When are the best times for those selling real estate to send out emails and social media updates to consumers?
The truth is that you can have the best property in the world and be offering the best deal on it ever, but it may not matter at all if no one knows about it. Email and social media continue to be some of the best real estate marketing channels. However, if emails and social updates go unseen and unread they aren’t going to have any effect or help a home get sold. It’s like putting up a for sale sign in the back yard with a 10 foot fence around it.
The key to effective real estate marketing and getting homes sold fast is pinpointing the best time to send out email and social media messages and updates. This applies equally to real estate agents, investors, regular home sellers and even landlords looking to rent homes.
How the Internet has Become a Real Estate Marketer’s Worst Enemy
The internet is great. Instant access to volumes of free information is great. Unfortunately, it also means instant access to a lot of free misinformation too. This is especially true when it comes to real estate education and marketing advice. Aside from the out of date, incorrect and out right illegal, it can be hard for many to find reliable industry specific advice. What works for email campaigns and Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest for one type of business may not work at all when it comes to real estate and selling houses fast.
It’s important for those selling houses to know what works in real estate. More importantly, it’s critical for homeowners, landlords, real estate investors and agents to know what works best for their specific niche. There can be a huge difference in what works best and the best timing for online marketing.
Know Your Clientele & Win
Know who you are trying to reach intimately and you’ll easily be able to identify the best times to send out emails and publish social media updates. Who are your best prospects? What do they do? Which platforms are they using? When are they online? When will they have time to check messages? When will they have enough time to respond?
For example; are your best prospects and customers business people which are tied to their screens during the day, but unplugged at night and on weekends? Are they in jobs which prevent them from checking outside messages during work hours and may only be reached in the evening and on weekends? Are they more social and likely to be on Friday evenings and holidays or tuning out to dedicate time to families during those hours?
Why There is No Such Thing as ‘The Best Time’
Every market is unique, requiring a slightly different approach to maximize results. With this in mind, real estate professionals will find it wise to continually test, diversify and stay flexible. The problem with posts proclaiming ‘The Best Time To…’ is that as soon as the word gets out, those slots are hammered by every other real estate marketer on the planet, increasing the noise and rendering them useless. For example; if we stated 4:20 pm on Friday was the best time to email, next week prospects would be receiving hundreds and thousands of messages at 4:20 pm on Friday. The odds of them seeing yours would be dramatically reduced.
Between Facebook changes, the new G-mail inbox and more noise, most messages now normally only get through to a fraction of prospects. So don’t be too shy about resending or publishing the same message more than once. Those subscribing to feeds from publications like the Harvard Business Review will find they will resend the same message multiple times over a week or two in order to achieve maximum reach.
