When we onboard new users to Resquared (a retail leasing tool to help find and reach out to small businesses), we ask brokers and leasing teams if they currently use emails when they prospect. We get very mixed responses. Many have abandoned using email for prospecting. Sometimes, we hear about sending “e-blasts” out. These are emails designed as marketing flyers for a property, typically sent to other brokers to keep them informed of available spaces. These may be useful when informing other real estate professionals, but are ineffective when sent directly to small business owners.  

An example broker blast courtesy of PropertyBlast

Our research has found the typical reply rate of these campaigns to be below 1%. It is highly inadvisable to send these to small businesses. Not only is the email easy for small business owners to ignore, it's also more likely to end up in spam. Keep in mind:

• Links in emails trigger spam filters. 
• Excessive images in emails trigger spam filters.
• Javascript, embedded content, and uppercase letters in subject lines all trigger spam filters. (read here for more on spam filters)

These types of emails often have some or all of these characteristics. 

Is there a better alternative? Yes. Far better. And it happens to be easier.

Plain text emails

The best sales & marketing emails are the ones that get replied to. The emails most likely to be replied to are simple, personalized emails that ask a clear question. Like this one:

Borrowed from Resquared’s Prospecting Manual for Users

These are known as plain-text emails. They are plain in that they have no images, no links, and no designs. They also happen to have up to a 10% reply rate in tests where they were sent to local business owners. That’s over 10x better than the typical email blast.

Sounds time consuming...

It’s always a good idea to take the time to personalize outreach to prospects. However, if you are pressed for time, there are plenty of tools that will allow you to automate the personalization and sending of these emails. Here are some resources we've found

If you use MailChimp: Plain-Text Campaigns with MailChimp.

If you don't have an email tool: Resquared Co-Founder, Tyler Carlson. Walks Through Setting Up the FREE tool SendInBlue. 

If you're a Resquared user, sending plain-text emails is about to be even easier in 2021 :) keep an eye out for a major new feature in the next few weeks. 

Plain-text, personalized email campaigns are one of the easiest ways to generate leads for retail vacancies. If you need help tracking down emails of small businesses and sending out these campaigns, signup for a demo of Resquared’s leasing platform here: