Real Deal REInvestor Network

Advertise your real estate for FREE on the fastest growing real estate website on the internet!

After just 10 weeks online, we are now getting over 5000 views a day during the week and have over 1000 properties listed for sale. This website is becoming a must see for so many real estate professionals and investors. Unlike most sites, we also have a tremendous amount of services that help commercial real estate professionals.

In addition to our no-cost commercial and residential real estate listings, we also have:

*Showcase Your Business page
*Real estate and mortgage groups
*Featured properties
*Realtor's Spotlight
*Blogging

We are now considering many upgrades to make the site even better for everyone. Some possiblities include making Postyourpropertieshere.com an international website, setting up RSS feeds to make it easier to upload large amounts of properties at once, and adding a list of direct lenders as well as a Lender's Spotlight (similar to our unique Realtor's Spotlight). If you have an idea on how to make our growing website even better, please let us know. We will do whatever we can to make your online real estate experience a success!

http://postyourpropertieshere.com/

Marketing Blitz Websites to Market Properties for Sale or Rent On

I’m often asked what websites to market properties on.  There are three answers actually, and here they are in general: you want to go broad, deep, and then deeper when looking for websites to market your properties for sale or rent on. You want to market your properties to as many as you can and as quickly as you can and make sure you get some eyeballs on your property for sale or for rent quickly. I call this a “marketing blitz” and it takes a little preparation but it’s worth it when you get it ready before the next time you have a property to sell or to rent. I suggest, that each time you have a property for sale, rent, lease-option, wholesale, or whatever it is that you have a spreadsheet with separate tabs set up for websites you can go to with logins, usernames and/or passwords so that you can do a marketing blitz. 

 Organization is key, and speed is what you’re after. Speed is what makes you money as a wholesaler, for example, and in a lot of sense as a real estate agent also. Speed makes you stand out. One way to get your property on a bunch of sites at once is by using tools of leverage like Pingfm or Traffic Geyser, as well as several others I know of and have used that aggravate your post or information and blast it out to a dozen or a hundred different ways when you just put it up one way. 

So, find those ways and leverage your time in a broad sense to get your property that you have marketed out there as quickly as you can to as many places as you can, that’s step one. 

Step two is to find the websites that are most focused on your type of transaction and use those websites to market your properties for sale or rent.  

What do I mean by that? For example, if you have a property that you’re willing to owner finance then you need to go to places like the Owner Will Carry website and a dozen other places that allow you to list a property for sale on an owner finance basis on a website because they specifically work on that type of transaction.  

How do you find those types of websites to market properties on? It’s very simple and there are other types of transactions as well.  

If you’re doing a sale with lease option or as a consumer would call that, a rent to own, because they’re not going to be searching the Internet for sale with lease option, trust me. They’ll be searching for a ‘rent to own’ or for ‘buy like rent’ or similar. So, in order to use that example of ‘owner will carry’ you must be willing to offer owner financing on your house.  

You want to find a bunch of places that go deep and, of course, I’ve already built my spreadsheet because I’ve offered deals on owner financing. You want to build your own and go deep on that if your transaction type is owner financing or if you intend on doing that or have done that and have struggled to move that property, have 20 websites where they take listings for owner financed properties and put them within that tab on your spreadsheet of websites to market properties on.  

How do you find them? Again, go to Google or your favorite search engine, search for owner financing, the owner will carry, seller carry back, various terms that mean the same thing, put the plus sign and then put listings. So for example you Google search things like this: “owner financing” + “listing” and so on til you find a good group of websites to have ready for the next marketing blitz you undertake when you want to market your next property for sale or rent on websites across the internet. Or if your transaction type were for instance lease options or rent to own, then you would Google search things like this: “rent to own” + “listing” and so on til you find a group of websites to market your next rent-to-own property on for your marketing blitz.

