Over the last several years, tech writers and bloggers have fiercely debated if email marketing and even email in general is a dying medium (a quick Google search reveals both sides of the debate). But the fact that the debate rages on and email is still hanging around might indicate its resilience. After all, email has been around since 1971.
One thing is for sure, email as a technology and communication tool is evolving. The method of how we send/receive email has drastically changed in the past 10 years. Emails need to have a big hook. The subject line has to grab your attention. Think about the emails you get daily—what do you open or trash? Your copy and delivery needs to be up to date or you will be sooo 2014. But what are the best email marketing practices for student and multifamily?
Overload
According to a report by The Radicati Group, worldwide consumers send and receive 87.6 billion emails per day. Add that with the number of business emails sent/received, the total number of emails sent/received is a staggering 196 billion. That number is expected to rise to 227 billion by 2018. Whether you’re a student housing, multifamily or senior living marketer, you have to stand out in the crowd.
Get Mobile – Don’t be the 31 %
This is a no-brainer. Make sure your emails look good on phones and tablets. They don’t have to be responsive, just clear and easy to read on smaller devices. According to Litmus, 48% of emails are first opened on a mobile phone. And 80% of email subscribers delete emails that “look bad” on their phones. Funny enough, 31% of marketers don’t send responsive emails. This is another chance to get ahead of the pack.
CTA and Content
Knowing that emails will be read on-the-go (in class, at the grocery store, etc) it’s imperative you keep your call-to-action (CTA) catchy and to the point. Ultimately, your end goal with emails is to push the receiver to your website.
Emails are not the right medium to include a laundry list of your communities’ amenities. Let the reader find that information on your website. Use the email as the bait to get them to there. Think quick and memorable.
Intrusion
There’s no denying that purchasing mass lists can be effective, but is this the right place for it? From a list of a 100,000 names, even if you achieve a click rate of 1% (the real estate industry open rate is 2.2%) you’re still driving 1,000 pieces of traffic to your website. Not bad at all. We encourage you to think of your audience and think of your own preferences. Many companies can purchase lists and blast away…but remember, spam is called spam for a reason. People don’t want it. The property that spams-a-lot can have this backfire quickly. Spam filters have become super intuitive and readers very savvy. Best practice? Use the relevant lists you’ve collected through use of raffle entries, housing fairs, contact forms on websites, etc. Be authentic. Be relevant and memorable.
At Threshold Agency, we build brand. We also build best practices from experience and create custom solutions to keep the leases rolling in! So let’s hit “Send” together!