MRIS has made a lot of changes to the tools that let agents email listings to clients in the last few months; most of them add a lot of functionality, but a few (sadly) remove useful functionality, so agents who rely on those emails need to know what features have changed or gone away.

The first change is a simple one that every agent should be taking advantage of–you can now (finally) brand the web pages pulled up by consumers (via Matrix links in your emails) w/ custom header & footer, rather than relying on the tiny “Courtesy of Agent Bob” header that those pages used to feature. MRIS has a fair number of not-bad templates for you to use, so even if you don’t have any time to come up with a custom header, you should at least activate one of the templates (by logging in to Matrix, and going to “My Matrix”, then “Settings”, then “Header/Footer”).

The second change is a new set of features that changes how consumers can opt in/out of receiving emails from agents sent via Matrix. Basically, Matrix as a whole was getting blacklisted by major email providers such as AOL and Gmail were getting complaints from consumers about unwanted Matrix emails; there’s now a system in place that will explain to users why they are receiving the Matrix emails, and giving them the option of opting out of receiving those particular emails for that search or all emails from that particular agent, as well as the old option of unsubscribing from all Matrix emails altogether. MRIS has some good documentation on the new anti-spam features, or for those of you who don’t like to read (or for brokers who want to include a quick training piece during an office meeting), a nice short video reviewing the changes.

The third change is the introduction of “Email+”, MRIS’ new system for emailing listings to clients (including both automatic emails as well as manual emails of individual listings). Email+ basically turns the Matrix auto-email system into a mini-IDX solution, by allowing users to sort/filter the listings that you send them, and keep lists of which properties they are most/least interested in. It doesn’t allow them to search for properties directly, so it’s not a full replacement for a separate paid IDX solution, but for agents who don’t get a lot of leads from including search options on their website, they might be able to save some money by switching to using the Email+ system and getting rid of their IDX service. MRIS again has some nice docs explaining most of the changes, including a general overview and an FAQ, as well as another quick video overview.

Email+ is really very nice, making the listings much more user-friendly to consumers (and also giving you the ability to see which properties they are most interested in) but there are two important changes that you should be aware of, as they can cause a lot of confusion and trouble if you aren’t careful:

1. First, note that the new sorting/saving/filtering features are all based on the email address that the link is emailed to, and are linked across all saved searches for that email address. That means that if you have a search set up to come to you first, and then you forward the link to your client, then when the client clicks on that link, they get access to all of the saved searches that go to you, as well as any properties that you have tagged via the Email+ system. This also means that if you have a saved search that you manually forward to multiple consumers who don’t know each other, then all of those consumers have to share their settings, saved properties lists, etc.. As an example, I have a saved search that I use to email me properties that might be of interest to various investors, and then when I see properties in those lists that are of interest to specific investors, I would previously just forward that email to the investor in question. Now, however, that would give all of those investors access to all of my other personal saved searches, as well as confusing them when other investors save/discard properties, so I instead have to go back to Matrix and manually send an email from there directly to that investor. I’ve spoken to MRIS about this, and they say that it’s intentional–in their opinion, agents should only ever be sending listings directly to individual consumers, and should never need to pre-screen listings before emailing them out. If you, like me, disagree, please email MRIS and ask for them to include an option to select the default display for individual searches.

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Tags: for-agents