Whatever your transaction type ordinarily is, owner finance, lease option, rent to own, retail sale, wholesale property, fixer-upper or other, in order to do your own “marketing blitz” when you have a new deal you will find sites that cater to that transaction and you will put them together so when you have one of those transactions, like if you had one right now, you could pull out your pre-created spreadsheet and use that strategy immediately. 

Let’s go a little deeper.  The third type is the deeper type, deeper into your local area.  Chances are that I don’t know your local area as well as you do. However, I can give you some tips for finding the publications, websites and portals in your local area that are likely to get you noticed and get you potential renters, lease option buyers, private investors, potential landlord buyers, rehab buyers, sellers, etc. through marketing your properties.  

You want to look for what people are talking about. Keep your thinking cap on. When you’ve opened up another tab in the spreadsheet you’ll create entitled “marketing websites to sell properties” or “marketing websites to rent properties,” you’ll also want to have a tab named “my geographic area.” So, if you’re in Chicago put that.  If you’re in New York put that, and then find the things that people are talking about. 

You want to find out what the things are that people are talking about. You need these people on your social media friends list. They may have websites that allow you to list properties. They may be local realtors who are well known, if you’re willing to sell the property through that type of arrangement, although most of the time you won’t want to. They may be local Craigslist links direct to that.  

It might be a forum online for your local newspaper because they’re moving more towards realizing that their advertising driven model for newspapers is dying. A lot of them will give you free listings on the Internet, because they know that they’ll make money. 

So again, you’re looking in your local area for those types of sites and it will be you creating that list through your social media contracts, through people you ask and through other investors in your area. You’re compiling that list so that the next time that you have a property for sale, rent, wholesale, whatever it is, then you have an action item list already created in a spreadsheet with a tab that says deeper (your location), whatever your local area is. You want places that will allow you to post or share information about your property for sale or rent.

Creating a spreadsheet of the websites to market properties on may sound like a lot of work, but once you have it, you’ll be able to market your properties broadly and deeply in a very systematic way, and you’ll actually save time in the long run.

 Trust me, next time you have a property for sale or rent you will feel a LOT better about your marketing plan to get it rented and sold if you have your “marketing blitz” spreadsheet of broad, deep, transaction-specific, forum, geographic-specific, and more websites to market your properties on already ready to be opened up and put into action posting away to get immediate attention on your property.

If you'd like to see an example website "marketing blitz" spreadsheet my business uses to market properties for sale in one of the markets we flip properties in, just send our office an email with subject line "Please share your marketing blitz website list for selling properties" to support AT hisrealestatenetwork.com 

I'll be happy to have our office send it over to you as a free gift in hopes it helps...just remember, you'll want to make some changes based on your business, transaction type, and geographic area before getting the best results from any model we share with you.

Happy investing!

Danny Welsh

 Managing Member, HIS Real Estate Network

 

 

 

There’s nothing worse than staring at a blank page and trying to come up with some new creative marketing ideas.  That’s why I suggest that you create a swipe file of marketing ideas.  You have to have one of these, they save you so much time.  What is a swipe file? It’s an electronic library and written published library of ads you’ve seen that get your attention and compel you to respond or others around you to respond in the perfect way that ad is positioned to do.

I created a swipe file of creative marketing ideas years ago. My attorney even knows I keep a swipe file and sets things aside for me from time to time. He has added a lot to my swipe file because he’s kept certain things over the years that impressed him as marketing pieces. And, of course, I was able to take those, use them, massage them into something else and start making money for our company. I highly recommend that you create your own swipe file of marketing ideas.

What are some cool ways that you can start your own swipe file today? Well, my marketing knowledge, when I first got started, the curiosity if you will or the wow factor of, man that’s what I want to do is be a copywriter, a marketing consultant, it came from a guy who positioned himself as the greatest copywriter in the world. In a field of big egos in copywriting, for a long time, no one questioned this gentleman on being the best in the world, which really says something.

