Social media doesn’t work as well for most of us. In addition to having more people on it than email marketing does, you also have to pay for ads that don’t always perform well and can make it less effective to get your message across.
In the world there are more than 4.3 billion Internet users. Nearly 80% of them have social media accounts.
But, here’s the thing…
Nearly all of them have active email accounts.
Real Estate Email marketing performance improved drastically from 2016-2020. This was partly due to the growth in adoption of email marketing platforms CRM’s (Customer Relationship Management).
Is Email Marketing Still Effective?
Social media has gone from being something that a few businesses used for marketing purposes to becoming a part of our everyday lives. It’s been 17 years since the release of Facebook and that number is not a typo. Time flies when you’re having fun!
Social media users have risen dramatically in most recent years and it seems that this trend will only continue. The number of users on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tik Tok, Snap Chat and LinkedIn have increased exponentially.
It’s very clear that social media is here to stay and is not a fad, it’s a channel, like email, that can be used to reach your target audience. Social media has been proven to be an important marketing tool for many companies. For example, 83% of marketers say that social media is a must-have for their real estate business.
Some marketers wonder if social media will replace email. Social media has become the defacto way to communicate with customers and prospects, and it’s increasingly used as the marketing channel of choice for companies.
But, for certain businesses, this is not the case. For example, take the real estate agent. I’d rather believe that people are very set in their ways and still prefer an honest to good personalized email. With the invention of automated email and text marketing CRM’s that can easily personalize every email that a business will send out, email marketing and SMS automation is here to stay for a good, long while.
Email marketing for your real estate busines is the most effective way to communicate with your prospects and customers. Take a look at the ROI of social media and you’ll see that it’s hard to justify the cost of social media compared to email. So much so that it’s almost unfair to compare it to any other medium.
However, the thing is this: if you really want to maximize the impact of your real estate email marketing campaigns and engage your target audience in a whole new way, you should also incorporate social media into your marketing strategy. They go hand-in-hand these days. The advent of a landing page that is generated by a link from a social media page is the perfect example of this
The statistics and forecasts below provide insight into how the digital landscape is shifting, and what it means for business.
Email vs Social Media User Preference Stats
- 1% of the visitors check out the company’s web site first thing in the morning. 20% of your audience uses search engine marketing, while 80% of your audience uses social media.
- 60% of potential customers subscribe to a company email list to receive promotional messages
- 20% of potential customers follow a company on social media too.
That’s amazing news for email marketers, especially as a real estate agent!
With that said, you should check your email first thing every day to see who is responding to your email communication (assuming you have some communication going out automatically via drip campaigns). If your CRM can tell you who is opening and clicking link within your email (and it should), you’ll have some direction on who you should be touching personally on that day. Opens and clicks are hot buying signs!
Then again, social media is great if you’re starting a business and need to build your email list. If you’ve already started a business, social media will help you improve communication with your customers. The best way to describe these buyers and sellers is to say that they’re more likely to approach online interactions with specific goals in mind, like finding an agent in their area with the best reputation or researching new MLS listings for the location they want to buy. Social media platforms are an effective way for businesses to get in touch and provide some global updates with their customers and prospects. It is also a great venue to lead generate by offering an irresistible FREE offer of some sort (real estate lead magnet templates)
The other thing to keep in mind is that consumers are no longer restricted to either reading email or logging in to social media websites to check messages and browse their accounts only on their home PC. They are now able to check it at anytime from anywhere with their cell phone or tablet and they can even do so simultaneously. So, be sure your email templates are mobile friendly!
In Conclusion
Email marketing is definitely the strongest marketing option overall for real estate agents when it comes to a personal experience for your customer or potential customer, but social media is still a great option to grow your audience and build your list in the first place.
The bottom line is that both social media marketing and email marketing are well worth your time and effort. Luckily, you don’t have to choose between the two and you shouldn’t. Online marketing is not just a strategy — it’s an effective tool for achieving results. The best way to do that is by using a multi-channel approach — focusing on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, email and other digital platforms.
There are many aspects to email marketing that make it an essential part of any successful online business or blog. Just be sure you have a plan in place to follow-up. Take a look at our blog about “4 Important Reasons for Using Real Estate CRM Software” to help you decide how to go about the best practice for following up with your well earned leads.
• Contributing Writer & Editor – Andrea Hendrix
