Old Rule: The Internet works best as a direct marketing medium.

New Rule: The Internet helps you generate transactions and build relationships.

Only three years ago, in August 2001, Verizon Communications announced that e-mail users in the United States were sending more than 160 billion messages annually. That sounds like a lot, but barely a year later, International Data (IDC) reported 10 billion e-mails were being sent daily worldwide, and projected that number would rise to 35 billion a day by 2005. Included in these numbers, of course, are the Tsunami of spam messages that flood our inboxes in continual, indiscriminate streams.

E-mail marketing is increasing at a rate so rapid that the effect is a highly competitive environment for the customer's attention. The higher numbers of e-mail sent unfortunately doesn't mean more genuine business messages are hitting their target. In fact, the opposite is true. The constant deluge of annoying spam over the past several years has irritated consumers and muddied the waters for all of us.

In the wake of the June, 2003 Do-Not-Call law that gutted one-to-one telemarketing, the stakes are even higher for legitimate e-marketers to overcome the negative impact of spam. Not easily discouraged, many top-performing real estate eRAINMAKERS™ are creating even stronger, more profitable e-mail campaigns by changing their e-marketing strategies to overcome these obstacles. Here are five unbeatable eRAINMAKER steps you can take to give your e-mail more e-muscle:

1. Use permission-based e-marketing. Permission-based (opt-in) e-marketing is not intrusive. It sends targeted e-mail messages only to those users who have requested regular updates on relevant topics. In their 2002 Consumer E-mail Study, DoubleClick, Inc. discovered that 75% of consumers say permission-based e-mail is their preferred method of communication.

   • Include a section on all your online response forms where users can click to opt-in for additional help or further information.

   • Give users the opportunity to change their preferences for subject and frequency.

   • It's also a good idea to include a statement in subsequent e-mails reminding recipients they have agreed to receive such messages.

2. Employ an automated drip-marketing system. Drip marketing automatically sends a personalized series of highly targeted e-mail follow-ups to designated contacts, whether you're at your desk, out in the field, or on vacation. Drip e-mail has become an essential tool for converting prospects into shoppers and shoppers into customers. The secret to success has proven two fold: First, extensive e-mails that bull's-eye prospects' interests, and, second, to be sure every e-mail is personalized to penetrate the radar of anti-spam defenses.

3. Focus on your customer. Content is crucial. No matter how automated your systems, your e-mails won't deliver the results you want if they're not crafted to give each contact the valuable consumer information they want.

   • Have a stockpile of one-to-one messages, each one tailored to answer specific questions and meet specific preferences and needs.

   • Personalize salutations with customers' names, and don't forget to include calls to action early in the message.

   • In each e-mail contact, identify yourself clearly upfront and in an expansive signature. According to DoubleClick, Inc., "Nearly 64% of consumers cite the 'from' line as the most important factor in opening an e-mail." (See www.DoubleClick.com > Knowledge Central> Research> E-Mail> Q4 2003.)

4. Multiply results with an integrated e-strategy. When used separately, both e-mail and direct mail produce results. A carefully integrated e-strategy using both online and offline marketing works even better. The synergy created when the two are used together more than doubles results.

   • Coordinate e-mail with direct mail, phone calls, print ads, signage, and broadcast activities (i.e., integrated marketing).

   • Promote offline marketing materials on your website, such as free printed reports; and promote your website in offline marketing materials especially your web address (i.e., cross marketing).

5. Start and build an e-mail Trophy Database. If you're looking for long-term, customer-for-life relationships. If you're looking for higher profits. Then your first mission must be to build an e-mail Trophy Database that a future buyer of your real estate practice will pay big money to get. Remember an e-mail address is ultimately worthless without a postal address and phone. This is true because when an e-mail goes bad you're lost if you can't write or call the prospect to update your e-mail database.

In today's competitive e-market the best solution to avoid the spam blockers and Do Not Call rules is muscular e-mail that's permission based. Focus on your prospects. Let them get to know you — not by what you say about yourself, but by how well you show them you can provide solutions to their problems while saving them time, money, and headaches. Remember, the prospect's first question is always, "What's in it for me?"

The knowledge you gain along the way and the e-mail Trophy Database you build will be valuable assets to the buyer of your real estate practice when you choose to retire. Meanwhile, you can count on this: Legitimate, permission-based e-mail will survive, and integrated marketing strategies will thrive today – and tomorrow.

Published: October 6, 2004

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