When it comes to real estate email marketing, the design and functionality of your email template play a crucial role in how well your message is received. From the layout to mobile responsiveness and the finer details like subject lines and calls to action (CTAs), every element should be carefully considered to increase open rates, engagement, and ultimately conversions.
Here’s a detailed guide to the best practices for real estate email templates, what to avoid, and how to ensure your emails are effective across all platforms.
1. Mobile Responsiveness is Key
With more than 60% of emails being opened on mobile devices, ensuring that your email is mobile-responsive is critical. Emails that are difficult to read on mobile devices often result in users abandoning the message altogether.
Mobile Responsiveness Best Practices:
- Single-column layout: A single-column layout is easier to read on smaller screens. Multi-column formats, often used in traditional “flyer” emails, can become jumbled or stack awkwardly on mobile.
- Scalable fonts and images: Ensure that text and images automatically resize depending on the device being used. This means using CSS media queries to adjust layout for mobile devices.
- Smaller email width: Aim for an email width between 600-700px. Emails that are too wide often get cut off on mobile screens, forcing users to scroll sideways—something many won’t bother to do.
2. Why "Flyer" Emails are Problematic for Mobile
The common "flyer" emails that many real estate agents use were designed primarily for desktop viewing, but they can be terrible for mobile because:
- They often rely on large images or multiple columns, which don’t scale well on smaller screens.
- Text overlaps or becomes unreadable when columns don’t properly stack on mobile.
- Flyers don’t offer the flexibility needed for different devices, leading to a poor user experience.
Fixing Flyer Emails:
- Consider breaking the flyer into smaller, more manageable sections, like individual images and text blocks.
- Use smaller images and avoid complex layouts. Instead, use simple, clean designs that adjust based on the screen size.
3. Best Practices for Links in Your Email
Using links in an email effectively can increase engagement and guide recipients to take action. Here’s what you should focus on:
- Clickable Images: Ensure your main image is clickable and links to your landing page or listing.
- Logo: Make sure your logo is linked to your homepage or a relevant resource.
- Personal Branding: Include a photo of yourself, and make sure it's clickable—perhaps linking to your contact page or profile.
- CTA Buttons: Always include a clear Call-to-Action (CTA) button like “View Listing” or “Contact Me.” Ensure it’s bold and easy to click on, especially on mobile.
Additional Link Tips:
- Use UTM parameters on links to track traffic and conversions. UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) codes help you see how effective your email campaign is by tagging links with specific source information.
- Example of a UTM link: https://brevitas.com/listing?utm_source=email&utm_medium=campaign&utm_campaign=spring_sale
4. Avoid These Common Email Mistakes
Knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing the best practices. Here are some common mistakes to avoid:
- All Caps in Subject Lines: This can be perceived as shouting and often triggers spam filters.
- Big Prices in Subject Lines: High prices in the subject line can turn off potential buyers before they even open the email.
- Special Characters: Avoid excessive use of special characters like #, !, or $ in both the subject and body, as these can trigger spam filters.
- Too Much Text: Keep text concise. No one wants to read a wall of text in an email—especially on mobile.
5. UTM Parameters for Tracking
Using UTM parameters allows you to track how effective your email marketing campaigns are. By tagging links with UTM codes, you can track the source, medium, and campaign that generated clicks or conversions.
How to Generate a UTM Code:
- Use tools like Google’s UTM Builder to create UTM codes and attach them to the URLs in your email.
Key UTM Variables:
- Source: Specifies where the traffic comes from (e.g., email).
- Medium: Describes the marketing medium (e.g., campaign).
- Campaign: Identifies the specific campaign (e.g., spring_sale).
6. Writing Shorter Email Code
Email clients like Gmail often clip long emails, especially if the code is heavy or redundant. To prevent this:
- Keep your HTML code clean and concise.
- Avoid using too many inline styles, and limit the amount of embedded content like videos or oversized images.
- Use tools like Litmus to test how different email clients handle your email and make sure it doesn’t get cut off prematurely.
7. Image Best Practices: PNG or JPEG?
- JPEGs: Best for photos due to their compression, making them lightweight and ideal for emails.
- PNGs: Better for images with transparency (like logos) but are typically larger in size, so use sparingly.
Ensure all images are optimized for the web to prevent slow load times. Compressed images help emails load faster on mobile devices.
8. Color Schemes and Text
Your email’s color scheme and the amount of text are crucial for readability:
- Color Schemes: Stick to two or three complementary colors to avoid overwhelming the reader. Use contrast between text and background to ensure readability.
- Text: Keep paragraphs short, use bullet points where necessary, and make sure there’s enough white space to break up the content.
9. Brevitas’ Email Generator: The Best Solution
Brevitas offers a professionally designed Email Generator that takes the guesswork out of email creation. Using tested templates that are already optimized for mobile and equipped with liquid variables, you can quickly populate any template with your property data, branding, and images.
Why Brevitas’ Email Generator is Ideal:
- Responsive Designs: All templates are designed to work seamlessly across devices.
- Liquid Variables: Automatically pull in listing data, including images, descriptions, and agent information, reducing manual input and ensuring consistent accuracy.
- Tested for Readability: Each template is tested to ensure that it performs well on both desktop and mobile platforms, saving you time and effort.
Conclusion
Creating an effective real estate email requires attention to detail in design, responsiveness, and readability. Avoid outdated practices like “flyer” emails, and instead focus on simple, scalable designs that work across all devices. From optimizing image use to leveraging UTM codes for tracking, every element plays a role in ensuring your emails convert. With Brevitas’ Email Generator
