Tech Trends: Using High Tech to Achieve High Touch

By Renwick Congdon

RISMEDIA, July 10, 2007–What do you do the minute you go online? If you’re like 90% of Internet users, you check your e-mail. E-mail has become so ubiquitous that a study performed by the California Association of Realtors found that when given a choice, twice as many real estate customers preferred to be contacted via e-mail than by telephone.

However, according to NAR, only 39% of agents considered e-mail as the primary tool used to stay in touch with active clients (compared to phone calls at 48%). Even though repeat business and referrals are considered “very important” by almost 80% of agents, agents kept in touch with former clients mostly with mailings (38%) and market updates (24%); e-newsletters and e-mail correspondence trailed at 16% and 6%, respectively.

Talk about an opportunity that isn’t being met.

To take advantage of this opportunity, all you need to do is implement a permission-based marketing campaign.

Start off on the right foot by asking prospects and customers if they would be interested in receiving pertinent information via e-mail. Then, make sure the e-mail campaign programs you consider have these key attributes:

-A large selection of design templates from which to choose
-Content (who wants to write all those newsletters?)
-Statistics on open and click-through rates to track ROI
-”From” line that includes your name and not something like “reply-09834@notyourcompany.com,” since people open e-mails from people they know
-”Subject” line customization to pique recipients’ interest
-An easy way for recipients to unsubscribe

The bottom line is, e-mail marketing means savvier marketing for you. It also gives you an excuse to follow up—via e-mail of course.

Renwick Congdon is the president and CEO of Imprev. For more information, visit www.imprev.com.

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