Unfortunately, he died before I could thank him in person for the pieces of information and encouragement he gave me, but one good thing about him passing away is that someone in his family or center of influence decided that most of the stuff he had for sale should be given away for free.

For anyone interested in copywriting, search for “The Gary Halbert Letters” online. You’ll find an archive of 20 years worth of marketing newsletters, promos, etc. that he used along with some great swipe file nuggets. Is it organized the way we’d like? No. Are you going to have to wade through a lot? Yes. Are you going to be annoyed sometimes with his attitude about writing about how he’s the best, he knew it so he doesn’t need to impress you? Yes.  Will his newsletters be great for someone like you looking to create a swipe file of marketing ideas?  You bet!

Another resource for swipe file information is the Robert Collier Letter Book. (Good luck trying to find a copy for sale for less than a couple hundred bucks since it’s out of print). If you find one for sale for less than $100 grab it up, it’s a good investment. It’s a published book of winning ads that he put together to use from different marketers.

I hope that you will begin to create a swipe file of marketing idea right away.  You always want to be keeping an eye out for great marketing pieces.  The resources I’ve shared with you in this article are a great place to start!

I personally like to think of it as a marketing funnel for your real estate business as opposed to a sales funnel which many people call this idea. Imagine an inverse pyramid. Everyone is in it, everyone you meet, everyone that comes into your marketing portals, everyone that comes into your website, everyone that calls you, everyone that emails you for information, everybody that responds to one of your bandit signs, everybody you meet at a networking meeting, everybody that sees one of your videos online or reads one of your articles - these people are all at the top of the sales funnel levels.

   This includes people who know you. They may or may not be the perfect prospect for you to do business with, your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, teacher, preacher, girl you met at the gym - these are all people that are at the top of that pyramid.

   Just below that if you were to draw this on a piece of paper, we all know what a pyramid looks like, I'm assuming, not that ancient Egyptian history is a pre-requisite for reading an online article, but let's assume we all know what a pyramid is. At the top if you've got a line that's about two inches wide, just below it you've got a line that's about an inch shorter, about an inch wide and it's centered below it.

   That first line is all those people I just mentioned– just below that are people who you decide to follow up with– just below that is another line, which are people who agree to receive your follow up and just below that are people who want the same and request more information.

   What do I mean by that? Somebody can give me permission to follow up with them, but they're not even a real person until they raise their hand and say, “Hey, tell me this,” or ask a question. You should have something within your follow up sequence of your marketing funnel that identifies those people that do raise their hand from those people who are like a cold fish just laying there.

   If you're looking at your piece of paper and you're actually drawing this with me, you've thus far got four tiers and they consistently get smaller. What we're building here is an inverted pyramid. If you were to continue going down the next three levels would be levels of getting involved with them. 

   What do I mean by that? In your real estate business marketing funnel, or really one for any business, you should have different ways someone can get involved with you. Let's say, for example, you're a mortgage broker. A level five would be - level one, two, three and four I've already shared with you - a level five would be they've raised their hand and said they're interested in you following up with them and right now is the time they want to put in a loan application, so you’d get a 1003 filled out.

   Level six of your sales funnel levels would be you have a conversation with them after that. You follow up with those people in a different way in your marketing funnel. Of course, some of that should be automated, and if you're not using automated follow-up tools you're missing out on time you could be spending with new prospects. 

Level seven would be people who actually do a loan with you if you're a mortgage broker. Now, we're seven levels deep going from a Level one which might be someone you've met at a conference, or who has seen you on social media or your mother, father or whoever that comes into your orbit in any way, going all the way through Level four which is they have given you permission to follow up with them, you want to follow up with them, and they've raised their hand asking for more information in several ways.

   Whether it's emailing you, asking a question, calling you, filling out a form on your website, filling out a form through your autoresponder sequence that says I'm interested in (X), all the way down through getting more specific to your business in levels five, six and seven with the example I gave for a mortgage loan officer.

