by: Michael Russer (a.k.a. Mr. Internet^®)
REALTOR® Magazine - May, 2004

There is no question that e-mail drip marketing is a powerful way to stay in contact with previous clients and cultivate new prospects who are not ready to take immediate action. Drip marketing systems allow you to set up and then automatically send a series of timed e-mail messages to any group of people with a common interest—first-time buyers, move-up sellers, etc. Thanks to this “click and forget” system, you can maintain customer contact and still have time to sell.

While drip marketing systems are not new, the tremendous increase in spam today can make it very tough getting your messages through. Even worse, your communications might be viewed as annoying junk mail and end up irritating the customers you want to cultivate. With that challenge in mind, now is a great time to reassess your e-mail marketing strategy to be sure it’s getting the job done.

There are three points in the typical sales cycle where you can use drip e-mail for profitable results:

1. Pre-transaction Cultivation – Drip campaigns can help build rapport and trust with prospects from the time you have made initial contact to the time they are ready to take buy or sell —which can easily be several months for an online consumer.
    
2. Transaction Support – A drip campaign is a great tool to help your clients stay current on their transaction’s progress Automated e-mails keep clients “in the loop” and give them great service without expending much time or energy.
    
3. Post-transaction Marketing – After the transaction closes is an ideal time to use a drip marketing campaign for building referrals. Regular e-mails will keep you in the forefront of past clients’ minds and increase the likelihood of repeat and referral business.

Don't Spam!

Keep in mind, however, that drip e-mail should never be used to generate new leads. It will only work with leads who have already make contact and given you permission to e-mail them. Otherwise, you are essentially spamming prospects and doing great damage to your online goodwill. Drip e-mails must also comply with new federal commercial e-mail rules, which require you to include a return e-mail and postal address on all e-mails, to offer a functioning opt-out mechanism, and to display a clear and conspicuous notice that the e-mail is a solicitation of business.

Finally, and most importantly, each drip e-mail message you send must be perceived as highly valuable to the recipient or they will quickly become annoyed as well. For tips on developing effective e-mail campaigns, reread the May 2002 “Ask Mr. Internet” article.

Get Help

Several companies offer real estate-specific tools that do a good job of drip e-mail. Some even do both e-mail and snail mail:

• Intersend (http://www.intersend.com). One of the easiest drip e-mail systems to set up and use, this program can be run from your Web browser. It comes complete with prewritten campaign options, which makes it simple to use, but which may limit your marketing flexibility.
   
• Sharper Agent (http://www.sharperagent.com). A more sophisticated Web-based system that does both drip e-mail and snail mail. Sharper Agent lets you divide your contact list into any number of subgroups so you can target message more effectively. It also does a great job of keeping track of all contacts made through the system.
   
• Gooder Group (http://www.goodergroup.com). This company’s e-Rainmaker Central ™ system has great prewritten campaigns for real estate. The company also offers the advantage of a complete suite of real estate marketing and lead generation products from print to Web. e-Rainmaker Central can have a steep learning curve, however, so it may be best run by an assistant familiar with the system.

Despite fears of spam, drip e-mail remains a very powerful marketing support tool if used wisely. It can help grow your leads into a fruitful bushel of new business and referrals, or it can literally drive new business away from you if you misuse it.

Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He's dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. You'll see his column on REALTOR® Magazine Online every month and in the magazine quarterly. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Web site at http://www.russer.com

This article is reprinted in its entirety from the May 2004 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright 2004. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark and Ask Mr. Internet!™ is a trademark of RUSSER Communications.