What is an eBlast?
An eBlast is an email that can be sent to your leads in bulk. This allows you to share your messages to groups of leads without needing to individually message contacts.
These are generally used to make announcements (new listings on the market/open house announcements), company updates, holidays (send out a holiday card) or distribute information (attach buyers or sellers guide, company newsletters)
Creating an eBlast
There are various fields that are used in an eBlast:
1. Name:
The name is a description of your message. It is used when looking back at the messages you’ve previously sent so you can read and react to the analytics of the leads who received or interacted with an email.
Rule of Thumb: It is recommended to have the message prepared beforehand so you know what the message will say. This can give you a good idea of what to name your message
Examples: If you’re going to send an Open House announcement to your database, a good name for the message could include the address of the house, the date/time, or how many leads you want to send the message to
2. Drip Template:
*This is not a required field*
Select from one of your Drip Campaign email templates to send to your contacts. This will help you save time in crafting a message since you have a baseline for your message
3. From:
*This is not a required field*
Select who you’d like the message to appear from. You can have the message be sent from yourself, or the Assigned Agent of any particular lead.
This gives you the option to share information with your entire CRM without confusing the lead, as it would give the appearance that the lead’s assigned agent sent the message instead of yourself.
If you are a single agent, you do not need this field
4. Subject:
The Subject field is the email subject line that will appear in your lead’s inbox. This is intended to capture the lead’s attention, so it should describe what the lead can expect within the message
5. Body:
Where you will compose your email. This is where information can be shared.
Add Attachments to an eBlast
While composing your eBlast, select the Real Geeks "attachment" button
Add a Video Message to an eBlast
While composing a mass email (eBlast) with Real Geeks, select the "Add Video" button once you are ready to add your video.
Tables can't be imported directly. Please insert an image of your table which can be found here.
To record a new video:
- Click the red circle to begin recording and the white square to stop recording.
- Clicking the white triangle will play back your video. If you are unsatisfied with your recording, click the red circle to begin recording a new video.
- Once satisfied with your recording, give your video a name and click "Save"
to add it to the email.
To add a video from your library:
- Click "Select A Video"
- Locate the video you wish to include and click "Insert"
to add it to the email.
Once you have recorded or selected a video, a five second GIF preview will be added to your email.
When the GIF preview is clicked, the user will be taken to a page on your Real Geeks website dedicated to the video message. Once your message has been viewed, the user can easily continue browsing your website. Click here to learn more about Video Messaging.
Please note: Video message recording is only supported by Chrome and Firefox browsers at this time. Recording video messages is not supported by iOS devices or the Safari browser.
How to Send an eBlast
Please note that an eBlast cannot be sent until you have received your MLS approval and have pushed your website live (you can learn how to push the website live here)
To send an eBlast to your entire database:
1. Go to leads.realgeeks.com/leads
2. Click the “All Leads” button
3. Press “Actions”
4. Select eBlast
5. Fill in the message Name
6. Fill in the From field and Subject line
7. Craft your message in the Body
8. Press “Preview Email to Send” (Before you send the message you can have a test email be sent to you by clicking the “Send Test Email” button
)
9. After reviewing the message, press “Send eBlast”
To send an eBlast to specific leads using checkmarks:
1. Go to leads.realgeeks.com/leads
2. Click the “All Leads” button
3. Scroll through your list of leads and click the small checkbox next to each lead you’d like to message
4. Press “Actions”
5. Select eBlast
6. Select the option for “Currently Checked”
7. Fill in the message Name
8. Fill in the From field and Subject line
9. Craft your message in the Body
10. Press “Preview Email to Send” (Before you send the message you can have a test email be sent to you by clicking the “Send Test Email” button
)
11. After reviewing the message, press “Send eBlast”
To send an eBlast to specific leads using the CRM filters:
1. Go to leads.realgeeks.com/leads
2. Click “Advanced Search” on the right side of the leads page
3. Use the provided fields to create your target search (You can learn more about this feature HERE) This will limit the amount of leads being targeted in your lead view
4. Press “Actions”
5. Select eBlast
6. Fill in the message Name
7. Fill in the From field and Subject line
8. Craft your message in the Body
9. Press “Preview Email to Send” (Before you send the message you can have a test email be sent to you by clicking the “Send Test Email” button
)
10. After reviewing the message, press “Send eBlast”
eBlast "Welcome" Template
One of the best ways to introduce a database to your website initially is by using the eBlast feature to message your leads at one time.
Our experts have come up with a message that can be used in this situation to introduce leads to your brand-new website and to immediately get them engaged on your website with a click of a button
You can copy and paste this message into the appropriate fields of your eBlast feature. Adjustments can be made as much as you'd like. Merge Fields (fields that automatically pull in information from the lead: , , etc...) have been included to give your message to give a more personal message
Subject:
Your Home Search Just Got Easier
Body:
Hi ,
I have exciting news for you!
I've completely revamped my website to make it easy for you to search for properties. It has every property for sale in the area with the most up-to-date information from the MLS.
This is a one-stop-shop for all your real estate needs including market reports, property valuations, price changes, and much more!
I've gone ahead and set you up with an account. Feel free to click the link below to start searching!
Let me know if you have any questions.
For more information on the merge fields used in this template, click here.
Best Practices
How many leads should you message at one time?
Emailing in bulk, while helpful, can sometimes be risky without taking the proper precautions. By receiving too many spam rates or attempting to message people without their permission can result in your emails going directly into spam, or getting your email address blacklisted by email providers.
Click here for valuable information by the email experts, Mailchimp, on maximizing your opportunities and avoiding spam filters. Highlights from the article:
Don’t use purchased, rented, or scraped lists"Not only are purchased or scraped lists notorious for providing bad addresses that lead to high bounce rates and blacklisting, they don’t actually help you grow your business"
Don’t assume you have permission
"Even if your intended recipients are already your customers (or your colleagues, or people you met at a trade show, etc), do not send promotional email without getting permission first." Use the Real Geeks sign up form to give them the opportunity opt-in to any communication
Don’t wait too long before contacting your subscribers
"Every mailing list can go stale if it’s not used regularly (...) Lists with a lot of stale addresses can lead to high rates of bounces, spam complaints, and unsubscribes"
Keep the leads engaged using the Real Geeks Property Update feature to keep leads engaged with your website (you can learn more about this here)