Best Home Builder Marketing Emails to Send in 2022
When it comes to marketing to home buyers, email marketing is as important as ever. According to our latest research, home buyer email opt‑ins to receive new home offers have gone from an average range of 14‑20% in 2020 to 28‑40% in 2022. As you well know, successful marketing takes more than casting one line, which is why email should always be part of every marketing campaign your marketing team executes. This article will break down the best home builder marketing emails to send in 2022 and new home buyer email marketing content best practices, the calls to action that drive engagement and conversions, when to send the emails, and how to track and measure results.
Email Type #1: Prospecting Emails (Acquisition)
Acquisition or prospecting emails are utilized to acquire new subscribers from third‑party subscriber lists and allows you to build an interest list of potential home buyers. It is legal to mail to third‑party lists developed by subscribers that have accepted terms to receive advertising messages from affiliates. Under these opt‑in terms, your mailing list managers can rent lists to third parties to send your affiliate offers.
The content for these emails should be short and sweet (1‑2 scrolls max) and play on the emotional side to capture the attention of your home buyer with a clear and informative subject line. The calls to action that work best in a prospect email invoke the idea of discovery and give the home buyer the option to act without any commitment. A best practice is to send these emails weekly to build your interest list.
Email Type #2: Reengagement Emails
Once your prospects have opted in and are aware of your community or home product and have perhaps engaged by filling out a form or registering onsite, you’ll want to reengage them with more information to help move them through the buying cycle. This type of email is called consumer re‑engagement. The content for re‑engagement emails should include information not readily available in the ads they interact with, including inventory and amenity updates. They should also help gather additional information via one‑click preference questions that automatically provide your sales team with the data to understand home buyer preferences better. Re‑engagement emails can be longer (preferably limited to 2‑3 scrolls).
Ideally, re‑engagement emails also help to move your home buyer to the next level automatically. Using a platform with marketing automation allows you to create triggers based on clicks to hyperlinks in the email that will activate workflows such as updating a contact record, increasing a lead score, tagging, and notifying sales to create “reengaged” lists and more. Managing RSVPs, interest list filters, and win‑back campaigns are common uses of re‑engagement emails. The best practice for re‑engagement emails is to send them twice a month to your consumer re‑engagement list.
Email Type #3: Drip Series Emails
A drip email series aims to provide valuable content via email or text over a period aligned with your home buyer’s journey. Depending on whether you are marketing a single community or a builder home buying process, you will want to develop content based on creating value and facilitating timely information. When sending a drip series, these emails should align with the most common scenarios in your buyer demographic.
Drip email series can be delivered in text or HTML based on budget, timing, assets, and the appropriate type of execution. The content for drip emails will be longer (3‑4 scrolls) and highly informative with essential details that home buyers want to know, including area attractions, top 10 things to do near the community, amenity overview, HOA summary, and more. CTAs for drip emails range to attract home buyers at various points in their buying cycle. Sending a drips series should be consist of about 10‑12 emails deployed within 60 days to keep the community or home product top of mind.
Email Type #4: Realtor Newsletters/Realtor Builder Update
Realtors are an essential part of many home buying journeys. Building and nurturing your realtor base with realtor newsletters and builder updates is a critical component of your email marketing campaigns. Using realtor newsletters as re‑engagement emails to keep realtors informed about your development and new homes available is always a best practice.
Inventory is always top of mind when it comes to content, as realtors love to get right down to the product! Show them exactly what homes are available now, and if you have any offers, incentives, or awards programs for realtors, make sure to let them know!
The length of these is similar to the consumer re‑engagement emails and should be no more than 2 – 3 scrolls with enough valuable information to encourage them to take the next step and show your property to their clients. The best practice for realtor newsletters and builder updates is to send them twice a month unless inventory changes quickly; we recommend sending them weekly.
Email Type #5: Auto Reply/Confirmation Emails
The confirmation email, AKA the auto‑reply, is often overlooked as a critical piece of communication. The typical objective is to confirm receipt of home buyer information submitted via a form to request a tour or gather more information. An auto‑reply email is your opportunity to provide value in the customer experience and go beyond simply confirming receipt.
A best practice for auto‑reply emails is to brand and include rich graphics and provide essential information such as location, phone numbers, names of sales professionals, hyperlinks to driving directions, inventory, floor plans, points of interest, contact information to mortgage, and more. The message should always be consistent with the form CTA and offer a means to continued engagement while the buyer waits to be contacted. Auto‑reply emails also have the potential to be “forever keepers,” which, if managed that way, can help lead to long‑term deliverability of future content to your home buyer’s inbox.
How to Track Your Progress
So, how do you know if your email, audience, and content are working? There are four main KPIs that you should be tracking every month for each type of email, prospect, re‑engagement, drip/nurture, and realtor re‑engagement:
Ensuring Your Email Marketing Success
Email marketing is an essential tactic in your overall marketing strategy and one that you should never underestimate the power of if done right. When preparing your email campaigns, always make sure you know your audience – sending the correct type of email at the right time will drive significantly higher results. Be sure to use the best practices outlined above to gather the information you need to provide your home buyers with the information they want. And finally, track the top four KPIs so you understand how your emails are performing and so you can be prepared to make changes if needed to improve your engagement and conversion rates.
The SmartTouch® Digital Marketing solutions are designed to help spec and custom home builders and developers build a foundation for sales growth, automation, and scalability while also improving sales and marketing decision‑making with insightful data and monthly reporting. SmartTouch offers comprehensive home builder digital marketing services for SEO, SEM, Social Media, and Email Marketing as standalone services or a bundled package. Contact the SmartTouch team today!