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This article is part five of a five part series on building a real estate website with WordPress. You can view the rest of the series by visiting our guide at the bottom of this post.

Earlier this week we talked about what an email drip campaign is and now here’s a more in-depth look at how to build one.

How Do I Set Up an Email Drip Campaign?

When building an email drip campaign you need two things:

• Email Campaign Manager (see more below)
• A Plan

After you choose a vendor it’s as simple as determining how many days you want between each email. How many emails do you send out and how often? Unfortunately there isn’t a one size fits all approach but general rule of thumb is to base it on how frequently you think a prospect needs to be “touched”.

For example, with website search registrations you would follow up with them by setting an intro email to send out to them immediately or, at the very most, within 1 day. Then follow up the next day with another email and a third email a couple days after.

In the pic below you can see an event template I created in Heap that links my first drip email to be sent out to a prospect within 1 day of being added.

So, what kind of campaign should you build? And, should you build just one or many campaigns for different niches?

Deciding What Kind of Email Campaign to Build

In the past I have used a single email campaign for all of my website search registrations with a fair amount of success. I opted to go with the single campaign route for two reasons: easy maintenance and because I wanted to have a drip campaign in action ASAP. From my experience I have found that most prospects typically respond to the first email or fourth email and, occasionally, an email in the 10-15th range.

Since you’re most likely just getting started, a nicely written series of short emails (all in one campaign) from you will suffice. Once you start receiving responses from prospects with questions you can use those responses to enhance your current campaign or as the basis for a niche focused drip campaign in the future.

Building a great email campaign is a matter of relevance. In other words, if you categorize your prospects well (e.g. townhouse buyers, relocation buyers etc.) you can create laser focused campaigns that delivers messages relevant to that prospect’s moving situation thus making them more likely to respond.

Personalizing Your Email Drip Campaign(s)

Mail merge is a feature that allows you to insert a variable into your email (e.g. [Prospect Name] which will pull your prospect’s name from a database and insert it automatically before sending) so each of your emails are personalized. Variables also allow you to change specific data like your phone number or email address without having to go through every email and change it manually.

Here’s an example of an email I wrote with variables in place (the CRM in the pic below is Heap):

Here’s what your prospect sees when they receive your email:

All the variables from the first email look flawless in the prospect’s version. Okay, everything except the “Talk with you soon,” double entry. That’s a good reason to sign yourself up for your drip campaign so you can catch any oversights before it hits a potential client’s inbox.

In the above example I used Heap CRM to send out my drip email. There are a number of companies to consider which are reviewed in detail below.

What is an Email Campaign Manager?

An email campaign manager is a web-based company that will coordinate your drip campaigns, handle unsubscribe requests from prospects who are no longer interested in receiving your emails and ensure your email address stays off ISP spam lists.

The benefit of an email campaign manager is in spam/ISP management. When you’re busy listing homes for sale or working with 5+ buyers it can be easy to forget to remove a prospect from your email campaign.

Email management companies automate this entire process for you by no longer sending emails to prospects that opt out. They also make sure email providers like AOL and Yahoo! don’t blacklist your email campaigns. If that happens all of your drip emails to future prospects using their service will automatically go into junk mail which is a VERY bad thing.

Some real estate search vendors offer a drip email tool in their administrative dashboard making it very easy to distribute emails to your leads. If not, there are a few third party tools worth checking out.

Third Party Email Campaign Manager Recommendations

Heap CRM - Heap is the best all-around campaign/prospect manager. You can run email templates, event templates and keep track of prospects from one interface. At $9 per month it’s also the most cost effective implementation of the two.

The only downside I noted with Heap’s drip campaign management is the lack of unsubscribe features including instant removal once a prospect decides to opt out of your campaign. This could put you in hot water (see above) pretty quick if you’re not careful.

Heap CRM Cost: $9 per month per user.

MailChimp – MailChimp scores points as the coolest looking and most fun to use email campaign manager. Not only do they keep your email delivery rate high but they also have a pretty simple interface to work with.

MailChimp’s autoresponder tool (for drip campaigns) isn’t the most intuitive that I’ve used. I have a strong preference for Heap’s tool but I appreciate the value of MailChimp’s ISP/unsubscribe management.

If you already use 37signals’ Highrise HQ you’ll be thrilled to know that MailChimp makes it easy to import your contacts from Highrise to MailChimp for drip campaigns.

MailChimp Cost: Free up to 500 subscribers. Pay-as-you-go plans offered and monthly plans from $10/month.

Aweber - Aweber is the reigning king of campaign management tools and for good reason. Setting up a drip campaign is simple and straightforward but Aweber’s integration with customer relationship managers (i.e. Heap, Highrise) is notably absent. Still, at $19/month it’s yet another affordable solution.

Aweber Cost: $19/Month and up.

If you enjoyed this post be sure to check out the rest of our Site Building 101 series below:

Site Building 101 Series:

1. Introduction to Building Your Real Estate Website With WordPress (Includes Cost Summary!)

2. Choosing a Domain Name and Web Hosting

3. Designing Your Website

4. Selecting a Great Real Estate Search Vendor

5. You’re here!

Photo Credit: jonrawlinson

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