40 signs per zip code , wow? That’s a lot of signs and I am surprised the authorities let you get away with that even if i’s only for the weekend. Your phone must ring of the hook all weekend with that many signs . Just curious what type of investing do you do here? I am wholesaling and doing options.
I can do my 40 or more signs because I know my areas. Over the years I’ve gotten to know where I can fly with that kind of marketing. Some areas close to my area I can’t even put up one sign even on a weekend because I’d get called by the code guys. Usually I get way more, but 40 is my minimum. And yes a lot of leads come in. But of course that isn’t my only marketing method. I’m currently trying to come up with a new or old idea to car window signs and a clever way to do that with people looking to make money (bird dogging). The types of investing I do focus on no money down techniques (Sub2, Lease Options, Cash deals, Contract for deed, Owner Finance). I don’t really focus my business on any particular area per se. I get the lead that comes in and I tailor one of those deals according to the seller’s situation. So if a seller calls me, and they are behind in payments and are willing to walk away from some equity, Sub2 might work if the numbers make sense. I’m a one-stop-shop for homeowners in every situation. That’s how I’ve tailored my business.
To find out what works the best for you in your area you must test. Testing is the key. Try direct mail (letters, post cards), classified ads (pennysavers, regular classified), bandit signs, search engine optimization of your website so when potential motivated sellers in your area do a Google search your company comes up in the search results, craigslist, backpage.
Make sure you track your results to measure which medium is effective and which medium is least effective. Get rid of the least effective ones and invest in the effective ones.
There are some good most effective Real Estate Marketing Strategy. Marketing yourself of your property. Do Internet marketing of Real Estate. First of all you must develop Marketing Plan. You should Identify Your Goals. You should comparative market Analysis that helps you determine the most effective listing price for your property.
Well i feel all of them are equally beneficial and you should try and learn all of these and then can decide from the one you find more interesting. :smile
As a wholesaler in real estate, I will suggest to anyone the best real estate marketing system for guaranteed results is YELLOW LETTER MARKETING. I paid $847 for 500 yellow letters; and received them 3 weeks later. I mailed out between 120 and 150 letters and within a week received over 60 phone calls. The only problem was I chose the absentee owner option instead of the distressed property owner option. I was targeting military personnel; instead, I got 55 condo owners and 5 home owners all of whom are vacation property owners and they weren’t in distress. The response; however, was overwhelming. I will not blame the marketing company for my poor judgment. But if you are looking for serious results as an investor; you will not go wrong with yellow letter marketing. As for the rest of my yellow letters; I had to burn them. Note: If you live in a high tourism area; don’t use the absentee owner option it will fail. Go with the notice of default option, or distressed property option; also, I did bandit sign marketing and the local code enforcement officers threatened me with fines( $125 per sign). Please be careful with bandit signs!!!
This may not be hard for some, but more difficult for others not as tech savvy. I created a squeeze page website for a lady in our real estate investment group to test the results of post card mailings. In the post card it had a picture of a video play button with her in the background kind of like a YouTube video. It had her website www.selltolinda.com on it with some basic information about how she buys homes. She actually got traffic to the site which I measured with Google Analytics, and she got some leads from it. I shot the video with my Kodak Zi8 video camera, which I bought for $150. Did a little editing, uploaded to YouTube, then implemented the video into the squeeze page. Hopefully this helps someone with a new way of marketing.
With all the marketing strategy I’ve employed so far I’m getting good leads with search engine optimization, adwords and social media marketing.
I am hearing a lot of direct mail type recommendations, but the 1st step for a direct mail campaign is the list. I am leaning towards direct mail, partially because I have some internal conflict about posting bandit signs (being that they are illegal). Anyway, I have been looking through a lot of “list” providers for my direct mail campaign and it all makes my head spin. I have considered thewarrengroup.com , click2mail.com, dataquick.com, and usadata.com. I am just not sure I am comparing these options apples to apples as they all have different “a la carte” options and use some varying language. I can’t decide which to try? What are you using for your list?? How much info is enough (Name, property address, mailing address, ?, ?, ?)? Obviously the more options you are looking for the more some of these companies charge.
In terms of Bandit Signs, I reviewed my code enforcement articles and found a few possible outs for the legality. My city offers Solicitor and Canvassing permits allowing you to do just that, solicit and canvass neighborhoods. I have not determined if this is a legal way to put up bandit signs or not as the code is not that specific.
There are a lot of strategies to mention but one thing, don’t forget posting on craigslist. It drives a lot of traffic to your website too
A Good Website! Why is is important?
An expert real estate website designer can do the design, deploy and market your website at the same time. The internet never stops, it’s always online.
No matter how big or small your business is, having a website is important. Not just any website, but a professional and fully functional website. It is important that you have an online presence.
Your designers will design your site according to your taste and preference. They know what is the most effective and attractive site. Your site should convert the curious into customers.
