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Quote of the Day:

“Without promotion something terrible happens… Nothing!”

P.T. Barnum

In order for you to make money as a Real Estate investor you need your phone ringing off the hook (or your inbox full of leads), each and every day so that you can make offers for properties and cater your offers to your buyers. The great thing is these Motivated Sellers and buyers with cash in their bank accounts are actually looking for you because you can provide solutions to their problems.

But guess what typically happens… They can’t find you. Why? Because You’re not marketing yourself. OR if you are marketing you are not marketing correctly. Working harder does not always bring the best results unless you are also working smart.

Did you just hear about the investor in your local RE club that closed on a deal netting them $20,000 and they didn’t even have to lay a hand on the property? Or what about the person that just bought that rental house on the same block for 40-60% less than what you paid for yours? Are they just lucky? Or are they working smarter than you?

The best place to be is a little bit of both. Somewhere in between luck and chasing deals is where you should be in finding truly motivated sellers, or rather helping them find you.

Have you ever heard when someone is ready to shoot a gun at a target say, “Ready, Aim, Fire”?

I have. And in shooting a gun, that is appropriate. However for marketing we want to change that line up a bit. The following goes over some basic Marketing principals following Ready, Aim, Fire, and Talley the Score.

1) Aim……Who is Your Target Market?

The most important element of any marketing to be done is to assure that what you are saying AIMS directly to your target market. Who are you trying to market to? If you are advertising “I buy Houses”, What types of properties and real estate opportunities are you seeking? If you are advertising that you have houses for sale and are looking for buyers, what does your advertising say to bring in the most promising prospects for you? The more narrow your focus and marketing efforts, the greater success you will experience. As an example, I am a REI coach and trainer. In the past, I had been marketing to “real estate investors” and “real estate investing coaching and training”. Now you will find my marketing more niche focused – Flipping is my niche. I focus on turning profits for quick profit. Not that I can’t teach on anything else. I just decided to pick the niche that best suits me and go for it.

WHO are you aiming at? Who is your target market? In Aiming, you want to first look at who it is that will bring you in what you are looking for in your business. You might need a buyers, sellers, a power team, money sources, referrals, etc. for every ad you place, you will want your marketing message to be, first and foremost, clearly directed at who/what it is that you are attempting to reach/sell/buy. And you will want to know the ages, gender, nationalities and locations for the majority of your target market.

WHERE are you pointing your gun…. In other words where are you advertising to reach your target market? The second consideration when Aiming is to assure the type of ad you are placing is they type of medium your target market will see. Wherever you are advertising, be sure and verify historical numbers for who is paying attention to that medium whether TV, newspaper, online, billboards, etc. Make sure the mediums you use are those that those who are your target market will see.

WHAT ammunition are you using? What are you saying in your ads by the words and graphics used? Is the copy enticing enough to make you stand out? What is your USP (Your unique selling proposition) What makes you special? Many people pay copywriters to write their ads, (yes, even individual real estate investors), in order to assure what they are saying is the right way to put the message across. If writing effective ads is not your cup of tea, you might want to reach out for help. You can have the right medium, pointing to the right target, but you if you don’t say something appealing, then you wasted your time and money.

2) Ready….Your Marketing Plan

Your Marketing Budget: You will want to create a marketing plan starting with a budget. We all have basic living expenses that need to be paid. If you are just getting started and short on cash, could you cut back on the budget anywhere to find a little money to create a small advertising budget?

List the marketing mediums to be used: In addition to the budget, you will want to make a list of the mediums you will use that meets the criteria we have discussed in Aim and Ready sections in this book.

Consistency is Key: You simply DO NOT have to have a large marketing budget to be effective to grow your RE business. One 42 cent letter netted me $70,000. It’s all about consistency. You will want to be realistic about your monetary constraints to start out and then incrementally build your marketing program as you experience more and more success. It is vital that you don’t base all your decisions on one attempt. Consistently do marketing to same target market using the same medium for at least 1 month…1 X week. Often people need to see repetition in order to the idea to call you to sink in to where they take action.

3. Fire…Do your marketing plan!

So many people spend too much time telling themselves all the reasons they haven’t done marketing, mostly revolved around their lack of time and money. However, to run your real estate investing business effectively and profitable, (or any business for that matter), you must get the word out to let others know what you do. There are many low cost and limited Fire at the target and see the results!

3) Talley the Score… How many times did you hit your target?

Did you receive a return on your advertising investment, (Often referred to as an ROI)? We miss the boat on this one so much. When you are incorporating bandit signs, direct mail, flyer campaigns, into your marketing etc… it can start to get confusing where and if your success rate justifies the money and time put into the marketing mediums you are using. You will need to mainly pay attention to one thing… was money you profited higher than the money you spent to get the lead to call you. You will want to pay attention to two elements in tracking your responses.

When someone calls, be sure and ask where they found your phone number and track the “response rate”. for each particular form of advertisement. This will tell you what ads hit the target! From this information, it is easy to track the return on your investment to see how much money you make from each response and adding those dollars up. Tracking your responses and closures of deals by how they found you is necessary so that you can identify areas that need to be tweaked or worked on. If you are not getting response, you will want to evaluate if that is the correct medium or if what you are saying is not working. If you are getting response, but not closure, you will want to change your ad to bring in more focused leads.

And when you find out that great mailing list is really working or the flyers in a particular neighborhood is getting tremendous feedback….then increase your marketing in that area! I mean when you are measuring success and can track it effectively, it allows you in full financial confidence to justify any increase in marketing expenditures that is bringing in more than you are spending.

My hope is for you to realize that marketing for the real estate investor is the lifeblood of his/her business. Great deals rarely knock on your door to find you without some kind of influence to do so. Marketing is key.

Over the next few weeks I will provide details on several types of marketing I have used in my real estate investing business with some success. For your marketing plan, you will want to put into place no more than 2 or 3 of these marketing strategies at one time, amending your plan depending on the results. Watch for more to come!

Most importantly, whatever strategy you use, follow these steps:

Aim, Ready, Fire and Talley the score!