Thursday – 10AM
Re: 40% Response Rates
I remember a time, a long time ago back in the early 2000’s, when I could send an email and it was common that 30-40% of my list would open it within 24 hours.
That was a long, long time ago, and that was to a warm list – meaning those people had heard of me. Maybe they had even done business with me. Still, I was thrilled when 3 or 4 out of 10 people would open my email.
Today, it’s not uncommon to get closer to 10-15% open rates on an email. That means that 1 out of 10 people will actually be reading my emails.
A lot of factors go into that lower “open” rate today. Some of the reasons we all have a lower open rate in 2015 include: aggressive spam filters, lower attention spans, dead and churned email accounts, folder filters and so many more reasons.
Why would anyone in business still send email if only 1 person out of ten will read it? What if I told you that email is one area that continues to propel my business year after year – even at 10% open rates.
Let me explain with a few details.
You will never believe the results of this recent email test.
I had very low expectations. In fact, I thought the response would be a little lower than normal as it felt to me that people were still not “back in town”. Metro DC traffic was still low and many of my friends were out of town enjoying the last few days of summer.
Except this time we used a new tool (that I had never heard of) and made a few small changes to my usually effective marketing plan.
By Friday afternoon, when I expected most people to be sitting in their cars heading to the beach, we had over 50% of that list open the email.
These people had no idea who I was! They had never received an email from me before, and yet 1 out of every two people I sent this email to – opened it! Some even thanked me, called me or gave me some valuable feedback in their replies.
Would you like to know what I sent them?
What about the tools I used? The tools were all free. Nothing we used for this “Labor Day Test” cost us an arm and a leg or required 10 hours of high dollar coaching from some out of town guru or mentor.
How about this – Would you like to learn about the email headline we sent on Friday afternoon that had such an incredible open rate? How about the body of the email? You can have it – right down to the simple signature line we used. (That signature might surprise some of you.)
Do you want to learn about this tactic and many other ridiculous direct mail and Facebook “hacks” I have the guy in my office use from time to time to help me generate leads and buy or sell some properties? If you want to grow your business without spending a fortune – plan to join us at the next WREIA meeting on Monday, Sept. 28th.
Every year for the last 5 years my “secret weapon” has shown our WREIA members actual results from recent email, direct mail and Facebook/Google campaigns. This year, the focus is solely on marketing real estate businesses. You can literally walk out of this WREIA meeting, take what you want, and apply it to your business – the next day.
This WREIA meeting will be packed with the nitty gritty details of building and marketing a business in 2015. These tactics easily cross over into other businesses. If you operate a side business, some of the tools and tactics could easily be used there as well.
Which leads me to my last point. Sept. 28th is another great chance to ask some questions. If your marketing is failing to get the responses you are hoping for – this is a terrific opportunity to ask what you can do to improve it!
Come on out and join other WREIA members this month.
It’s going to be like a one night mini-course on how to generate leads and property referrals from people you know and some who have never heard of you.
Make this week a great week for your business!
John Peterson
301-881-5541