I hate to say this because I really don’t want to believe that our reality has changed forever, but I will say it because the reality right now is different than it was before March 17th, 2020.
So here it is, in our current reality, several of our tried and true methods to meet new customers and clients has changed.
Open houses are gone. Sure, we can conduct open houses one family group at a time by using appointments, and Calendly.com is a great way to set up those appointments. Of course, getting people to know about those open house appointments is another matter altogether!
Placing open house signs on street corners to lead random people to our open houses can’t be done because in order to comply with Covid-19 rules, they have to make appointments. Gone are the days of people just showing up!
This does have an advantage that in hot seller’s markets, only truly motivated buyers will make appointments!
Door knocking is another casualty. I can’t imagine that people will open their doors to some random, mask wearing, individual! I certainly won’t!
With those methods currently unavailable what can you do to replace those lost opportunities? In my opinion, digital prospecting is the way to go!
Of the many choices in digital marketing, I believe that email is the best way to go in terms of ease of use, cost effectiveness and results.
Accordingly, I have had several of my coaching clients ask me in past weeks if there was a place to buy lists of email addresses. The answer is yes, of course there are. In fact here is one: https://emailzipcode.net/
But, is this really a good idea? I think not. Actually, it is the classic example of spamming. Why would someone want to open an unsolicited email from you? And wouldn’t a certain percentage of the people receiving that email report it as spam? And wouldn’t that get your email address black listed so that most of your future regular emails don’t get delivered? The answer to all of those questions is yes.
So don’t do it.
Here is what to do instead. Head on over to https://www.sendinblue.com/blog/real-estate-email-marketing-list/ and read that blog post. I am not recommending sendinblue at all. But, I am suggesting that you read that blog post because it has very good ideas on how to get the email addresses that you need, and then how to use them effectively.
One final note on how to get a list together and that is to ask! You could send a handwritten note asking people to send you their address so that you could sign them up for your newsletter, contest, give away or whatever you can dream up that would be enticing enough to get them to voluntarily send you their address!
Some people will and some won’t. But at least you will start to build an email list of people that actually want to hear your message!
It’s past time for you to get this done. Carefully read that sendinblue post several times until you become clear on what you need to do, and then get started.
The email list that you develop will be the major part of your real estate lead generation for years to come.
