This guest post is part of a series on the topic of online lead generation for CRE brokers and firms. It is written by Greg Schraff, Managing Director, digetry, LLC – digital strategy and marketing company. The Massimo Group has had much success working with digetry related to their digital strategies.
As we discussed in a previous post on email best practices, there are many advantages of email marketing, from establishing yourself as a thought leader, to reinforcing your brand, promoting your content, building trust online, and, most importantly, generating sales leads.
But based upon the amount of junk emails we all receive, it can easily be abused. As a CRE professional then, it is important that you follow best practices in order to stay above the blasts and spam that flood our inboxes.
One best practice is to ensure that every email has a goal. Another one that will build trust amongst your clients and prospects is to segment your email recipient list.
Creating a segmented list allows you to create language, messaging, and offers focused on the list members’ specific needs and wants. And greater relevancy means higher performing emails.
Look at what actions, behaviors, attributes, qualities, and characteristics your contacts have in common. These are the different ways you can segment.
Some natural segments include:
Buyer Persona
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of who you are trying to reach with your marketing. There is usually more than one type of person who buys your service. Segmenting by buyer persona allows you to create marketing messaging that speaks directly to the individuals needs and wants.
State in Buyers Journey
Just as there is more than one type of person who buys from you, each persona goes through several stages in buying process. For example, a client will first evaluate a service category before she considers several options before entering into the buying You can segment emails based on where the prospect is in the buying journey, and tailor messages that directly address their mind-set at that point.
Industry Focus
The customers for your services may represent different industry specializations. This is an excellent way to segment your contacts and speak directly to the requirements of their real estate needs.
Site Activity (email, social, conversion history)
Look at how your contacts behave on your website. Are there people who only visit a specific page? Are there some that just read your blogs but don’t spend time on the rest of your site? You can infer intent by what they are or aren’t doing on the site and create messaging that relates to their activity.
Demographic (gender, age location)
This is your traditional segmentation categories. You should consider the unique qualities and attributes of your contacts based on their age, where they live, etc. and create emails that promote your service’s strengths relative to these qualities.
Purchasing History
And don’t forget to look at how your customers work with you. Do you have intermittent clients, lifetime clients, new clients, etc. that you can segment and use email to speak to their unique requirements.
All these segments allow you to craft messaging that speaks directly to the unique qualities or characteristics of the person receiving the email. By personalizing the message you are speaking more directly to your customer, which is much more likely to get their attention and elicit a response.
