As time goes on, your clients will only get more advanced and integrated with technology. If you’re not, you may be sending the wrong impression and seem unfit to handle the task in a tech-forward real estate market. Their needs and demands are also changing, and we don’t want you to lose your next deal to a younger, more tech-savvy agent.
Throughout the years of interacting with real estate agents; us web geeks have noticed a few very common mistakes REALTORS make when it comes to email, that are a surefire way to look like you don’t know what you’re doing on the computer. Even if you don’t actually know what you’re doing on the computer, here are some helpful tweaks you can make right away that will give the impression that you are on top of your email game.
1. Get A Proper Email Address
If you’re still using your old Hotmail/Yahoo/AOL address from highschool, you’ll instantly be seen as a techno-dinosaur. Do yourself a favor and sign up for a Google Apps for Business account and create an email address @ your own domain. If you’re a RealtyNinja customer, get in touch with us and we can help.
2. Fix Your Email Signature
Your email signature should be short and have your most critical contact information in it (don’t forget your website URL). A text-based email signature is best, but If you’d like to include an image, make sure its properly sized for email and everything is combined into one single image.
Also make sure it’s not attached as a file, it should be loaded from an external source. For an in-depth look and more tips on the subject, check out this article on Smashing Magazine.
Bonus points: Don’t include legal jargon and a feel-good note about not printing and saving the environment.
3. Re-Think Your Email Content
Your email should be clear, concise and well-written.
Bonus points: Don’t change your email font to “something funky”. Leave it as plain Arial and don’t change the font size either.
Double bonus points: DON’T EVER WRITE AN EMAIL IN ALL-CAPS. EVER. It will give the impression you’re shouting the whole thing, and nobody talks like that.
4. Fix Your Subject Line
All too often I receive an email with either no subject line, their own name in the subject line, or a vague subject line. I can’t help but feel like they put zero effort in the email to me.
When writing a new email to a client, make sure you have a subject line that properly summarizes the content of the email. This will make it easy to reference in the future, when searching through piles of archived emails.
5. Don’t Attach Files Over 10MB
Most email providers limit the size of attached files for any given email. Typically it’s in the 10-20MB range. If you’re looking to send large files online try using one of these free services:
WeTransfer – simple online file sending up to 2GB without making an account
Dropbox – easily backup and share your folders/files with others
Google Drive – create collaborative documents, share files and more
