Agents: Stop Spamming Agents
Marketing, Social Media, Tech Tools Wednesday, August 5, 2009 at 10:49AM According to the latest reports, social media has became bigger than e-mail. That got me to thinking about where we are as
an industry. As usual, miles behind. I think many agents, and some brokers, missed the webinar that explained, to effectively use e-mail as a means of marketing your listings, or as a recruiting tool, it is called drip campaigns, not spam campaigns.
I conducted an an informal survey on Twitter and Facebook. The majority of readers responded no to reading the e-mails sent about listings. Several said they unsubscribe, a few said they read them if based on the address and only one person said an unqualifying yes.
I have used e-mails on occasion. I try to follow the guidelines suggested by the pros. Don't send listing emails often, and only if it is "newsworthy". Huge price reductions, something out of the ordinary new listing or a special brokers open event.
When I receive e-flyers on listings I usually ignore them unless something catches my eye in the headline. If I see a sender e-mail too much out then, I unsubscribe. I am not sure what unsubscribe means because it stops for a while and then I start to get them again from the same agents. I think someone told these agents Tuesday is a good day to spam out other agents with all their listings. I kind of understand the Fridays for open houses. What I don't get is, that if your office is e-mailing out a list to the broker community, why you have send an individual e-mail on each listing.
What I find interesting, is that the agents who are spamming listings are not engaged in the social networking community, which has surpassed e-mail as our means of communicating. This only goes to prove the point: you spammers are still not effectively marketing yourself or your listings, so you are probably not seeing this blog post!
Real estate community: What are your thoughts?
Reader Comments (8)
I couldn't agree more! Just the other day I asked an to remove me from her distribution list and the response back was "I don't know how to do that". WTF
Thank you for this posting. I found it on Twitter through IAR. I get SO much spam from Chicago agents it is unreal. I was getting close to 100 emails a day and I work the burbs. I hate to miss a listing that maybe a client might be interested, but when I get the same listing every week, I couldn't take it anymore. Go figure they are the ones that aren't into the social networking. Thanks again.
Interesting responses. I posted this blog on several different sites and received many comments. By the response I got, I think those that truly understand the direction that marketing listings is going understand how to use social media which does not include spamming agents emails with their listings. The majority of us are not reading the emails, are annoyed by the number of them and/or just "unsubscribe".
I think the same agents spamming us are also the ones that don't get that the MLSs are no longer the way we are reaching the internet consumer.
This will get more interesting as time goes on.
Thanks for addressing, Andrea. First, I am not a fan of emailing listings. Seems like a bit of a scattershot approach to promoting listings. And if I had a buyer for your listing I would probably find it precisely where I would look for its information - namely in the MLS.
What REALLY bugs me:
Agents to send out mass emails, but without the option to "Opt Out." So many of these emails don't have a mechanism for me to remove myself from future junk.
As a corollary to this problem: agents that send bulk email from their PRIMARY email address. If I get enough junk from an agent, I am eventually going to mark it as SPAM. And then, in the future, I won't get legitimate email from you.
I have occasionally sent bulk emails. But I send them from within Top Producer software. Two things happen: (1) there is an OPT OUT mechanism. And (2) if you mark me as SPAM, the email address is from my Top Producer account, not my primary account. So if we do a deal in the future, I can actually still communicate with you.
But here's the HOLY GRAIL of SPAM: Spamming your listings on Facebook. No on gives a hoot about your listings on Facebook. Your fastest route to zero friends in Social Media is to Spam your listings. Did I mention DON"T SPAM your listings?
Check out Matt Dollinger's Presentation on Social Media at http://vimeo.com/4709283
I agree that Agents that spam listings are harming themselves without question. Since the buyer pool is limited, none of the emails are a source for the agent with the buyer, unless you possess a photographic memory and archive each spam listing in your database. It's absurd to think that you will be successful with this strategy.
Personally, I delete approximately 99.5% of all of these spam listings from my email before I address my 'important' emails. I don't bother to unsubscribe as such because I look at it as a necessary chore to begin. Great insight into some of the obstacles in the new millenium!
I do agree that sending the same information week in and week out is a nuisance, but we all want the brokerage community to see what we have to offer. Agents/Brokers just need to understand that after the initial post don't send it again unless there is a major change or some sort of open house. I have to say that I take a glance at all that comes through and I hope that others in our community will do the same. Just stick with the rules!
I agree wholedheartedly and after asking to be removed, I delete all spam e-mails.
Great post! I call it the real estate crying wolf syndrome. Cause when you actual have valid information to share most will ignore it because of the other non-sense. I try to send targeted emails to specific groups and mix in some non-RE items. Sometimes people think I am only speaking to them. Nice.