Beginner’s Guide to Real Estate Email Marketing in 2025

Mor Mester 18 November 2024

In this email marketing guide, you’ll see why email marketing is one of the most effective tools for marketing your real estate business. 

Engagement rates for emails have recently increased. According to Mailerlite’s 2023 industry benchmark report, since 2018, the real estate industry has seen open rates jump by 32% and click-through rates by 54%. 

This shows that now is the ideal time for realtors to start nurturing leads and selling through email marketing. And this guide will help you get your real estate email marketing game down pat.

Does real estate email marketing work?

Yes. Building a successful real estate business requires communicating with people and nurturing relationships. And your ability to buy and sell properties. Email is the perfect channel for all this.

Real estate can have long sales cycles. Buyers might just be in the process of getting their finances in order. They may not be ready to buy right now. You want to position yourself as the go-to realtor. So they’ll come to you whenever they are ready to buy or when they spot that once-in-a-lifetime property.

That can easily be six months or more down the line.

The most effective way is via pre-set, automated real estate email marketing campaigns that help you move leads down the funnel. Are these types of emails more effective? Yes. Drip campaigns generate 50% more sales-ready leads. Mike Opyd, managing broker and owner of RE/MAX NEXT in Chicago said in an article on RocketProInsight:

How do real estate companies do email marketing?

A potential real estate buyer visits your website and signs up to receive more information about a listing. The buyer is no longer in the awareness stage. Realtor email marketing at this stage should give more information about the property, its neighbourhood, video tour, schools, and sneak peeks. You could also send an open house newsletter invitation to that or similar property. This is one-way real estate companies, and professional realtors use email marketing.

In general, most real estate businesses use email marketing to showcase:

1. Open houses and new listings.
These emails describe and advertise beautiful homes. They sometimes include videos or virtual tour links to increase click-throughs and attract the right buyer.You could also send an open house newsletter invitation to that or similar property.

Here’s an example of a “just listed” real estate weekly newsletter designed in Mailerlite from HB & CO Real estate.

2. Neighbourhood guides.
These contain information on nearby schools, attractions, and restaurants. They help display your knowledge of the neighbourhood.

3. Local real estate snapshots.
Your real estate clients want an agent who knows the local market. These emails showcase market trends and facts relevant to home buying and selling in your neighbourhood. Use charts wherever possible and present the information.

4. Social proof.
Have you just sold a home? Or helped a family move into their new home? Then your leads should know about these. Testimonials from past clients are a reliable way to drum up new business.

You want to position yourself as the go-to realtor. So they’ll come to you whenever they are ready to buy or when they spot that once in a lifetime property.

5. Property alerts. Home searchers who signed up to receive information on specific properties that meet their criteria get these emails. Buyers who sign up for these alerts on your website are high-quality leads and would engage with your targeted emails. Here’s an example from the real estate investing platform, realestate.co.nz.

Free Real Estate Email Templates

Real estate agents and marketers can design good-looking emails without any coding. There are many great free email editors with professional templates for real estate, like Beefree and Stripo. Below, you’ll find some of the best free real estate email templates.

Real Estate Email Template Combo for Visit Scheduling, Confirmation & Purchase

When choosing an email template, you’ll have to make sure that it will work for all the emails you send. It must work for newsletters, visit scheduling, visit confirmation, purchase verifications, and property listings.

These clean email templates above are excellent for the steps a buyer takes when purchasing a home. The first is a reminder email based on a visit to your agency or website. It reminds the client of a property they showed interest in and has a call-to-action to schedule a visit with an agent. The next is a visit confirmation email template to send after the client schedules the visit. And the third is a purchase confirmation email. The perfect combination for any real estate agency.

Browse Real Estate Email Templates @ Beefree

Free Real Estate Newsletter Email Template

This real estate newsletter template has the same clean design but a different layout. It’s perfect to send updates and new articles to your subscribers. Highlight the most important piece in the top block then add the rest below.

Get this email template for free here

Free Real Estate Property Listing Email Template

Here’s another real estate template with the same design. This layout is best to promote your top property listings. Clean and simple to make sure your subscribers will find those View Property buttons.

Get this email template for free here

What to look for when choosing real estate email marketing software?

