Your Guide to Real Estate Marketing Automation

In the fast-paced real estate market of today, it’s vital to be efficient and timely in every aspect of your operations.

Being on the ball could be the difference between closing a profitable deal or losing a high-value client.

One of the most essential elements of your business plan will always be marketing, but keeping everything consistent can be challenging. T

hat’s where real estate marketing automation can come in.

By automating your marketing efforts, you can streamline and measure your marketing tasks and workflows, allowing you more time to focus on the more client-facing aspects of your business.

Marketing automation for real estate is revolutionizing the way that agents and investors interact with their clients and leads, resulting in a more personalized, fast-paced, and ultimately effective strategy of communication.

By sending out targeted emails to prospects and following up on leads automatically, you’re able to focus more of your energy on closing deals and scouting out properties.

We’ve put together this guide to support you through marketing automation real estate strategies, expanding on the nuances of how to use it properly while also demonstrating the potential gains you could make by using it.

Seasoned industry veterans and new starters alike stand to gain a lot from marketing automation, with benefits such as saved time, increased lead generation, and enhanced client relationships all being easily attainable.

What is Marketing Automation in Real Estate?

Real estate marketing automation is the use of software platforms and technologies to automate marketing tasks and processes that you would otherwise have to complete yourself.

This allows professionals to market more effectively across multiple channels without having to repeatedly perform the same tasks.

Countless platforms and software can be used by real estate professionals to automate tasks such as email marketing, social media posts, and traditional ad campaigns.

In the context of real estate, CRM marketing automation tools are used to manage communications with potential, past, and current clients while tracking interactions, scheduling important dates, and much more.

Key Features and Benefits of Marketing Automation

By using the features of a real estate marketing automation tool, you can experience many benefits to your business, such as:

Streamlined Marketing Tasks

Tasks like sending out emails, posting on social media, tracking interactions, and delivering direct mail newsletters can be repetitive and time-consuming.

With automated real estate marketing tools, you can refocus your energy on the tasks that require a human touch, such as in-person negotiations, meetings, and open houses.

Targeted Marketing Campaigns

CRM and marketing automation tools can help you to segment your audience, making it easier to deliver more specific, personalized messages to each group.

This will make your campaigns more effective, as more personalized communications generally lead to increased engagement.

Lead Scoring and Nurturing

The game of lead generation is about more than just quantity—it’s about focusing on the right people at the right time.

Many marketing automation tools can help you to score and rank leads based on their interactions with your business, helping you to keep track of the more promising leads while also nurturing said leads through your sales funnel.

Analytics and Reporting

Much like the last benefit, marketing automation platforms can help you in building a profile for your business as well as the leads themselves.

Marketing is about trial and error, so it’s useful to know which aspects of your campaigns are working or not, and then you can act accordingly.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Integration 

Most marketing automation tools come part and parcel with larger CRM systems, which means you can adjust your marketing efforts to match your sales technique.

Increased Time Efficiency & Revenue Potential

Simply put, automating repetitive tasks saves you time.

This, combined with intelligent targeting and the nurturing of leads, can help you to increase your overall conversion rates, leading to a boost in your revenue.

A marketing automation strategy can come in handy for real estate professionals at all stages of their careers, enhancing the quality of interactions and leading to valuable improvements in productivity and profitability.

Whether you focus on email marketing or social media or create a full CRM plan with a platform, tools such as these can help you grow your business into something consistently profitable.

Marketing Automation Examples in Real Estate

You can choose from a number of available marketing automation tools with varying focuses and angles. We’ve put together a list of 10 effective tools, showcasing how they could benefit your business.

1. REsimpli: REsimpli is a comprehensive CRM software focused entirely on real estate.
   
   Not only does this platform offer a number of valuable tools for lead generation and tracking your progress, but it also features a number of handy tools for creating effective drip campaigns.
   
   Their marketing automation features include the sending of bulk emails, scheduled SMS campaigns, cold calls, and ringless voicemails, so you can interact with multiple leads from one place.
   
2. Zillow Premier Agent: Zillow Premier Agent is a tool that connects agents directly with interested parties on the Zillow platform, allowing you to market your services directly to those with an active interest in real estate.
   
   The platform allows you to automate follow-ups with potential clients, ensuring that you engage with them promptly and professionally.
   
   It also offers the opportunity to act as an exclusive agent in certain ZIP codes, ensuring reduced competition.
   
3. MailChimp: MailChimp is a marketing automation tool focused mostly on email marketing campaigns.
   
   Its platform allows you to build unique emails for different stages of business, such as welcomes for new subscribers, personalized emails that are triggered by client behavior, and much more.
   
4. Hootsuite: Hootsuite’s focus is on social media content, offering you a platform to plan and schedule content in advance.
   
   For example, if you have a series of property images that you want to drip-feed followers, Hootsuite allows you to predetermine when they’ll be posted.
   
   Social media has become a vital part of real estate marketing, and Hootsuite helps you to stay on top of it without needing to literally engage every day.
   
5. HubSpot: HubSpot is a comprehensive, versatile marketing automation campaign that even offers a free version of its service.
   
   Its capabilities cover tasks such as drip email campaigns, social media posts, and lead nurturing communications.
   
   For example, it can be used to send automatic emails to prospects and leads who download certain files from your website, ensuring you get in touch with the right people at the right time.
   
6. Constant Contact: Constant Contact is a marketing automation tool that started with a focus on email campaigns, developing into a system that covers emails, SMS messages, and social media posts.
   
   You can also automate emails tailored for different segments, such as first-time homebuyers and those looking to invest in properties.
   
7. Propertybase: Propertybase is a fully comprehensive, real estate-specific CRM platform designed for tracking client interactions and automating follow-up communications.
   
   For instance, if you host an open house, you can set up an automatic thank you note to send to any attendee who leaves their email address, along with other follow-up messages.
   
8. Zapier: This platform is designed to create automated workflows that can be integrated across thousands of different applications.
   
   The workflows, known as Zaps, can be used for such tasks as adding new Zillow leads directly into a CRM system or email marketing platform.
   
   The simple drag-and-drop system makes it easy to perform up to 100 actions at once.
   
9. ActiveCampaign: ActiveCampaign is focused primarily on the automation of email marketing, with an emphasis on well-timed follow-up correspondences. It’s also useful for its capacity to identify your most engaged contacts, giving you a better idea of who to focus your efforts on.
   
10. Follow Up Boss: Follow Up Boss is a lead follow-up automation that can be used for both long-term clients and former leads.
    
    It’s great for active lead nurturing, engaging with older leads who show new signs of activity, sharing leads in a larger brokerage team, and simply sending friendly communications such as birthday wishes.

These tools can help you save time in your career, increase efficiency, and enhance your marketing efforts overall, making certain that you don’t waste your energy in the wrong direction.

It’s important to remember that every tool on this list has its own strengths and weaknesses, with some being more comprehensive and others being more focused on singular tasks.

Be sure to consider what it is that your business needs before investing in a software solution.

Conclusion

Real estate marketing automation really is something of a no-brainer.

As we already know, a good marketing strategy is one of the most important limbs of a healthy real estate business, but it’s the client-facing meetings, networking events, and negotiations that truly need the majority of your time and focus.

By automating your marketing efforts, you free up countless hours over time, allowing you to save energy for the more important stuff.

Just make sure to choose a software platform that covers as many aspects of marketing that you feel are necessary to be automated.

If you’re okay with simply automating your email campaigns, then a platform like MailChimp might be enough, but if you’re looking for a comprehensive CRM and marketing solution, you’ll find more benefit from a tool like REsimpli.

For more information on the real estate industry, check out our blog today.