verified Domain Keys
   Verified Sender ID
   Sender Policy Framework
   Why?  Too much to detail here, but think of this as your bank debit card.  In the right hands, this information will prove to AOL, TIME WARNER, COMCAST, GMAIL, SHAW etc that the email is legitimate.
8. Make sure your Google Analytics account is active, and that the paid service integrates it correctly.  Why?  Because knowing what your email’s do, and how they do ‘it’ is worth more than a referral.  Knowing who opens your email, what they then look at, and why is worth it’s weight in gold.

Why do I need to make sure the list is valid?

Todays technology can do evil things to your business emails.  In some cases, as few as 2 SPAM complaints on services like AOL can ban your entire domain.  In simple english, screw up twice, and no more email marketing.  Automated filters like Googles Gmail can be even more unforgiving.  In an effort to reduce SPAM as a whole, emails that violate even basic rules (listed above) are now going into the trash well before your clients see them.

For example, a US based realtor was using list of 3700 email addresses to promote his services in his area.  He was using his own Outlook Express to send out the list each week.  It produced on average 2-3 sales leads each time he emailed it out.

He started having problems; some clients never got the email.  Others began sending him back nasty comments about SPAM.  Then one day, his ISP banned his address.

We came in and reviewed the list.  Running it through our service, and integrating it with Google Analytics we discovered the mess he was in.

During a basic email campaign (after steps #6 and 7) were completed, we discovered that:

• of the 3700 ‘clients’, 47 had identified him as spam in the first 3 hours. This is WAY above the national average. This actually had the cumulative effect of blocking over 1500 emails across the ISP’s network.
• of the remaining 2253 emails, 310 were hard bounces (bad accounts)
• of the remaining 1943, 1802 were never opened.
• of the remaining 141, 19 wanted to be unsubscribed.
• of the remaining 122, 108 opened the email, and stayed on his website for less than 1 minute.  What they saw did not impress them.
• 4 people stayed on his website for an excess of 10 minutes, creating 2 sales leads.

He had been assuming he had 3700 potential clients.  He got 2.  In truth, had all the emails actually made it, it would have been closer to 4.  Not only did his bad list HURT his business, he missed out on two sales leads.

After applying all of the steps (#1-7) we reduced his 3700 client list to a more managable 305.  We contacted his ISP, and got him verified.  We applied a proper registration and unsubscription method.  On his next mailout we got a 75% open rate, and generated 7 sales leads.

Having a valid list is paramount to a successfull email campaign.  The list of eight ’secrets’ above is your first step to building a successfull campaign.

How big should the list be, or can be?

A successfull list could have 5 addresses in it; an unsuccessfull list might be over 5000.  There are no rules regarding the size, only in the manner that you got them, and how you send them out.

If your list is over 100, consider a service like those offered through RealtyFolio or Campaign Monitor.   By having authenticated lists and sending criteria (points #6 and 7), you avoid the simple pitfalls which can effect getting your emails to your customers.

Next article:  what do I put in my email to make it successfull?