The world has a love / hate relationship with email marketing.
I know I certainly do…
We love the convenience of having special offers and relevant information delivered straight to our inboxes. We don’t have to go looking for airline deals, clothing sales, or interesting new technology (I pre-ordered my Amazon Echo because of an email). We willingly sign up for email lists when we think it will benefit us. BUT, we hate it when we get too much email, have to deal with irrelevant email, or receive email that we clearly did not sign up for.
We hate it when email wastes our time!
Even though it sometimes gets a “bad rap” email marketing is still a good option for property management businesses. Here’s why:
- It is inexpensive.
- $15 to $300 per month for an email delivery system, depending on how much you want to automate and how much you want to do manually.
- $22 a month for a newsletter article if you don’t write your own.
- $$ – a bit of money for an interesting image or two (or less if you can use your own photos)
- A little bit of time to update the email templates periodically, once a month if you are sending a newsletter.
- It is convenient.
- For you: You can work on a marketing email just about any time and schedule it to be sent at a specific time. The email marketing systems are web-based so you can log into them from anywhere with an Internet connection.
- For your clients / prospects: Owners and tenants can read email when they want to and respond when they have time. They can also save emails you send for future reference without dealing with storing paper clutter. Emails are also very accessible; these days, they can be viewed from multiple devices.
- It is “green.” Although there is a time and place for print marketing, email is more ecologically friendly because it does not consume physical resources or create waste.
- It can be personalized. You can easily add a name or other personalized information to an email. Recipients can also interact with the content you deliver via email by clicking on links to blogs, videos, surveys and more. The ability to instantly interact makes email more of a personal experience.
- It motivates action. You can’t easily predict when someone is ready to make a decision to do business with your company. You also cannot force people to the decision point before they are ready. Email marketing can consistently keep your company visible (for a low cost) as well as provide reminders about the value your company offers and how to get in touch with you when they are ready to take action. It can get very expensive to send direct mail regularly and, unless you do a fabulous job of it, it can be hard to get people’s attention that way.
- It coordinates with your website. You can use an email marketing system to capture and market to leads who visit your website. Most systems provide signup forms that you can link to or embed in your website.
- It is measurable. You don’t want to invest time and money into marketing efforts that are not effective. Email metrics are easy to measure – signups, open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribes, spam reports, etc. Tracking these metrics helps you adjust and improve efforts, when needed, as well as give you visibility into the overall effectiveness of your email marketing strategy.
That being said, it is important that you “do it right” when it comes to email marketing. Here are a few pointers that will help.
- GET PERMISSION. If you don’t do anything else, you need to do this. People hate getting email they did not request. In the worst case scenario, they report it as spam; an excessive spam complaint rate can get you into hot water with your email marketing software provider. In the best case scenario, they just don’t like you and they ignore / delete all of the emails you send.
- Send relevant, interesting information. Email marketing is not all about self-promotion and closing deals. It is about relationship building, educating, and nurturing people in a way that makes them want to hire you, write testimonials, and send you referrals. Make sure your email content aligns with those goals.
- Keep your lists up to date.
- Remove owners and tenants who no longer use your services.
- Even if you have permission, don’t email prospects too long unless they confirm they want to continue getting email (such as a newsletter) periodically from you.
- Don’t add people to your list that you assume want your newsletter. Have them sign themselves up via a web form or paper signup sheet. This gives you proof of their explicit permission.
- Coordinate your email marketing efforts. Don’t just blast out an email message every time you have something to say to your list. Remember, getting too much email just ticks people off. Instead, get organized and coordinate your announcements, event notifications, updates, etc. with other emails you are already sending.
- Segment and send targeted messages. Don’t send everyone on your lists the same messages. Some of your property owners might be investors looking to expand their portfolios. These contacts will probably want to get emails that show investment properties currently on the market. Other owners might find that annoying.
- Let people go. I know you want as many people on your list as possible, but a big list is not necessarily an effective list. You have to be willing to let people go. You can do this by periodically sending confirmation emails and by making it easy for people to unsubscribe from your email lists.
Email marketing is still a VERY effective way to get the word out about your company. If it weren’t, we would not see so many companies still doing it. However, you need to make a conscious effort to create an email marketing strategy that makes your contacts LOVE hearing from you instead of hate getting email from you.
Are you using email marketing in your property management business? Please share some tips / tricks that are working well for you. If you want to see an example of how LandlordSource uses email marketing, sign up for the free LandlordSource newsletter, Professional Management Matters.
Interesting reads:
– Four Innovations That Will Shape the Future of Email Marketing – econsultancy.com
– 3 Email Marketing Trends for Your 2015 Plan – trewmarketing.com
– The Future of Email Marketing – 2015 Edition – emailmonday.com
– 6 Tips for Creating a 2015 Email Marketing Strategy – fulcrumtech.net
– 4 Email Marketing Goals to Set in 2015 (and how to make sure you actually achieve them) – constantcontact.com
Dee Allomong has over 11 years of experience in Internet technology and strategic marketing. You can contact Dee at deeallomong.com. Disclaimer: LandlordSource does not represent the article content in this website as legal advice. It is shared information only and up to the reader to use this information responsibly, seeking legal advice as necessary to their business.