1. Ease of use

You shouldn’t spend hours figuring out how to edit templates or create an email in your email software. As a real estate agent, you probably don’t need email marketing software with too many features, as that could mean a steep learning curve. You just need software that makes sending real estate marketing emails easy without all the bells and whistles. 

2. Lead generation features

The top email marketing software comes with form editors and landing page builders to help you add more subscribers to your list.  If your real estate website includes an opt-in form on every page, you can get a lot of qualified buyer leads. 
These new leads will be targeted with emails specific to real estate buyers since they’ve already expressed interest in buying a property.

3. Mobile optimization

2/3 of emails are opened on smartphones and tablets. More than half of email readers unsubscribe from emails that don’t display correctly on mobile. While responsive designs generate a 30% increase in click-through rates.

Top real estate email marketing software already has predesigned, responsive real estate email marketing templates that work on all devices, not just desktop and mobile. The more platforms viewers can read your emails, the better your open and conversion rates.

4. Automation and segmentation features

You must create automated responses to specific actions in an email or website. And to send automated sequences to specific segments of your email list. These are musts for effective real estate email marketing. 

When you segment your list, you create groups based on specific criteria. When you’re just starting to grow your email list, your segments are pretty simple: home buyers, renters, and sellers.

Real estate professionals, teams, and brokerages with extensive lists of clients and leads want to group their lists into multiple groups.

The following real estate segments work very well:

• New homeowners
• First-time home buyers
• High-end buyers
• Likely sellers
• Repeat customers
• Newlyweds
• Divorced leads
• Empty nesters
• Those who aren’t quite ready to start the process
• FSBOs and Expireds
• Investors

You can create segments depending on the clients or lead gen sources you work with. Segmentation allows you to create targeted messaging that gets higher opens, click-throughs, and responses.

5. A lot of high-quality email templates

You can design good-looking emails with the right real estate email marketing software. Look for high-quality, non-generic-looking, and easily customizable templates to choose from.

Standalone email template builders, like Beefree or Stripo, have many real estate email templates that work with any email software.

6. Analytics and reporting features

Email marketing tools that provide real-time, insightful data are essential for effective real estate email marketing. The basics: open rate, click rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate. An excellent real estate email marketing software visually shows this data so users can see everything happening in one place.

7 Best Real Estate Email Marketing Software

1. GetResponse – Ideal for mid-scale teams and brokerages

GetResponse has evolved from a simple email marketing tool to a marketing automation platform without compromising ease of use. Founded in 1998, it’s one of the pioneer email marketing software. It features lots of tools that make it a favorite for marketers. 

Features real estate agents would love:

• 500+ email templates. There are real estate-specific templates to expedite email marketing for real estate agents.
• Smart automation tools using advanced conditions for list segmentation
• Drag and drop email builder
• Website Builder
• Webinar feature for listing presentations
• Landing page builder. Create landing pages and add sleek forms for lead generation 
• Facebook integration allows you to announce your messages on your Facebook page and transfer Facebook leads to GetResponse.

Our full GetResponse review shows that it’s a well-rounded email marketing and automation platform.

Best feature
Landing page Builder. GetResponse has over 200+ landing page templates. Designing a landing page in GetResponse is very easy using its drag-and-drop landing page builder. 

You can add six types of popup forms, including exit-intent popups, download forms, and fixed bar popups. You can also A/B test two different versions of your landing page. 

The landing page’s URL comes with a default GetResponse subdomain. But you can change the landing page’s URL in landing page settings by connecting it to your website’s domain. 

Pricing
The generous free plan gives access to lead gen tools, a custom domain, and unlimited newsletters for up to 500 contacts. Solopreneurs and small businesses have different pricing plans than mid-sized and large companies. Paid plans for 1000 contacts start at $19/mo and $16/month if paid annually. Prices increase depending on the features you want, the number of team members, and the number of subscribers you have. See full pricing here.

G2 rating: 4.2/5 from 807 user reviews

Integrations: You can connect GetResponse with more than 150 apps and tools. It has a Zapier integration that opens doors for 5000+ tools. 

Get started with GetResponse for free here

2. Mailerlite – Most suited to solo agents

Mailerlite is a simple email marketing service. It offers everything you need to start sending out real estate email newsletters.

