Redfin

This email caught my attention because it had such great potential but the execution wasn’t stellar. Redfin and, admittedly, other online real estate companies, has this great “online touring” feature that is great for folks that are moving from town-to-town or state to state or just flat out don’t want to leave their home. I imagine this feature costs a good chunk of cash so you should really sell it. This email falls a little short in “selling it”.

Subject Line: Tour homes without leaving yours

This is great. I would not recommend any changes except I hope they’re A/B testing and making sure this is the correct SL.

Pre-header Text: See homes from the comfort of your couch

Also wouldn’t change. This is great but again, hope they were testing.

Graphics or Images: N/A

There’s nothing here. They have such a cool feature of the website, a stellar SL, but make no effort to entice me even more. I’ll grant you that this is a straightforward email and it SHOULD speak for itself but I wish there was something. Throw in a little corgi GIF, even. Test something. That’s what I have to gather they did. They were testing an image or a non-image.

What I did was add a basic GIF based on the subject matter with a call-to-action immediately below. Now you have a fun GIF and a CTA to reiterate what they’re trying to do. Get your CTA at the top of the page and I guarantee you’ll get some extra clicks.

Header Copy: Choose how you see your favorite homes

Love it. Test it but love it.

Body Copy: Redfin Agents offer live tours via video chat, so you can tour homes without leaving yours. We also offer in-person tours, and are taking steps to protect your health and ours. Whichever way you choose to tour, you’ll get the same guidance and local expertise from your Redfin Agent.

I don’t hate it but I’m also over businesses hiding their intentions behind the COVID curtain. Take the “saving you time and money” approach. Quit blaming everything and selling everything based on COVID. I kept it all the same, regardless.

Right off the bat, this email just didn’t gain my interest. At least, not in the desired fashion. Redfin knew that I was looking at homes in Minneapolis so they hit that mark. I clicked through because I wanted to see the houses they had listed for me. Not because I was curious about the online touring mechanic of the website.

CTA: Browse Calhoun Isles Homes

Calhoun Isles is a ‘burb of Minneapolis. That’s a fine CTA but I changed it because for me personally, I had no idea where the suburb was. I assumed Minneapolis because that’s all I’ve been browsing but still, it’s a little wordy.

BUT! I do love the personalization of that. I’d say test it. I changed it to “Favorite Homes” but you should test both; one with no personalization and another with it. You could also do this with the image I made. Make some larger metro areas and create a few images with those city names. Again, test it.

Personalization: CTA had a suburb in it.

Already brought this up so I won’t speak on it much. That was the only personalization, though. I added a simple, “Hi, Eric!” at the top. Doesn’t hurt and they have my information.

Notes

Such a simple email that makes me think they’re testing. Gosh, I hope they are. Just a few simple tips to make this a good, straightforward email, to a great, attractive email that really gets the point across.