The best website designers in the business will make sure that your website is user friendly, can be easily navigated . Website designers will create a website that describes the real you.
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_XJCtCX1RPQI/TQJICrBtx-I/AAAAAAAAADw/PTfqUosHHqI/s640/marker.jpg
The complete design is very good and I think it is even better for us to understand its effectiveness. The strategy here is very important to be needed and it requires to be done.
I think all of what you’ve mention are effective. But you should always think of risks. Most of those strategies has risks in your real estate marketing.
Jamespierce what risk are you referring to? That you might lose your marketing investment? That means you’re focusing on cost control and not revenue. To get revenue you need leads and the ability to convert those leads into deals. This is a business, and no business will thrive without customers.
Yeah it’s true you’re not guaranteed a return on your investment…however you likely will never make a red cent if you don’t spend SOME money to get leads coming in. Even Driving For Dollars has some risk (gas, possibility of a car accident, etc).
If you don’t know where your next meal is coming from then of course don’t spend your last bit of money on yellow letters and bandit signs. Also if you don’t know what to do with the leads when they come in then don’t spend a ton on marketing.
But if you are doing deals or if you have a few bucks the cost of marketing is peanuts.
Sellers are offline doing everyday things…
and you need them to call you…
I get so irritated at the new breed
of info guru that has bought maybe
3 houses in their entire career but,
never built a business…
and then says… yeah internet leads…
that’s what works…
Their cheap… but, you get what you
pay for…
it costs you time… it takes 300 internet
leads to get one solid deal…
Because anyone can fill out an internet
form…
You wanna make money in this business
do some real marketing…
Val pack mailers… direct mail… flyers…
doorhangers… and of course what
works for me…
BanditSigns - nothing is less expensive
there is a bigger bang for the buck…
So, why you guys think about trying to
send a seller and email to get them to
sell you house… motivated sellers are
calling me and my students… direct on
the phone and we are doing deals…
You gotta get toe to toe with sellers…
they gotta trust you… or you are
wasting your time…
And then you’ll simply say this business
doesn’t work…
So, get “motivated” callers is the key…
not internet tire kickers…
There is no such thing as branding in
this business… on the buying houses side…
Do you know why… because the sellers
all think we are one giant company…
and what is happening to them will likely only
happen once in their life…
And guess what… they are talking about
it at the water cooler to all their friends…
instead they are trying to forget about it…
And your branding with it…
Talk to sellers and good things will happen…
I totally agree with David. It’s something I’ve been talking about on this board for a while. Banditsigns are where it’s at. I’ve never understood why people advertise “we buy houses” on the net. I mean, everyone does that. How does one differentiate themselves from the thousands of “investors”? You don’t. And direct mailers I’ve been trying for a while, and its a joke. Folks who do those methods obviously are in love with fewer leads, lots of competition and fewer deals. More deals for me.
Intangent…
While ya’ll guys are driving traffic
to your websites…
We are out buying houses…
Motivated sellers don’t give one
rats patuty about websites…
I started building my real estate
website years ago…
never finished it…
Sellers don’t ask and dont care…
The ones that do…
Its a trust issue and they aren’t
going to sell to you anyway…
2 or 3 deals a month and you
are superstar in this business…
So, you go to about 5 - 10 houses
get toe to toe…
And you’ll get 2 - 3 deals…
Or you can send 1,000 leads
to a website to screen and try to
get the same 3 deals…
the ratio on the web is…
300 to 1…
I tested it for 9 months…
I was the owner of WeBuyHouses.com
at the time it was affiliated for investors
Its not anymore…
I paid big bucks… to have those affiliate
leads sent to me…
What a waste…
I agree with the website thing too. For lead generation, in my opinion they are complete pieces of crap. The reason people hate bandit signs are because they are hard to put up. I read on this board all the time people sending out letters once, twice, three times through the postal service and claiming how good it is. I’m sure they work. But the topic of this post is “Most effective real estate marketing strategy”. What I’d like to know is how can a website with 300 to 1 ratio, or letters with single digit response rate beat bandit signs that have a way high response ratio, the target marketing ability and the cost effectiveness?
I agree as well. I tried Pay-Per-Click/Google Adwords, Search Engine Optimization, Craigslist, and all sorts of other online marketing, and for the most part it sucks…I prefer hands-on, tangible marketing too.
Bandit signs get an undeserved bad rap. Although I haven’t used them on the buying side for some time, there’s no doubt that they give you a terrific bang for your buck. Put them up in the right places and you’ll most certainly get calls. You guys sold me back to them…lol
And when it comes to selling houses bandit signs are without a doubt my #1 marketing method by far. Nothing I’ve seen pulls calls for buyers better than ugly handwritten bandit signs. I even use them to find cash buyers for junkers. They just flat out work like nothing else.
NSU
So what are you using nowadays primarily on the buying side for marketing?