Features real estate agents would love:

• A/B Testing for optimizing email campaign performance for realtors
• Drag and drop email editor and 90+ editable email templates
• Visual automation builder
• AI writing assistant to generate headlines, listing descriptions, or even full emails
• Email surveys feature
• Landing page and form builder

Best Feature
Drag and drop email editor. This email marketing tool makes creating and saving your own branded email templates easy. 

Here are the steps to create your email template using MailerLite’s drag-and-drop email editor:

• Click on My templates in the right-hand drop-down menu.
• Create your template and give it a name that’s easy to remember
• Select the Drag and drop editor. You can use any pre-existing templates if you’re on a paid plan.

• Create and save your template. Your saved template will be found on the My templates page. They’ll appear as design options when creating new email marketing campaigns.

For an in-depth look at the platform, check out our full Mailerlite review.

Pricing
The free plan lets you keep in touch with 1000 contacts. There’s also a free 30-day trial of premium features. Prices start at $10/month for 500 subscribers. The same premium features are available in all the paid plans. Prices increase depending on the number of subscribers you have. See full pricing here.

G2 rating: 4.6/5 from 463 user reviews

Integrations: Mailerlite integrates with 132 other software and tools, including a Zapier integration.

Sign up to Mailerlite for free here

3. Brevo – Best email software for bulk emails and transactional emails

Brevo was founded in 2012 by Armand Thiberge to make email marketing accessible to all businesses. Recently they upped their game with the send time optimization feature, which helps you figure out the best time of day to reach out to your specific audience. It also has advanced marketing automation features.

Features real estate agents would love:

• 40+ customizable email templates
• Automated email workflow tools
• Landing page and sign-up form builder
• Facebook and retargeted ads manager
• Web chat and SMS feature
• Sales CRM
• Beginner-friendly email editor
• Send time optimization
• Transactional emails feature

It’s a remarkable email marketing platform with a 4.6 out of 5 in our full Brevo review.

Best Feature.
Email automation workflows. Set up triggers so people will receive certain email sequences when they perform specific actions on your website.  

A user who fills a form on your website could get a welcome SMS and email. Based on specific actions, you can automatically segment your subscribers into groups.

Here’s how to use automation in Brevo.

• Navigate to Automation
• Click Create a workflow, then create a custom workflow

• Name your workflow and describe it.
• Select if you want your contacts to enter the workflow more than once
• Define your trigger. For example, a welcome email is automatically sent when a new contact is added to a list.
• Add conditions to your workflow to automatically segment subscribers based on data you have.
• Once you set up the workflow, activate it to allow contacts to enter and move through it.

Pricing
The free plan has 100,000 contacts and up to 300 emails per day. You can get started with their Starter Plan for $9/month. Prices increase depending on the features you want, the number of team members, and the number of emails you want to send. See full pricing here.

G2 rating: 4.5/5 based on 1,427 user reviews

Integrations: It integrates with about 70 tools and apps. There is a Zapier integration also.

Try Brevo for free here

4. Benchmark Email – Most intuitive email marketing software

Benchmark Email has 300 newsletter templates to build and send out responsive real estate email newsletters. Most of its features are available for free. They also have many email marketing resources, making Benchmark ideal for beginners in email marketing. 

Features real estate agents would love:

• Surveys and polls creator
• Popups and forms creator
• Drag and drop email builder
• Automated email workflows feature
• A/B testing for subject lines, send times, and content
• 220+ email templates

Here’s our full review of Benchmark Email.

Best Feature.
List cleaner. You can use this tool to verify and clean your contact list. This is done by removing hard bounces, soft bounces, and unresponsive contacts, e.g., contacts that haven’t opened the last 5 emails. Removing these contacts from your list will improve your deliverability rates. A list verification feature also helps confirm that your subscriber emails are valid.

To clean your list, follow the steps below:

• Log in to your Benchmark account.
• From the dashboard, go to Contacts and pick out the contact list you want to clean.
• Click on the More Options icon and select the Clean List option.

Pricing
The free plan offers you 3500 email sends to 500 contacts per month. With the free plan, you can design amazing emails, create sign-up forms and track email performance. The Lite plan has email scheduling and landing pages, starting at $9.99/month for 500 contacts. The Pro plan has more complex automation and offers A/B testing starting at $15/month. See full pricing here.

G2 rating: 4.2/5 by 64 users. 

Integrations: There are about 40 integrations to CRMs, eCommerce platforms, and marketing automation software. It also has a Zapier integration to 5000+ services.