This is the basic anatomy of the sales funnel levels.  Do you have a sales and marketing funnel with clear levels established for your real estate business?

I was recently asked what I would do if I were attempting to align my business with government programs or non-profits to form joint ventures.  It’s a good question.  So here is what I would do.  My first strategy would be to use direct mail. I would get a list of those people using a company such as Melissa Data or use the local blue pages (in your local phone book), which are similar in most all telephone directories of businesses in government. 

You’ll want to be very clear on your criteria.  Your criteria might be government agencies that have to do with real estate usage, non-profits that have to do with the local area who are looking for joint venture partners that might refer business to you in exchange for referring donations to them. Whatever it is, that’s your criteria.  You can either find those people in directory publications or you can buy them through an online site and mail them a letter.  

Not just any letter—you want to mail them something that stands out. Why mail? I mean, you could call these people but sometimes it’s tough to find out who is responsible and sometimes it’s tough to get through to people because there are gatekeepers.  

You can try email, but try emailing me…some of these people are pretty important, the heads of non-profits and/or government agencies and they don’t know you…that’s the part that kills us. They don’t know you, so they won’t open your email they’ll delete it if they don’t know or recognize you.  

Therefore, you want to send a letter that you feel will get delivered and that stands out.  For example, if I was trying to win someone over to do something that only they could do being a government official, etc. and I knew if they made a decision to align themselves with my company in one way or another where I could make a ton of money, then I would spend some money making sure that it got in front of that person. 

John Goldman, from Lumpy Mail, is famous for sending watermelons to people, I’m not kidding. When you open it up, there’s a letter from him, it’s crazy out of the box stuff, but it certainly works. He built an entire business, which he later sold under that guise and he still does marketing consulting today. I consider him a friend and mentor. We meet up a couple times a year.  

He lives in Baltimore, MD. He’s a cool guy and I enjoy him, I’ve learned a lot from him and have even taught him some things too. So, he’s well known for being the watermelon guy and sending people outrageous packages, like a mini garbage can with a letter crumpled up inside it, then they want to un-crumple it and find out why someone mailed them a garbage can.  

Of course, they open the letter and it says something to the nature of, “Just in case you don’t want to make a million dollars this year, I went ahead and crumpled this message up for you.” It’s supposed to be funny.  That’s just an example.  You wouldn’t send that to a government official. When they un-crumple it because their curiosity is raised, why would someone mail me a garbage can, what is this paper and why is it in the trash? Then they open it and it says that, whatever you decide that un-crumpled paper should say to get that kind of person’s attention at that government agency or non-profit you’re trying to reach…it grabs their attention which is what you want to do with your package.  You want to get people to ally themselves with non-profits or government agencies.  

Another cool thing I’ve used in the past that would be fun to use when aligning yourself with government programs or non-profits is a collapsible, fold-up Frisbee. The company that sells them is called Fling Pro or something like that. They have these small packages where it looks like a small pouch and then this thing upon opening flings out of it…that’s what you would want in a situation like this. When they open the pouch, it pops open in their face. It won’t scare them or make them wet their pants but it’ll make them say oh, the person that sent this really understands marketing. 

And, of course, it will have a message from you and your company individually to that person or that type of person if you’re mailing to a market with a specific type of person. What kind of marketing do I recommend to find those types of groups? For non-profits you want to ally with or government agencies if you want to impress or get them to give you consideration, whether a grant, an opportunity to partner with them or a tax-free loan to develop properties in a bad neighborhood. 

Believe me, there are government offices out there that are responsible for that which are run by human beings who can be influenced by marketing just like anybody else, so if you do something that stands out then you can get a grant and money for developing projects in an area where most of the stuff is low-income housing so you’ll create something better. 

You may get a non-profit to agree to mail a message about your business to their database if you agree to do the same thing to your database. Can these things happen? Yes. Are they easy? No. That’s why I’m telling you, you have to stand out. 

