An open house sign-in sheet holds a few dozen names on Sunday evening, and unless someone types them in by Monday, the list never grows.
Building a list is steady work, and an assistant can do most of it: setting up the sign-up form, entering sign-ins, importing past clients and clearing out addresses that bounce.
A list pays off only if the people on it want your mail and the addresses still work.
The Importance of Building an Email List
A list gives you a direct way to reach people, at a low cost for each message, whenever you have something to say. For an agent those people are past clients, current clients, open house guests, online inquiries and the friends and neighbors who might send a referral.
Most of them will not need an agent this month. A steady email keeps your name in front of them for the month they do.
Why Email Lists are Valuable for Businesses
A list earns its keep in three ways. It brings past clients back when they are ready to sell. It reminds your sphere of influence (the friends, neighbors and contacts who know you) that you exist when someone asks them for a referral. And it lets you announce a new listing to people who asked to hear about homes like it.
None of this works if the addresses are wrong or the people never agreed to hear from you, so the quality of the list counts for more than its size.
Effective Strategies for Building an Email List
Start with the people you already know, then give strangers a way to join.
The first group is past clients, sphere contacts and vendors. Import them from your phone, your CRM or a spreadsheet, add a note on how you know each one, and tell them before the first send that they are on your list and how to leave it.
The second group is open house guests, website visitors, callers and people who answer a social post. Each of them needs a place to join: a form, a QR code or a sign-in sheet that says you will email them.
Creating Opt-In Forms and Landing Pages
An opt-in form is the box where a person types a name and an email address to join the list. Put one on the home page and on every listing page, and keep it short: a name, an email address and, if you like, an area, a price range and a timeline.
A landing page is a single page built around one offer, such as a market report or a buyer checklist. It holds one promise, one form and no menu, so the visitor has nothing to click except the form.
A few rules keep the forms clean:
- Say it up front. Tell people what they will get and how often.
- Disclose sharing. If you share or sell what the form collects, say so. NAR's Standard of Practice 12-11 asks members to disclose that possibility in a reasonable and readily apparent way.
- Leave out personal questions. Skip anything about family, religion, national origin or other protected details. You do not need them to send listings, and asking invites a fair housing problem.
- Confirm the address. A confirmation email the person must click (double opt-in) keeps typo addresses off the list and gives you a record of when each person joined.
Change one thing at a time when you test headlines or buttons, and give each version enough visitors to mean something. With a small list the results are rough, so treat them as hints.
Offering Incentives and Freebies
A lead magnet is a free resource offered in return for an email address. For an agent, good ones are a neighborhood market report, a first-time buyer checklist, a seller's guide to getting a home ready and a moving checklist.
Three cautions apply. Any market number in a report needs a named source and a month. Words like "free" need care, because Standard of Practice 12-1 says members must not represent that brokerage services are free unless they receive no compensation from any source for them. And a "what is my home worth" offer can collect the address, but the opinion of value comes from the licensed agent, so the assistant passes the request along.
Tools and Resources for Email List Building
Two tools carry the load: something that collects addresses and sends mail, and a place that remembers each person. Several real estate CRMs do both, and a standalone email platform suits an agent who only wants newsletters.
Email Marketing Platforms
An email platform stores the list, sends the messages, handles unsubscribes and reports on opens and clicks. Mailchimp and HubSpot are two well-known names, and HubSpot says its free CRM covers up to two users.
Before you pick one, check that it imports a spreadsheet, adds an unsubscribe link and your postal address to every message, records how and when each person joined, and lets you tag contacts. Expect a learning curve, so have the assistant build a small test list first.
Lead Magnet Creation Tools
A word processor or a design tool is enough for a one-page checklist or a short guide. The work is in the content: addresses, dates and figures checked, the brokerage name on every page (Standard of Practice 12-5 asks members to disclose the firm name in advertising) and the agent's approval before anything goes out.
Check your MLS's rules before you reuse its data in a report.
Best Practices for Maintaining and Growing an Email List
A list needs weeding as much as it needs growing. In fact, several of the legal rules are about weeding.
The FTC's CAN-SPAM guide says to honor an opt-out within 10 business days, keep the unsubscribe option working for at least 30 days after each send and never sell or transfer an address after someone opts out, apart from passing it to a company hired to help you comply. Remove addresses that bounce, and skip purchased lists. The people on them never asked to hear from you, so their addresses bring complaints, and under Canada's anti-spam law a commercial message needs the recipient's express or implied consent, which a stranger on a purchased list has not given.
Segmentation and Personalization
Tag every contact when they join: how they came in (open house, website, referral), what they want (buying, selling, investing) and where. Send each group what it asked for.
Use the first name and one fact the CRM already holds, such as the month a client bought. Group people by what they asked for and what they do, and leave protected characteristics out of every tag and filter.
Regularly Staying in Touch with Subscribers
Send a welcome email within minutes of the sign-up, and then stick to what the form promised. A monthly newsletter plus listing alerts for those who asked is a schedule an assistant can keep.
Send from a real address and have the assistant watch the replies, forwarding anything that needs you the same day. Questions about price or terms go to the licensed agent. Every now and then, ask subscribers what they want to hear about, with a one-click survey, and tag them by the answer.
Pull last month's open house sign-in sheets and have your assistant type every name into the CRM, with a note on how you met and a tag for the event.