REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT
Do you want to know what kills
more real estate investor's dreams faster than anything else? That, my friend,
is having no clients to use their creative techniques on. Real estate, like any
business, is 90% marketing.
Unless you want to start writing
ransom notes, you'd better stick with marketing mastery.
You'll see that not many people
truly get advertising by taking a short look at online classified sites. Look
at the ads and just see if it makes you want to open it to find out more. Odds
are that the advertising hasn't exactly achieved its purpose--which is to get
you interested.
Real estate investing is a
business and the lifeblood of any business is marketing. You really need to be
thinking of yourself a real estate marketer. Just imagine if other people knew
how to market their homes effectively and how to write a creative contract.
There would be no realtors for starters because people wouldn't require any
assistance to sell and market their homes. Sellers certainly wouldn't need you,
the creative investor. However, the reality is that probably over 95% of advertisements
are not done effectively. You may even see huge companies with poor advertising
campaigns. While their deep pockets may be able to sustain this loss, in real
estate you won't do any business without incoming leads.
The first thing you ought to know
is that if your headline doesn't grab the reader's attention then no one will
ever see your ad no matter how well the rest of it is written. My advice to you
is simple, have an attention grabbing or informative headline or don't write
the ad at all because it isn't worth your time.
If you have a home under contract
and you need it sold fast, which one of these headlines do you think will
generate us more interest to get the home sold?
If you have a home under contract
and you need it sold fast, which one of these headlines do you think will
generate us more interest to get the home sold?
When you're building your
wholesaling investor database, which one of these do you think is more likely
to achieve the desired effect?
Advertising in Any Business
Some people are so passionate
about their business that it's too hard for them to look at things from the
other person's perspective. Your reader doesn't yet care about your business,
even though do. Not everyone is interested in hearing about what their company
thinks they need even though they may sincerely believe that they have the 100
greatest products and services available. A lot of these real estate investors
and individual business owners have the right motivation but they lack the
knowledge to make their marketing accomplish meaningful results.
A motivated seller doesn't need
to call you until they see that something about your ad is beneficial for themselves.
I use these companies frequently
as examples to emphasize my point. Coca Cola and McDonalds are leaders in their
respective fields. There are actually not a lot of people who love McDonalds as
their favorite restaurant or there are not a lot of people who love Coke as
their favorite drink when you actually compare it with their market share. They
have huge market share without having insanely passionate customers about their
products. However, they still sell the most of their product in their respective
fields. The key to their success is their world class marketing machines rather
than the products themselves. If you have a great business in every aspect but
marketing, then you don't have a business at all.
The single biggest determining
factor in long term success in real estate investing is marketing. When you
learn to be a successful real estate marketer, you'll be able to make almost
any business successful even without detailed financial or product knowledge.
Your business is like a tropical
island where marketing builds the bridges, roads and airports that enable
people to discover your island. Without those inlets, your island doesn't exist
to the rest of the world. Would you build a great website and then never send
it any traffic? I doubt it. So why do so many investors learn techniques to
apply to sellers but then don't generate sellers to use those techniques on?
Probably because they undervalue what is most important to their business.
With this in mind, here are some
of the things you should and shouldn't do within your advertisements in any
business. Yes I understand that some of these may be obvious points but look at
various advertisements. Although they are obvious, they are often not adhered
to.
DO DON'T
Have an enticing offer List all 250 products/services you offer.
Get the reader's attention
immediately Design your ad
so that they must see the whole ad to fully understand the offer
try multiple mediums--including
non-traditional ones Advertise using
only the same mediums that everyone else uses.
Target your specific product for
a specific audience only Make
your marketing try and appeal to everyone at once
Avoid deception by clearly
stating what the offer is. Have fine print or subject to clauses. This only
works for corporations like utility companies that have minimal competition in
the marketplace
Create demand by advertising even
when you don't need the business. Develop a waiting listAdvertise only during
the slow periods of your business.
Be unique and catchy with your
advertisement. Be identifiable where others are not. Look to everyone else for what they do. Most businesses are
terrible at marketing, are you going to copy that?
Provide incentives for customers
to join with or refer your company Provide
negative consequences for customers to leave your business
Have joint ventures and
partnerships with outside businesses that provide useful related services to
your clients. Take on the
world yourself by not leveraging your time with other established businesses.
Test your marketing strategies in
small niche markets before launching a large scale campaign Spend your advertising budget on something
big before testing it to see that it even works.
Get employee input to get
valuable ideas before putting the advertisement out. Decide you know what's best and don't consider other
sources of input
Promote what you're willing to do
for your customers. Make yourself the obvious choice. Slander the competition as a means to provide an
alternative. Politicians do this and none of them are perceived to be any good.
This is not coincidence
Have specific goals for your
marketing targets. Put your ads out there and see what happens. Stir up natural
curiosity about your company and its products/services. Figuratively, show all
the cards you have so that the client can make a purchasing decision without
meeting you. Demonstrate why your service is the best. State that your product is the best without demonstrating
it. Which will come across as insincere.
Continually commit time and
effort to successful marketing. try
it a few times and see if you get a response. If you don't, quit and don't
re-evaluate.
Provide a thank you to past
customers. It is word of mouth marketing gold. Forget
to market to your already existing customer database.
If you're going to be the
marketing leader in your field, you're going to have to stop copying what
everyone else does because most businesses don't correctly comprehend
marketing. Instead, look to their ideas to further build on them. It's going to
take consistent effort in the beginning to build a strong marketing campaign.
However, when it's all said and
done, you'll have an automated stream of steady business that does not take
your active participation. The concept of a successful business and successful
marketing simply must co-exist.
Develop some marketing goals and
find a way to hit those targets. Remember, this is meant as a guide to build on
not the 10 commandments of advertising. Grab the good ideas and build on them.
Real life works when you make your own marketing objectives and you set the
guidelines.
If you're willing to become a
master at marketing, your success in your real estate business is inevitable.
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