In addition to direct mail, when attempting to align with government programs or non-profits, I would go where they are. Be a conference commando and find out where their watering holes are. If they have a twice a year national non-profit organizations that promote the healthy function of liver cancer and you’re trying to sell something to liver cancer doctors then you need to be at that conference, very simple. 

If you’re looking to influence a government agency and you know they have a twice annual meeting of the government agencies in the specific geographic area, be at that meeting or be around it if you can’t get in it and bump into people, talk with them and network strategically.  

Another approach to aligning with government programs or non-profits would be to help them with their advertised problem. Go onto their websites, contact their office managers and call them. Talk to different members if they have a local meeting in your area. Find out what their organizational problems are and solve those problems for them or offer solutions to those problems, whether you make money or not. 

It’s not the same way as finding all the numbers, putting them on text messages, sending voice blasts, etc. then getting people to call you back which is a reverse marketing you may have heard or read me teach about before. In reaching out to government agencies or non-profits you’d like to align yourself with, this is more selected reverse marketing, because it’s finding out what their advertised needs are and helping them solve them. It’s very simple.  And, of course, if you make money from it great, but if you don’t you can position yourself for a future alliance with an organization who knows who you are, what value you bring to the table, and owes you a favor

 Let's say somebody is advertising in your local newspaper and they're saying they have their house for rent. Could you call them if your niche in real estate is doing lease options or sandwich lease options, in which you take the lease from the seller and you offer a lease that incentivizes you, meaning you get option consideration, you get more money per month, and tell them you’ve got a perfect tenant buyer for their house who has bruised credit and would like to buy a house like theirs on a rent to own basis? That is the power of reverse marketing for real estate investors.  If that's your niche, what would stop you from calling people who have a house for rent and offering them that value proposition? What would stop you from calling every single for rent ad you find every week?
 Maybe you might call with a reverse marketing message to phone numbers associated with “for rent” ads that goes something like this: 
“Hey, I know you have a for rent house, possibly you may have wanted to sell it and just weren't able to. If that's the case, I'd like to buy it, please call me about terms.”
 Now, that's not too difficult, but what is a little bit more advanced, what I call reverse mass marketing –this is kind of interesting stuff, this is some next level stuff that very few people do– what happens if you had somebody, you don't have to do it yourself or if you're strapped for cash you can do it yourself, I happen to like other people doing it but that's me. What would stop you from doing it as a “voice blast” after getting the phone numbers typed up and put into a spreadsheet?
   Take all the numbers in your local newspaper that are for rent, have them typed up and put into a spreadsheet, and send that exact same message that I just said to you guys over a voice blast using a service that only charges you a few cents per call.
   The people who call you back are people who would be looking to sell their house who weren't able to sell their house, are now offering it for rent, and were intrigued by your voicemail call saying “hey, I'd like to buy your house, call me if you're interested in my terms.” When they call you, your job at that point, is to take that prospect and turn them into a seller so that you can purchase their house in a lease option, resell it to a potential buyer tenant you already have lined up in the wings and make money.
   It's a very simple niche. Can you use that with a lot of different things? Yes. Is there a voice blasting tool that works better then others? Yes. Will I give it to you? Of course, I will. There are many different services available but of the ones I’ve tried I like CallFire, for price on large call blasts and VoiceShot for ease of use on quick small voice blasts. 
No matter which strategy for reverse marketing for real estate investors you use you're going to ask yourself a couple of questions: Who is my market, meaning who is the perfect person who should hear about my message? What are the mediums or media that I can use to reach them? What is the perfect message that will get me the response I'm seeking? No matter what market you’re looking to reach with your message, you can likely reach them through the medium of reverse marketing, not just by telephone or voice blast marketing.
Those of you who are real estate professionals or investors who have yet to use reverse marketing I challenge you to begin thinking now of who is advertising, to do business in a certain way or sell something in a certain way that you can grab their contact info and reverse market them because of what you offer them matches what they are actually spending money or effort to tell the world they have to offer you.
Pretty sweet, huh

Develop Multiple Marketing Funnels for your Real Estate Investing Business

How many different sales and marketing funnels does a real estate investor need? I want to encourage you to develop multiple sales funnels. Let's say that your particular niche is buying and selling houses on a lease option. It's very simple; you need people who want to buy a house, but for whatever reason can't afford it, can't get the traditional credit financing or more importantly believe that they can't get the traditional credit financing. 

