If GDPR has done one thing, it’s reminded housebuilders of the importance of solid email marketing. The data and leads we now keep are more precious than ever and it’s crucial that our email campaigns reflect that value.
Email marketing is the most trusted form of communication with 77% of consumers opting for email over other web channels. For every £1 spent on email marketing, you’ll receive an average £38 return-on-investment, according to DMA.
Homebuyers who have stayed on your email list may well already find the content they receive from you useful and informative, but marketing teams can no longer afford to simply focus on vanity metrics to analyse the success of an email campaign. This is where it’s important to be able to make sense of your data – focussing on delivery rates, open rates and click-through rates – especially after GDPR. No more ‘spray and pray’ approaches, but laser-like targeting and measuring.
“Most brands who went down the reconsent route and/or deleted data they couldn’t prove was compliant have seen 60-95% drop in their email marketing databases,” Adam Gillett, COO at FanFinders, a platform that specialises in data for marketing, told us. “Improvement is showing in engagement of remaining data as the quality is far higher and lots of unengaged people have been removed, but overall it’s been massively damaging and there’s a huge appetite for new compliant sign-ups to replace this.”
But there are always fresh techniques housebuilders can utilise to increase open-rates, click-through rate and ultimately, conversions. One of the best ways to do it is to offer your customer something valuable, for free. Strata Homes are a perfect example of this. The regional house builder offered our online valuation tool to its customers in a successful email campaign which went out in January 2018. Much of the company’s traffic was sent to its website via the tool and the information collected resulted in four people buying a Strata home.
Arming yourself with the perfect toolkit
From choosing the right email service provider to making sure your content is clear and clickable, a high proportion of companies’ email marketing can be done using a range of tools, whether in-house or outsourced. In terms of email service providers, paid platforms such as Marketo and Vertical Response come with tools such as automatic responses and list-building features. MailChimp is a popular mail service which is free for basic features. A massively popular MailChimp feature to improve click-through rate is its Subject Line Researcher. Put simply, you type in keywords or phrases you’re thinking of using for your subject line and the tool will show you how well these performed for others. When homebuyers are sifting through hundreds of emails every week, it’s crucial to invite them to take that extra step and actually open your email. Especially if you’re offering something valuable.
Segment your homebuyers
Slicing up an email database is a big deal for housebuilders. According to DMA, 77% of email marketing return-on-investment came from campaigns that were segmented and targeted. Save potential buyers the hard work and meet them where they are with messages moulded to your recipients’ needs – around six segments is the average in order to be effective. The most effective email campaigns will segment homeowners in terms of geography, current property value, number of bedrooms, relationship to property and reason for valuation. Here’s a recent campaign we delivered for one of our clients, Taylor Wimpey, targeting homebuyers in Lancashire looking for three, four and five bedroom homes:
Our bespoke email service uses powerful segmentation to reach our own ready-to-buy database of propertypriceadvice.co.uk subscribers who have specifically opted in to receive our emails. One of the best ways to make your marketing efforts go further is to reach an entirely new (and importantly, GDPR-compliant) audience like this. See how we can help you get those call-to-action clicks and create personalised email campaigns with solid segmentation – get in touch for more information or a demonstration of our PropTech tools.