Sign up today for Benchmark Email

5. ActiveCampaign – Best email marketing + CRM combo for mid-scale brokerages

ActiveCampaign offers much more than most email marketing tools. Compared to other real estate email marketing software, it has the most sophisticated automation features.

But, it may not be ideal for beginners to email marketing as it has a bit steeper learning curve. But it has the most complete feature set on this list with lead scoring, live chat, automation templates, and a powerful CRM.

Features real estate agents would love:

• A great visual automation builder
• Built-in CRM with many list segmentation features
• Time-zone-based delivery
• Advanced analytics and reporting
•  A/B Split testing to improve emails
• 850+ integrations to commonly used apps and services
• 250+ responsive email templates plus an intuitive email builder

See our full review of ActiveCampaign.

Best Feature
Lead scoring. Available in the Plus, Professional, and Enterprise plans, this feature is designed to help you evaluate and prioritize leads and prospects based on predefined rules.

Each contact is assigned a score. Points will be added or subtracted from the scores depending on how the contact meets the conditions. 

A contact score is a numerical value that is assigned to your contacts. A single score can consist of one or more rules that can award or subtract points from contacts if they meet your conditions. 

Let’s say you have created two rules that assign 10 points to contacts who live in your metropolitan area and 10 points to contacts who have viewed your pricing information. A contact that matches these rules would have a total score of 20 points.

Pricing.
There’s a 14-day free trial to test the software. The Starter plan costs $15/month for 1000 contacts when paid annually and includes email marketing automation, site tracking, and 10,000 email sends. The Plus plan has more automation features plus landing pages and lead scoring for $49/month for 1000 contacts, paid annually. Prices increase depending on the features you want, the number of team members, and the number of subscribers you have. Check out the pricing details.

G2 rating: 4.6/5 from 9,332 user reviews

Integrations: Over 870 integrations plus a Zapier integration.

Try ActiveCampaign free

6. AWeber – Suited to small real estate brokerages

AWeber was founded in 1998 by Tom Kulzer as an email autoresponder for businesses. It has long been known as one of the most reliable email marketing software.

Features real estate agents would love:

• 700+ pre-built templates
• Drag-and-drop email builder
• Advanced email analytics and reporting
• Autoresponder workflows and actions
• Aweber’s iPad app for lead generation at open houses
• Landing page builder and sign-up forms
• A/B Split testing

Here’s our full review of Aweber.

Best Feature
A/B testing. You can use split tests to see how changing subject lines and message content would improve open and click rates. This feature isn’t available on the free plan.

1. Click the “Messages” tab and select “Split Tests.”
2. Then click on the green “Create” button to the right of the Split Tests heading and name your split test

3. Define your split segment groups by moving the slider. You’ll send the two messages that you’d like to compare to groups A and B, then send the “winner” to group C. This helps determine which message will get you more replies.

Pricing
You can get started with AWeber’s free plan with most of AWeber’s features for up to 500 subscribers. Free users have a limit of 3000 email sends per month. Paid users save close to 20% on their annual plans, which start at $12.50 per month for 500 subscribers. Prices increase depending on the number of subscribers you have. See AWeber’s pricing page.

G2 rating: 4.2/5 from 597 user reviews 

Integrations: AWeber integrates with over 750 apps and services. Most of these are powered by Zapier.

Sign up to AWeber for free here

7. Mailchimp – Good all-in-one email platform

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing software since its inception in 2001. It’s the most common email software used by new email marketers.

Features real estate agents would love:

• Responsive emails and a mobile app
• Email automation and segmentation features
• Opt-in forms and landing page builder
• 100+ available email and Mailchimp newsletter templates
• Intuitive email builder

Mailchimp has its flaws too. Here’s our selection of the best Mailchimp alternatives.

Best Feature
Email client testing. Since email clients display email differently, you may want to compare how emails will look in Gmail vs. Outlook. You can use Litmus’ inbox preview feature to see if your email is readable on different email clients before sending it out.

The feature is only available for paid plans. Each paid user receives 25 inbox preview credits per month. If you run out of tokens for the month, you have to sign up for a Litmus account.

Pricing
The free plan allows you to send up to 2500 emails per month to up to 500 subscribers. Paid plans start at $11 per month for 5000 emails and 50000 contacts. Prices increase depending on the features you want and the number of subscribers you have.

