Anatomy of a Real Estate Drip Campaign

Drip campaigns are something many agents use today to help manage their leads — lets take a look at what makes a Drip Campaign tick. For me, Drip Campaigns have always been broken up into 3 main parts

1. Campaign
2. Templates
3. Email Content.

Campaigns:
The Campaign itself is basically defined as your list of emails that are organized in chronological order. Typically, each client is assigned to only one campaign as to not confuse the client. Campaigns are targeted to a specific type of client. You might have one that is setup for your past clients, buyer leads, seller leads, buyers looking for homes in a specific city, etc. You can get as specific or as general as you want. It all depends on how much work you’re willing to put into setting up your campaigns. It all starts with campaigns, then you can start to add emails and templates.

Templates:
A Template is the actual layout of the email. Usually, I will start out with a “Text Only” template that only uses the basic content of the email without any layout. It makes the email feel more personal and not so promotional. Those emails are usually the most effective, but you should set them up with some HTML template emails as well. “HTML templates” are used to make your drip campaigns look professional with graphics and colors. These are the e-mails you see with head shots, colored fonts, and theme graphics integrate into the content of the email.

Emails:
Now emails are very basic. They are the actual content/words of the emails you send. Even though it’s a simple concept, it’s the most important part of a drip campaign. Your message is what drives the success of your entire campaign. Truthfully, your email message is everything; it’s the part that will drive your response rate through the roof.

Most drip campaign systems will have one script that ties it all together and sends your emails out on schedule. Some software will allow you to schedule your emails to go out on the exact hour you choose. Most servers do this by using something that’s called a “Chron Job”. A “Chron Job” tells the server to run your script at a certain time frequency. You can set it up to run the script every minute, every hour, every day, once a week or once a month. It’s completely up to you. Most “Chron Jobs” are set up to send your emails out every hour or every 15 minutes.

Drip Campaigns are becoming less and less useful as more and more agents begin to use them. Email has become a difficult way to communicate because of the amount of email we all receive. A new concept to the drip campaign is adding “Actions” to your campaign. An “Action” is something like…”Make followup call on the 12th day from signup” or “send a personalized email” or “Set client up on drip listings campaign.” These are simply personalized action reminders that get set up in your calendar instead of letting your email system do the work for you. When it comes to converting your clients and leads into dollars, phone calls and personalized service will always trump a simple email drip campaign.

The overall goal of a Drip Campaign is to get your clients and leads to take action today or to remember you when they are ready to take action in the future. It’s a simple tool to allow you to stay in front of your clients and convert them into dollars without putting in to much effort. Think of drip campaigns as an automation tool that allows you to stay in front of your clients while you’re on vacation. The goal is to set it up correctly so you can forget it later.

If you’re looking for a new drip campaign there are many providers out there. Someday, we’ll explore who the best drip campaigns providers are for real estate…but we’ll leave that topic for another day.