Trust me, in that particular industry, you're dealing with a lot of people who could get financing they just for whatever reason have priced themselves out of it mentally, they don't believe they can. It's the job of the lease option investor to show them that they can't and to convince them that they'll be able to help them qualify for a traditional mortgage within a specified period of time under which that lease arrangement is working. 

Who else is it you'd want to find? You get those people to raise their hand, you put them on a list, you follow up with them in a certain way; by phone, by email, whatever it is that works for you. I prefer email because a lot of that can be automated. 

Who else do real estate investors need to develop a sales and marketing funnel for? Sellers. People who want to sell their house are procrastinators. People do things for one of two reasons– inspiration or desperation. When the market is up people get inspired – oh, I want to sell my house, I want to cash out my equity, I want to do this and that – those are not your sellers you're looking to deal with for a lease option type business. 

However, those same people who don't sell and the market drops out beneath them in the next market cycle or two market cycles further.  Rick Melero, a good friend of mine does a great presentation on market cycles, and if you get to review that I believe it's within the download now section of the Real Deal Community website. It is a fantastic free presentation you can review on market cycles, not as an aside but just letting you know. 

What I'm saying is that those same people if you follow up with them in the right way, if you tickle them - and by tickle them I don't mean putting fingers underneath their armpits - stay in touch with them in a regular basis whether that's in an automated fashion or giving them a touching base call once in a while, pinging them. 

Pinging is a fantastic way to run a business and stay in touch with thousands of people as I do. I've only been doing it for two and a half years, and there are few things as responsible for as many things as I can keep going, in terms of projects and different opportunities I've got a finger in then pinging.  

What we were talking about was touching those people over time, tickling them if you will, who are sellers that say, “Yes, I want to sell my house,” but have yet to agree to sell it to you who are the lease option buyer who is then going to turn around and sell it to someone with bruised credit. You want to have a follow up sequence and marketing funnel for these people.   

Next, let's say you're still that lease option buyer and seller but you're trying to get to a next level of real estate.  You're finding that you're making a few thousand dollars on an option consideration, you're getting some good cash flow on some of the deals that you're doing that you're renting out to tenant buyers, but your true focus, your true calling, your true passion - your purpose - things you really want to get done is you want to be a commercial real estate investor. You want to buy big deals and you want to do it with other people's money, and you want to own that thing yourself. 

What is the ultimate social media strategy for business? This is very simple. You can write this down, circle it, star it, underline it, box it, highlight it - do whatever you want or take a picture, this is the biggest thing.

   You want to add value to other people's lives.

I just paused for like five seconds there to let that sink in, because this is not a hocus- pocus it only works in the 21st century era of social media, this is how you connect with other human beings and get them to do business with you – period. 

And that’s what makes it the ultimate social media strategy for business. It just so happens the principle doesn’t change but the platform we're applying that principle on is changing faster and faster until today we're able to immediately get and receive feedback for the value we've created for others through platforms such as social media.

First and foremost, be a value giver in social media. Whether you're trying to get people to sell you a house, whether you're trying to get somebody to gain trust in you to later invest in one of your projects, whether you're attempting to get people to get on your buyer's list, who want to find out more about properties you can provide for them - the number one thing you want to do is add value to those people.

