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Brendan Wong
Only 10 per cent of emails sent by real estate agencies are read by consumers, according to a recent email intelligence report.
The 2013 Australia and New Zealand Email Intelligence Report prepared by Return Path benchmarked over 500 Australian brands in 24 industries. It found the real estate industry had one of the lowest engagement levels when it came to email marketing.
The study also found that email marketing continued to be a key struggle for Australian businesses, with 20 per cent of emails never reaching target audiences. Two per cent of the missing emails went to spam while the other 18 per cent went missing or were blocked.
Digital marketing and communications agency Loop Media found similar results with its e-communication statistics. These looked at the average unsubscription, open and bounce rates of their clients on their first point of communication.
Real estate had an unsubscription rate of 5.4 per cent, an open rate of 35 per cent, and a bounce rate of 22 per cent. This was in contrast with education which scored 1.6 per cent, 49 per cent and eight per cent, respectively.
Loop Media director Ross Campbell told Real Estate Business the low scores for real estate were due to agencies not personalising their emails.
“They’re just sending out generic communication and they’re not speaking to the person relevantly," he said.
Mr Campbell said agencies could improve their email marketing if they employed a marketing professional or engaged a supplier.
“We are all so busy in our core businesses these days," he said. "Unless they’re prepared to take on a marketing person and invest in the technology to be able to do it, it will be very very hard.”
Starr Partners CEO Douglas Driscoll said real estate agents needed to create emails that were educational, informative and valuable to their clients.
“Generally speaking, I don’t think that as an industry we are very good at that," he said. "Instead, we are often begging or bragging, whereas if you give something back and don’t ask for something in return, the customer is far more likely to be receptive to your message.
“At the point where that person is ready to make a commitment to look at selling their property, there’ll be no question they’ll come to you.”
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