Emails and drip marketing campaigns may sound archaic and boring in a world that is seemingly dominated by social media. But email marketing is still one of the best ways to reach potential clients—that is, if you do it right. About two-thirds of us have purchased something because of an email, according to HubSpot.

Drip marketing campaigns are defined as a pre-planned group of messages sent regularly to customers and potential customers. Why is it so effective? First, by sending a series of emails instead of just one, you are keeping your name in front of your potential customers. Over time, you begin to develop a relationship through the emails. And let’s face it, relationships in commercial real estate are what create sales.

You won’t be successful if you just randomly send out emails without a strategy or goals in mind. Let’s look the elements of a successful drip marketing campaign.

Make Sure You Have The Right Target

An investor several states away may not care about your downtown high-rise, or maybe she will be. Either way, before  sending out your first email, you need to create a list of prospects that you believe will be interested in your properties. You can collect this information in a number of ways. Ask for business cards from prospects at community events. Attend trade shows. Create a blog and ask subscribers to sign up for updates. Web-based tools like Loopnet and LinkedIn Sales Navigator can help you find prospects. The important thing is to get all of the information you need—name, phone number and email address collected.

Before sending out your first email, you need to determine the content. Do you want to create a weekly newsletter to send to your list? Have you created some great blog posts that you want to share? Or do you want create videos of your properties. You can also choose to implement all of these ideas into your email marketing strategy. Make sure you design your content for your audience.

One key element you don’t want to overlook is a strong call to action. This will be determined by the content and goal of the email. For example, if you are promoting a a new investment offering, you want to give people a way to download an offering memorandum.

Once you have determined the content, you need to determine the timing.  When is the best time to send the email? How often should you send it? A key factor in building a successful program is getting the timing right and then delivering consistently.

Automation Saves Time

You have written your content and collected your list. Now you are ready to start your drip marketing campaign. But you don’t want to be sitting in front of your desk once a week sending out these emails. Drip marketing campaigns are automated to save you time and ensure your emails are reaching your target audience.

Make Sure Your Campaign Passes The Test: Test 1

Mistakes happen. You don’t want to send out an email to thousands of subscribers with a misspelled word or wrong price. Before sending out the email to everyone, send out a test email to a selected few. Besides fact checking, you can ask for feedback.

Is anyone reading my emails? Test 2

You are wasting time and money if your emails are not being opened. You need to test and measure each of the responses of each email campaign. Be willing to change if the campaign is not bringing results you had hoped.

This may sound overwhelming. But you can create a successful drip marketing campaign that will generate leads. Partner with a great commercial real estate marketing agency that will help you create the content and automate a successful campaign for your business.