Is your email box filling up with real estate holiday greetings? They started rolling into mine at Thanksgiving but I just got around to reading them.
One stood out among all the others. I’ve awarded it the prize for The Worst Real Estate Email Ever. Take a look and see if you see what I see.
Naturally, the agent’s name and brokerage have been changed. Believe it or not, it came from a highly-regarded (at least in the industry) East coast agent.
I’ve interviewed her in the past and she is absolutely captivating. Not only that, past clients in her CRM are primarily those who spent or received upwards of $1 million for their homes.
Which is why I was a bit shocked by the lack of care she put into her emailed real estate holiday greetings. Hopefully, her recipients don’t know that it is a canned greeting she copied and pasted off a website – that she didn’t take the time to write, in her own words, a heartfelt wish. But there is a lot more that they will notice, unfortunately.
By the way, there is nothing wrong with trolling for ideas, but when it’s sent without personalization? That’s just all kinds of wrong.
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Sadly, that’s just the first problem. Here is what else is wrong.
Who is this from?
As you can see, the email isn’t signed. Unless you consider that odd URL at the bottom a signature.
Obviously, since I’m not a lead, this email was sent to her entire CRM. Imagine being someone who met this woman at one of the many open houses you attended months ago.
Are you going to be able to figure out who she is just by her first name (which is a very common name, by the way), last initial and her broker’s name? And why is she forcing us to guess at who she is? Always let people know who you are in your real estate holiday greetings – and in any other messaging.
Would YOU click on that? Me neither.
If you insist on using a URL as your signature and linking it to your website (or anywhere else), at least put it in a friendlier format. Leave off the protocol (http://) and the subdomain (www).
“JaneD.ReMax.com” is better, but still odd. How about “JaneDoe.ReMax.com?”
Neither of them should replace the agent’s name, but they would at least let the recipient know who sent the email. Alas, my sender didn’t do that, so I checked the email header to see who sent it:
Happy Home Real Estate (janed@gmail.com)
Again, the brokerage name has been changed. Notice, however, that Jane uses a Gmail account. For real estate agents, this does nothing to instill confidence. Not that there is anything wrong with Gmail but using it in business isn’t wise.
It looks spammy. And, her broker is once again front and center.
So, still nothing to identify the particular agent who sent me the email.
That’s just the beginning of how this highly regarded agent wasted her time sending out this useless and borderline-insulting email.
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There’s that icky grammar to consider
One of the first things I noticed, after trying to figure out who sent the email and marveling at the lack of personalization, was her punctuation blunder. Someone neglected the comma after the word “thanks” when they cut and pasted the greeting.
Her spell checker threw her a clue when she left out the comma, yet she chose to ignore it.
Why?
Either she isn’t paying attention to what her contractors are sending out or, worse yet, SHE wrote this.
Think I’m being nit-picky?
Don’t assume that your email recipients — or those who consume any of your content — don’t notice typos and grammar gaffes. In fact, they will wonder if you extend the same carelessness to the marketing of their homes.
They will. Studies prove they will.
A couple of years ago Grammarly and Redfin conducted a study of luxury ($1 million and more) listing descriptions.
They found that the descriptions “written in full sentences without spelling or grammatical errors sell three days faster and are 10% more likely to sell for more than their list price than listings overall.”
Conversely, listing descriptions that included “misspellings, incorrect homonyms, incomplete sentences, among others” spent more time on the market and had “the lowest percentage of homes that sell over list price.”
None of us is perfect. I’m a professional writer and I’ve missed mistakes in my copy. Not often, but it does happen. But as the person charged with selling what may be someone’s largest financial asset, you cannot afford to look sloppy, careless or lame.
EVER.
I feel like a cog in her real estate wheel
Imagine that I’m one of this agent’s former clients. Do you get that regardless of how consistently she has followed up with me since our transaction, this email will alienate me?
First, I would try to figure out where I stand in her salutation. Especially since I haven’t a clue as to who sent it.
I’m not a friend, not family so I must be “clientele.” Way to personalize the greeting, right? And the thought that she sent this same, cold, thoughtless email to family and friends doesn’t speak well of her either, in my opinion.
She’s not a person I want to business with, how about you?
Is it truly that difficult to send an email that addresses your past clients by their names? If so, you need a more up-to-date CRM or automated email marketing platform. Or, learn how to use the one you have (most allow you to personalize your emails) or hire a freelancer to help you out.
If you can’t do that, do your business a favor and don’t send out real estate holiday greetings; you’re only hurting your brand and your reputation.
Where’s the branding in your real estate holiday greetings?
The absolute lack of branding in the email is the weirdest part of all. It’s so generic, it could’ve been sent by my dentist.
We know that you wouldn’t make this mistake, but new agents should make note of this. Your winter marketing should let people know who you are at a glance.
What’s the solution?
Let’s start at the top. The subject line of our agent’s email is “Thanksgiving Holiday.”
Again, rather blah, and it’s highly doubtful many opened her email. When I first saw it, I assumed one of my clients was sending me their office’s Thanksgiving hours.
Tip number one, then, is to come up with something compelling. That means breaking away from the banality of the pack and offering up a spicier subject.
While it’s not about the winter holidays, Billings Montana broker/owner Amber Uhren’s St. Patrick’s Day marketing plan included an email blast. The subject line read: “Bet you don’t know this about St. Patrick’s Day.”
Inside was a graphic with a quick message, wishing the recipients a happy St. Patrick’s Day and a CTA linking to the blog post that addresses the email’s subject line.
Spend the time necessary to come up with an enticing subject, clearly identify yourself, keep your real estate holiday greetings short and sweet and focused on the recipient. The folks in your CRM will thank you.
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Want to sell during the holidays? Here are some holiday ads that will get you traffic through the winter months:
The post Don’t let your client holiday greetings wreck your reputation appeared first on Easy Agent Pro.
from theokbrowne digest https://www.easyagentpro.com/blog/real-estate-holiday-greetings/
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