Let’s say you’re looking to attract people who could possibly be in foreclosure. First, you need to realize this is not a laughing matter, these are human beings and you need to approach them with a service mentality. By doing what I explained to you to do, you will come across in a way that’s far above and different then the typical people saying ‘I want to buy your house”…that most people do. You have to slow down and feel empathy before you can build empathy for those people.

 Therefore, you have to approach that from a service mentality. In fact, if anyone wants specific tactics for doing that there are a number of articles I’ve written on the Internet, feel free to Google the phrase, service mentality and foreclosure investing, and you’ll probably find them.

However, specifically on social media, how you do that is not by offering people a drill. What do I mean by that? A drill is a tool. A tool is your ability to buy the house and get someone out from under a potential foreclosure, giving them that solution. The tool is you; however, they don’t want you. They don’t know you and they don’t trust you. What they do want is a hole in their wall and that hole (speaking metaphorically) is a solution to get out from under their problem, not to have to worry about it anymore, to be able to sleep at night and move on with their lives.

If that’s a solution for a hole in their wall, that you’re able to provide for them, they will not care that you can do that until they know that you care about them as a person, so you use the ultimate social media strategy of adding value as a way to show others that you care about them. Then, from time to time you let them know what solutions you’re able to provide and ask them to refer their friends. 

Why do you ask them to refer their friends? Because it’s less invasive, less popping in their face saying I know you’re in foreclosure I just knocked on your door, “I have the lis pendens, and I know you need my help!”  It’s much softer.  “If you or someone in your family or network may know of someone behind in their house payments, if you do, please understand that I’m totally equipped, willing and able to help them, just have them call me.  They can either rent their house and save it or sell it and get on with their lives.” I’m a solution provider in this area and leave it at that.

You’re not saying I know you need help, you’re saying you may know of someone who needs help and you may find that the very people who respond are those that you give that message to, instead of referring to their friends. However, they won’t feel like you’re like big brother with your hand on their necks already knowing everything about them, which quite frankly is what happens when you’re one of those investors who does door knocking, which I’ve done and which students of mine do. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it doesn’t work on social media, because in social media people can close the door on you much easier by de-friending and getting rid of you or by not paying attention to you then they can when you’re there on their doorstep.

These are two different strategies that both work, but you use them with a different mindset and intent.  So to sum it up, add value add, be a professional, show empathy if you’re dealing with someone in foreclosure.  How do you get them on your list? Same thing, add value…It doesn’t matter whether that person is on your wholesale list as a potential buyer, a rehabber or landlord looking for potential properties, firstly they are human beings. Make them laugh, make them interested, make them curious and then make them your customers.  That’s the ultimate social media strategy for business, and it’s that simple.

Designing a Marketing Campaign-- Determine Your End Goal and Work Backwards

Before designing a new marketing campaign of any kind, you need to determine your end goal and work backwards to determine the steps, processes, money and time you’re willing to invest in order to reach that business goal.  For example, is your end goal to wholesale a property? Is it to make $5 for every $1 you spend mailing this letter? Is it to create two new investor clients who put $100,000 or more with your private investor project?  Once you’ve determined your end goal and worked backwards, if you’re willing and able to spend the money and invest the effort to reach the goal, then put the plan in motion.  

I have a client who created an information product on “how to make money” that sold for $4998,  and I designed a sweet marketing campaign for him, which entailed a direct mail marketing package that included a $2 bill stapled to the top of a letter and a stamp on the outside of the package that said money enclosed. Now, he’s selling a product for $4998, so to me it makes perfect sense to be willing to spend $2 per customer if it increases your response rate over a regular letter. 

That client was not willing to do that campaign that I put together, but the letter started, “Hey, you might want to know why there’s a $2 bill stapled to this letter. I want you to know I’m so confident that you’ll want my product that I’ve stapled your change to this letter in advance.”  That’s a cool little strategy to grabs people’s attention. In fact, in copywriting terminology it’s called a “grabber” when you staple or attach something to the top of a letter that grabs people’s attention.  

