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Text Message Marketing: 13 Key Best Practices to Keep in Mind
We've recently talked about how to use email to connect with clients. Today, however, we're going to explore a channel that doesn't get talked about enough: the humble text message. Not only do texts have an open rate of over 95% (compared to email's 20-30%), but approximately 90% of text messages are opened within three minutes. With stats like that, it's no wonder texting is such an effective medium! While you likely update your clients via text daily about things like showings, offers, and inspections, using text messages for marketing is a whole different beast. It can, however, be a powerful tool for real estate agents when used correctly. In a recent webinar with Constant Contact, which offers text message marketing capabilities, we learned some key best practices. Here's what to keep in mind: Building Your List and Being Mindful of Compliance Get Permission First: This is crucial. Always follow the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and only send texts to those who have opted-in to receive them. You can collect opt-ins through website forms, sign-up widgets, or even keyword responses. Be Clear on Opt-In: When someone signs up, make sure they know what kind of messages they'll receive and how often. Crafting Engaging Messages Keep It Short and Sweet: Text messages have limited space (around 160 characters). Make every word count and keep your message concise and clear. Personalize When Possible: Use the recipient's name and target messages to their interests. Say Who You Are: Relatedly, always identify yourself in marketing texts. Your recipient may not have your number saved in your phone, so say who you are to avoid confusion (and being marked as spam). Compelling Content: Don't just broadcast generic messages. Offer valuable information like new listings, open house details, or market updates. Clear Call to Action (CTA): Tell people what you want them to do next, whether it's replying for more info, scheduling a viewing, or visiting a website. Optimizing Your Strategy Segmentation Is Key: Don't blast the same message to everyone. Segment your list based on interests (buyers vs. sellers) or location preferences. Right Timing and Frequency: Consider when people are most likely to check their phones and avoid texting too frequently. Evenings and weekends might be better than early mornings. Never text late at night to avoid alienating recipients. Track and Analyze: Use your SMS marketing platform to track open rates, click-through rates, and responses. This will help you see what's working and what needs adjusting. Additional Tips Use a Reliable SMS Platform: There are many options out there, so find one that works for your needs and budget. Constant Contact, for example, takes care of opt-in, opt-out, message timing, and more for you. Avoid Spammy Language: All caps, excessive punctuation, and spammy phrases will turn people off. Provide an Opt-Out Option: Make it easy for people to unsubscribe if they no longer want to receive texts. Follow these best practices and you can turn text message marketing into a powerful channel to connect with potential clients, generate leads, and close more deals. Want a text message marketing platform that takes care of all the compliance and technical hurdles for you? Learn more about Constant Contact, or watch our webinar to see it in action for yourself. Related reading 25 Text Messages You Should Send Right Now Text Etiquette: The Do's and Don'ts When Texting Put the Power of Text Message Marketing to Work for

Getting Started with Cloud Agent Suite
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9 Tips for Building Real Estate Emails that Get Results
Email — it's an important part of any real estate marketing strategy. Step one is knowing what type of email you want to send to your sphere. Last week, we highlighted three essential marketing emails that agents can leverage. Next comes step two: building that email and figuring out what to include — and what to avoid. Fortunately, this (and much more) was covered in a recent webinar with Constant Contact. We've distilled the email-building wisdom shared in that event below. Read on for nine tips on building real estate marketing emails that get clicks! Be mindful of short attention spans It may come as no surprise to you that in our modern era of social media and online distractions, the average attention span is now only nine seconds long. That means that real estate marketers have a very short window to grab the attention of their audience and compel them to take action. What does this mean in practical terms? Well, Constant Contact analyzed 2.1 million emails and found the messages that had the highest success had only about 25 lines of text overall — about a paragraph and a half. Consumers aren't taking the time to read long, complex emails. Instead, they're scanning and skimming those messages and looking for what's relevant to them. So keep your emails short and to-the-point and avoid long walls of text. Don't be afraid to use bullet points to highlight your key points — they're great for readers who are quickly scanning your emails. Use buttons Want your email recipients to click on a link? Use buttons rather than a plain old link. Constant Contact notes that the most successful emails use buttons. Or, as webinar panelist Matthew Montoya puts it, "Buttons are advantageous because if you give people buttons to push, they're going to push your buttons." Use three images or less Here's another important way to cater to today's short attention spans: keep the number of images in your email to three or less (not including your logo). That leads us to our next item… NEVER use an image as your whole email If you know that you should limit your images, you may be thinking, "Why don't I just make the entire email one big image instead?" Seems like a clever workaround, right? Wrong! You should never, ever have an email be 100% image. Why? Because