I received the following e-mail and was wondering how true this was and if anybody as used “internet bandit signs”
We all know that the most popular way
r.e. investors find motivated sellers
is to get in their cars with tons of
bandit signs and post them everywhere!
Bandit Signs work. There is a lot of
controversy around them but they remain
a viable, cost effective way to buy houses.
But their days are numbered!
As we all know they are called "Bandit Signs"
for a reason. In most municipalities there
is some type of law or ordinance forbidding them.
So what if you could be ten times as effective
for LESS money than bandit signs? AND
build a long term viable business out of
small inexpensive ads that had hundreds
of thousands of times the reach and thousands
of times the staying power?
What if I told you that there are motivated sellers
all within 50 miles of where you are sitting
right now that are actively seeking you this
very moment, and they are IGNORING every single
bandit sign you have every put up in favor of
a new, easier medium that is leading them
straight to your competition?
These motivated sellers are using "local search"
online to find r.e. investors every day! They are
actually seeking out "internet bandit signs"!
I can not say what this email is referring to exactly.
I know that bandit signs are not going anywhere anytime soon. The idea that they are going out of favor because of the laws is ridiculous. It’s because of the laws that they are called bandit signs in the first place. The laws have been there, and they don’t stop most people. They just use phone numbers that can not be traced back and voice-mail to accept calls.
As for the Internet, I actually buit my business using Google Adwords. It’s how I got started. It’s a fairly expensive cost per lead, but for me the metrics have worked out. On average I spend about $2,000 to get a closed deal.
True, there are plenty of people Googling “sell house fast” and “we buy houses” and “homevestors.” To rely solely on these Web searchers, however, is to miss a large part of the market. A huge part.
I got the same e-mail today. I watched the accompanying video, and apparently some guy has been experimenting with Adwords and other searches for about a year and has figured out some unique ways to appear first and often in a search. It looked pretty interesting.
I personally have an Adwords account, but I’m playing it a little cautious until I have the capital to pour into it. Besides, I haven’t educated myself enough on Adwords to invest the money wisely.
PaulBroni, how many Adwords leads would you say you go through on average to find what you would consider a profitable deal?
Well, there’s no mystery involved in getting to the top of the paid search results. As you know, you simply agree to pay the most. If you’re willing to pay $10 per click and you have $100,000 a day to spend, you can be at the top of every paid search result all day, every day.
What would be nice is to be at the top for regular search. Regrettably, too many promoters claim to be masters of organic (free) search. It’s very complicated, if not flat out impossible, to get good page rankings for popular search terms. You simply have the numbers working against you as there are many, many sites all trying to get to the same place.
I am bad in that I don’t follow my metrics closely enough to know exactly how Adwords performs for me. I know that I’ve spent $8,000 there in the last year or so, and it’s net me four deals. I probably got 50 inquiries a month, most of which were not good for me as I look only for deals with equity (no lease-options or anything funky for me).
I started referring these to realtors. I do quick sale on why they need a realtor then have a realtor call them and list their house. I get either good relationship with the realtors, or 20% of their comission (I am licensed, I could list it myself but I don’t want to).
I actually started doing this, too, just to get a little of the money back. I also thought about getting an agent’s license to get some of these listings myself. Not sure that’s for me, though.
It helps. I have my license, but I made it clear to the broker that i do not intend to act as an agent. I ended up doing series of marketing training to his agents, and now I have few of them following me around wanting to learn more. I send them listings and get 20% of their commission, and they are suposed to send me investor type deals where I would pay them half commission when I sell not when I buy. I am in constant contact with them, so I can monitor them, motivate them, and see their deals.
Another advantage of the license is MLS, and listing my properties for half commission.
The product on the first post deals with local search marketing.
Instead of trying to compete against web pages with everyone in the country for “sell my house fast” you are creating a local presence where there is less competition
A big indicator to keep in mind is the person who sent you that email message? Is from someone you know or just a random ‘market insider’ email sort of speak? If it’s from someone you know then you might want to just call them and see what the whole deal is about. Otherwise, it may just be someone shotgunning thousands upon thousands of this email message to harvested email addresses praying to get some interested people. If this is the case, then I would probably stay away from it. At least, that is how I would approach this…