G2 rating: 4.3/5 by 11,639 users

Integrations: Over 300 apps, including text marketing platforms, email verification tools, CRMs, and Zapier.

Try Mailchimp

How to set up real estate email drip campaigns

With drip emails, you provide prospects and subscribers with valuable information over a period of time. Many of your real estate prospects may not be ready to buy or sell a house yet, so a drip email campaign keeps them in the loop with useful information till they’re ready.

There is a tendency for over-communication with real estate email drip campaigns. So, make your email marketing campaigns targeted and goal-oriented. Here are the steps for creating effective real estate email drip campaigns.

1. Create a solid strategy

Often, drip campaigns are triggered by events, such as leads received from Zillow, home searches, or other specific website actions. But you can also use them to nurture leads. 

The first step in creating a real estate drip campaign is thus to determine the source of the lead or trigger. When a lead signs up for information about a listing, they want information about that particular listing or similar ones in the neighborhood. 

Your strategy should also account for date-based automations. That is, automated emails that go out on special days, for example, Christmas.

Your real estate email drip strategy needs to account for:

• Triggers. What specific actions or dates will you be creating drip campaigns for?
• Audiences. Who would you be sending the emails to? How would you segment them?
• Messages. If your drip emails fail to add value consistently, you will get high unsubscribe rates. 
• Branding. Your selected templates and tone should be consistent with your brand.

2. Schedule time and frequency

ESP analytics can help you determine what time of day produces the greatest open and click-through rates. The frequency should depend on the type of drip campaign you are running. For example, you might schedule listing updates for sellers weekly while you send out one market update email to sellers monthly. 

A general rule of thumb is to start high and slow down over time. For example, send an email every 3 days, once a week, then once a month. This will help minimise unsubscribes.

3. Choose proper email templates

The most common email templates you’ll need as a real estate agent are:

1. Welcome email template. The welcome email is your first message to new leads from your website. These emails should be short, personalized, and engaging. 

2. The single listing promotion template. This template highlights key features and pictures of specific properties. They should contain the property’s address and your contact details. Send this email to a segmented list of buyer leads who want specific property features.

3. Multiple listings template. Instead of highlighting one property, this template will display three or more listings in your email. Provide key details about each property – number of bedrooms and bathrooms, square footage, and property address.

4. Educational email newsletter. Your real estate email drip strategy should include educational content. These emails link to blog posts on your website that answers your audience’s questions. They may also include short videos to drive higher engagement.

Looking for good real estate email templates? We collected the best free email templates for real estate.

4. Create email segments

Many marketers consider list segmentation one of the most valuable marketing automation features in 2023. 

By segmenting your campaigns, you will increase their effectiveness. While much of the content can remain the same, it should be tailored as much as possible to the specific segments, addressing their concerns, needs, and wants.

One of the easiest ways to segment your list is to include more information in your lead gen forms that automatically categorize subscribers into lists. It may also be helpful to send potential clients a questionnaire. And then sort them into specific segments.

Segments can be based on demographics or site actions. You could segment based on age, gender, profession, location, property views, and lead source.

5. Check the analytics

Based on the emails you send, you need to know which works best in your drip campaign, which email has the highest click rate, and which type of drip campaign gets you the most conversions. You should A/B test subject lines, send times, and email content to determine which ones work best.

You should also consider integrating a real estate CRM with your ESP. A good CRM will offer more analytics, deal, and lead management features to track the effectiveness of your communication with real estate clients.

Real Estate Email Marketing Takeaways

Email is one of the most important channels in real estate marketing. And this article has shown you some of the best real estate email marketing tools out there based on the number of templates, ease of use, and other key criteria. We’ve also shown you some real estate email ideas to kickstart your email marketing. But, you’ll need to consider your budget and email marketing priorities when searching for the best real estate email marketing software. Want to add SMS marketing to the mix? See our SMS marketing guide.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

About Mor Mester

Mor Mester is the Head of Content Marketing at EmailVendorSelection. He's an email marketing and marketing automation expert with 6+ years of experience. Having tested and reviewed 100+ email marketing, marketing automation, CRM, ecommerce, SMS marketing, email verification, online course, and lead generation tools, he knows a good business software when he sees one.
After work, you can find him riding his bike on some trails.

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