that's a favorite tactic of spammers. Today's spam filters have been trained to send all-image messages straight to the spam folder. "You don't want to do what spammers do," says Montoya. Always link your images Speaking of images, Constant Contact recommends that you link each image to wherever you want to send recipients to, whether that be a listing details page or a "Contact me" page. By linking your images, you make it even easier for consumers to click through to where you want them to go. This best practice is great for your email success rates, too: messages with clickable images see a 650% increase in click-throughs. Don't forget to link your logo to your website, as well. "People have been taught to click on logos and images to make something happen, and so you want to make sure you're linking any image you use in your email," says Montoya. Use classic email marketing structure When creating your email message, keep this classic, tried-and-true structure in mind: Headline: What are you offering? This is what your headline communicates — and it's also how you hook readers, e.g. You do not want to miss this amazing open house! Body copy: Remember that paragraph and a half we talked about earlier? Here it is. Keep your message succinct and scannable. Need help creating this part? Constant Contact's built-in AI can write it for you. Learn more here. Call-to-action: This is the part of the email that gets results. What do you want your readers to do? Learn more about a property? Schedule a showing? Contact you for more information? Whatever it is, be explicit about what you want email recipients to do (and put it on the aforementioned button). Create compelling subject lines A great email subject line compels readers to open your message. A poor line, on the other hand, results in ignored emails or worse — emails sent to the dreaded spam folder. Here are some ideas for creating strong subject lines: Try emojis. "Emojis are very visual, and if people are in their inbox really briefly, it captures their attention," says Montoya. Employ questions. "Questions are really powerful because the only way the question can be answered is by opening the email," Montoya says. Induce FOMO. That is, a fear of missing out. Make your audience worry that they're going to miss out on your great listing or open house. Use lists. Readers love lists. They're easy to understand and highly scannable. Offer your audience three ways, five ideas, seven things, etc. "That's really beneficial because, one, everybody's in a rush, so you're basically saying, 'Here's a little bit of digestible information for you,'" says Montoya. "If you're doing an email where you're saying 'Seven curb appeal ideas,' only offer them three in the email. Make them click to read the rest." Aim for alliteration. Alliteration is when you use words that start with the same sound. "The reason alliteration is powerful is it's kind of sing-songy, but it's also a pattern, and because it's a pattern, people in their busy lives looking at their inbox are going to notice that pattern before they notice all the other subject lines," says Montoya. Be funny. Humor, especially puns and puns tied to pop culture, is very effective. People are busy and that pop culture reference or funny subject line is going to slow people down and make them notice your email. What you don't say in a subject line is just as important as what you do say. Here's what to avoid in your email subject lines: Spammy words. Words like "free," "weight loss" and "guarantee" earn you a trip to the spam folder. Unfortunately, "mortgage" and "property" do, too, but you can use those words in the body of your email. Just avoid them in the subject line. ALL CAPS. Not only are all caps considered shouting in internet-speak (and just rude, honestly), but spammers use all caps, so make sure you capitalize words normally. Too! Much! Punctuation! Didn't know this one? Neither did we until we watched the webinar. Limit yourself to no more than three pieces of punctuation in your subject line — and two is even better. Why? Because spammers routinely replace letters with symbols. Target your emails Ever heard of the "spray and pray" method of email marketing? It's where you send messages out to everyone in your database indiscriminately. In real estate, this may be sending property listings to those who aren't currently looking — or worse, to someone who just closed a transaction and who is definitely not going to buy again anytime soon. Instead, take time to segment your contact database. The messages you send to those who want to buy or sell within the next few months should be different from those sent to contacts who are inactive on the market. "Fifty-two percent of an audience will just abandon an email if it's not targeted," says Montoya. "That is something that hurts our top of mind visibility." But when you segment your audience, research shows that you'll see an 11% increase in open rates and a 27% increase in clicks. Monitor your click-throughs and follow up Clicks are the biggest determiner of an email's success. They prove your email was delivered, opened and read. Most email marketing platforms, including Constant Contact, will tell you what people clicked on. They will show you who read what and who looked at which property. "How valuable is it to know somebody clicked on this one particular property instead of the others? Now you know something about them — they're interested in this property, they have this kind of price point in their head," says Montoya. "Savvy marketers take that information and do targeted follow-up." Montoya notes that when email recipients take repeated actions like clicking on a specific property or look at a particular article, they are showing high interest. "You definitely want to reach out to somebody that does that," he says. For more great email marketing tips, watch the full webinar here. Then see for yourself how easy building emails can be with the help of AI: try Constant Contact FREE for 60 days, no credit card