Email is a perfect funnel for lead generation that will drive profits. You can use Email for newsletters, quick communications, marketing blasts, listing announcements and even a bit of online educational videos. But, first you have to understand the different parts of an email that will get a response.

Terminology for email marketing is the simple language that will allow you to understand the basics. The following is a brief list that will help you move through the process

The Conversion Rate is the percentage of people who responded to your Call to Action in your letter or other mail. If you sent out 1000 emails and you received 100 calls, your conversion rate would be 10%.

A Bounce Rate is that horrible number that comes back and tells you that the email did not get sent. Either bad Email Address, wrong email address or fake email address, a bounce is frustrating. You should always stay on top of updating your mail lists and shoot for a less that 5% bounce rate.

Bulk Mail is the name given to sending lots of mail whether it is snail mail or email. In the world of email, your bulk mail needs to be sent through a system that can handle lots of mail. Using your own email address is fine if you are only sending 100 emails. But, for higher numbers, there is Mailchimp, Constant Contact and Active Campaign. You can send newsletters and ongoing emails with automation which eases your workload.

The Click Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of people that clicked on your email and visit the web page through a hypertext link that goes to a certain advertisement.

The Open Rate is the percentage of people that open your email from their inbox during a marketing campaign.

Opt In means that someone has entered their contact information on your website and now are a part of your email list.

Double Opt In is just like the Opt In except that the people filling out their email forms must confirm that it is the correct email address. Having people confirm helps with the bounce back rate.

Plain Text or HTML emails are email that are sent either in plain text or HTML which has pictures or graphics included.

Customer Relationship Management or CRM is an approach to manage a company's interaction with current and potential customers. There are email tools that can help with communications and make your marketing more effective.

So, now you have the vocabulary! Next, is how you get the email addresses.

Just like marketing on Facebook or Twitter, the more “friends” or followers that you have the larger the response numbers. Email Marketing works the same way. The more addresses you have the higher the response, the better the interaction and eventually, the higher your profitability. To capture leads with email, you will need a few things that will attract people.

First, you will need a landing page for your real estate website. This page is where they will “land” when they click the link on your email letter. Another landing page is a “click through” page which is found on the first landing page. The click through page will have their sign up information card. This captures their email address.

Add a Blog to your website. The subject matter and search words you use in your blog will move you up the Google ladder and you will be found on page one. When someone is researching a subject that you may have written about in your blog, they will find you first.

Find email leads on your social media sites. Make sure that you are very active with both postings and with commenting complimenting your posts with interesting pictures. Tantalize your followers or friends with a contest or a giveaway and they have to send you their email address to be involved.

At open houses and community events, have business cards with your email address and tell people to contact you through email. Host a seminar or speak at a college marketing class. Have a radio show or a podcast. Encourage listeners to sign up via email, for your newsletter. Collect all of these addresses for your ever growing list!

And finally, you will have to keep your list engaged so you should develop a list of subjects that people are interested in. Write about your listings. Include pictures and ideas for financing. Send your open house calendar. Publish a list of restaurants in your town and write a review about each. Tell stories about the different neighborhoods in your representative area. And give and overview of any major events, concerts, fairs or festivals that happen in your town. In your newsletter, include video links or educational classes. Write a story about your most recent buyer. Give the news of your company, area or town.

Autoresponder mailings need to continuously push for a call to action. The series of these emailers should have an ever growing story line of Ideas so that the recipient is looking forward to the next one. In your first email, illustrate a problem they may have with buying or selling a house. Write it as a story so that the reader can empathize. The second email is a reminder of the problem from the first email. Give a suggestion or two on how they can solve it and you can help them. The third email is about solving the problem or at least part of it. Give them a list for a home buyer. Things such as what to look for in a roof or yard maintenance. And then the fourth email is the solution. You want them to respond to you and schedule a meeting or consultation. Even though you have solved the problem with excitement and emotion, you still continue to send emails with your newsletters and and updates and announcements. It takes time and effort to convert a client because buying a house is just not something they do very often.

In today’s digital age, email is one of the easiest, cheapest, and most convenient ways to market to a broad audience. If you’re wanting to reach individuals but perhaps are unsure of whether you’d like to do direct mail to people’s mailboxes, we at Everest Direct Mail and Marketing, can help you create a virtual mail campaign directly to people’s inboxes instead. With our highly skilled copywriters, we can create interesting and attention-grabbing emails to send out to prospects. We can create a full email marketing campaign, with follow up emails and automatic response emails that lead the clients directly to you.These emails can be highly personalized with merge fields specific to the person being emailed, just like a direct mail campaign. You can hyper-target the recipients through a detailed list and set up an exact schedule these emails are to go out.