The end of the letter said, “If you’re not going to purchase my product, then I guess I just invested $2 in you.  You can feel free to invest it in yourself, or you can hope to go get lucky at the local race track,” and I’d give them the address of the local racetrack close by in the letter. We all know what $2 is good for.  And what does $2 make you think of?  A lot of people think of it as a lucky charm, because $2 bills are rare and uncommon. 

I played on that whole thing in designing this marketing campaign and in essence said, “Look, if you’re not going to invest this money in my product, then this isn’t your change from your $4998 product purchase sent in advance, but I still encourage you to invest this money in yourself. Or, if you’re one of those people who thinks that success is about luck, you can take this $2, walk down to your local racetrack and see if you can win some money, because that may be the only way you’re going to get it.”  

It was that kind of tone without saying that. Why did the client I designed that marketing campaign for turn it down?  I don’t know. Maybe they weren’t confident enough in their product that adding that into the mix would help them get that added number of sales to offset the cost of having a 2 dollar bill in every direct mail piece they sent out. However, a future client did use the idea, and those of you who want to know what the results were can contact me one-on-one sometime and I’ll let you know. It’s impressive. 

I tell that story to tell you this—begin with the end in mind when you’re designing a new marketing campaign for your real  estate or any business.

This is the process I use to start a campaign for real estate investing, an info product for myself, or a project for a copywriting or consulting client.  Determine your end goal and work backwards.  It’s that simple. 

Once you’ve designed and get a marketing campaign rolling, you’ll have the confidence that when you send a certain message through a certain medium to appeal to a certain market, it will make money.  All you have to do now is tinker with process a bit. Work on it to get it better and produce better results. I’ve seen certain marketing messages go from a 1.2 to 1 ROI with testing to a 10 to 1 ROI and it’s just by tinkering with those three variables – message, medium and market– that once you have a winner test a little and do it again. 

One of the coolest ways to get feedback very quickly is Google AdWords, which I am not an expert in, but what is cool about it is that you can put an ad up and find out the next day whether it worked or not, or whether you lose your shirt so don’t do that if you don’t have a lot of funds. 

I hope that you have found this article helpful for when you are designing new marketing campaigns. 

Remember to simply determine your end goal and work backwards from there.

In case you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, and are wondering why you should use video marketing to promote yourself or your business right now, this article is for you. Here's what I have to say about it: DO IT! Don't think about it. Go get a hand held HD video camera and start talking into it about your business, about what you can do for others, and start learning about local search or about video marketing as a tool to get yourself found not only as a credibility piece, but because the search engines love video. 

For example, why does Google love video? Why is it beginning to show up on the first page of search results? Quite frankly, it comes down to one of the biggest companies in the world buying an asset that has yet to produce income for them. 

If you don't know this, it's amazing. They purchased YouTube. We all like YouTube, some people go there and they watch silly videos, right? Other people go there to market their business. Some people go there who are employees and they spend their entire work day watching silly videos. 

However, that business model has yet to generate a profit for YouTube and for its acquiring company, Google. Is Google incentivized to make sure that video gets out there as much as possible so that people click into it, watch it, and they click on some of the ads on the websites that do make them money? You better believe it, and this is why you should use video marketing.

They're one of the biggest companies in the world and they're not stupid, they want a return on that investment. Until they get it, video is the new blogging and it has been for quite some time and will continue to be for quite some time, until that model turns a profit for companies like Google. 

Again, the tip with video marketing is to begin doing it now if you haven't already. Get yourself a Flip video camera or whatever you can, I don't necessarily recommend you do it on your cell phone although there are many people who do. 

You want to talk about what your business does, who your business likes to connect with, who your perfect customer is, customer success stories, testimonials, the different areas and markets in your local area that you serve, and the different niches and types of services you provide.  You also want to stack your videos with keywords.  If you don't know what keyword stacking is, find a tool like Traffic Geyser or find a tool that does it for you and learn more about that.