So How Do I Actually Generate Leads?... MARKETING!!

This post is part two-A of an ongoing series of articles entitled

"REIcreator's Simple Step By Step Guide to the Internet, Marketing, & Management"

Step Two-A: So How Do I Actually Generate Leads?... MARKETING!!

This should not even be a question, much less be as big of a mystery as it seems to be... but it is one that we are going to solve completely, so this article will be split into a two parter.

If you are generating calls, you can generate web clicks. If you are not generating either, then you simply need to develop a marketing plan. I have seen a million different programs and manuals and heard the same thing over and over and over again and I am sure you have too... But here it is again, and I wont charge you one penny for this information. I am actually writing it in this article so that I might have to explain it verbally one less time in the future. I don't know how many people I have told about how to effectively market their businesses over the years. All types and sizes of businesses have come to me for their marketing solutions. The ones that put all of the aspects of my simple techniques into action are the ones that make money and that is all there is to it. You can effectively generate leads on any size budget. You can start small and increase your marketing budget as your income increases. It is very simple and it amazes me how many people actually spend money on this info, when everyday, every person in America is bombarded with ads of all kinds. Just think about it for a second, how do you know about any company you have ever known about?! Either you saw an ad of some sort or you saw the sign on their building or you happened to meet that person and get their business card.

Business Cards

So lets start with the most affordable way to start marketing your business.. business cards. I should wait until after I explain branding, but even if you don't have a company name you need to have a business card. Most people don't know how effective these things can be. Then there are those that will say they are a waste of time. People that doubt them, simply don't know how to use them the right way. You need to make your cards stand out and make people remember you. You need to have as much info about you or your services on there as you can squeeze onto it. I won't get too detailed about the actual design but it is key that the design pops and is easily remembered. It also is VERY good if your cards have an actual logo or branding that matches your other marketing materials.

Another thing about business cards that I see people fail to do over and over is simply putting information on the back of the card. Handing out business cards with nothing on the back is just a shame. You can put anything on there... so why not tell people about what you do on there? Putting as much information on the card as possible is crucial. I personally make my REIcreator cards twice as big as a regular business card and they fold in half to form a mini brochure and people always comment on them when I hand them one. Make your business cards pop and make them as informative as possible and you will see increased results. Handing them out with confidence and a good attitude doesn't hurt either. Make the person you just met remember you forever!

After you get your cards, GIVE THEM OUT! They do not work if they stay in the box. Give your card to everyone you meet no matter who they are. The more you give out, the more people have your number when they need it.. and you never know when that might be. REIcreator.com can supply you with business card designs and/or printing. We offer full color 2 sided glossy business cards for the low price of $200 for 5000 cards! We can also match them to your website and your branding to make you look like you are serious and professional. A lot of people tell me they don't need 5000 business cards and I can't imagine why they would say that. The price for getting 1000 is probably $25 less than 5000. I would rather not have to think about reordering business cards so I just buy 5000 and try my best to give them all out.

Another thing I do when buying business cards is that I get a set that actually has my name and personal contact info on them (or whichever employee they are for). These are the ones I give to people that I meet personally and want them to call me directly. I make another set that is more "generic". These ones just have my company name, web address, office phone number (or hot-line number), and the key info about whatever the business is. I give these ones out EVERYONE and leave them EVERYWHERE. I also give them to my new employees to give out while they wait for their personalized ones. This allows my new employees to get out there right away and start generating leads for my companies before I even get a chance to get them their own cards. This also comes in handy when new employees don't end up working out. They are basically mini fliers and anyone that calls or visits the website because of them gets pre-screened by my voicemail or website system and I don't need to talk to them unless the lead is a hot one.

What is Branding?

"Branding" is the practice of designing all of your marketing materials so that they have the same look and feel. A Lot of investors sort of dismiss this for some reason, but this is a very important part of building recognition in any marketplace. Think about every store or business you know of that is successful... they all have a logo and all of their ads look similar. This is not a mistake or a coincidence. Having a logo and matching branding is very important in gaining recognition. The more times a person sees your logo or your branding design, the more they will remember it. That is just a fact. You need to get your logo and message in as many places as possible... that is marketing. You must have a good company name and a recognizable logo and you must get it out there. Even if you don't have an actual logo... if all of your marketing materials look the same, you will be more recognizable. By matching your business cards, fliers, ads, signs, and other marketing items to look like your website, your marketing will be more effective because people will begin to remember you and your brand. REIcreator's marketing packages combine all of the print designs and website designs to create pre made matching branding for you. We can also create custom logo designs and all of the matching marketing materials that go with it. Just contact us and ask us how to make your business stand out and be remembered by the people that need you the most.

Am I Marketing Yet?

Almost. Let's talk about the ads you need to put into action in order to market effectively. There are many types of ads you can use to generate leads. You must have some sort of ads out there or else nobody is ever going to know about you. Let's take an in depth look at some of the different types of ads that a real estate investor should be using.

Bandit Signs For Buying & Selling Properties

I think everyone uses these or at least knows what they are, but I am going to go into this topic pretty deep simply because most people don't fully understand how they can use these signs to their peak potential. So I am just going to tell you how we use them.

When used for buying houses, these signs are used by many and hated by many others. So when I put out bandit signs, I don't put my actual company logo , phone number, or web address on them. You may be thinking, "so how do you get the leads if they don't know your number or web address?"... easy. The phone number on the sign simply goes to a recorded message AKA "24 hour recorded message" with a simple message with info about I can buy their house and they can either visit my website (the one shown on the sign), or they can talk to a live operator. I will talk more about the live operator later but for now lets just say the caller wants to check out the website and get more info.

As I mentioned, the web site address on the sign is not my company's main website. The web address takes you to what we refer to as a "bandit site". It is a site with all of the information they need to know about the process involved with selling a house to a real estate investor and has questionnaires and other information capturing features. As a matter of fact, it is the same as my main company website with one difference... There is no real logo or mention of a company name on this website, nor is there a mention of who owns it. It simply states the info they need to know and has a form on it for them to fill out and tell me about their house. The web address is also registered as private, so nobody can find out who owns the address without getting a court order. Now you might be asking why so secretive, and why do i need the separate copy of my website? The answer is simple. When people that don't like my signs being placed around town get angry, they have no way of really figuring out who put the signs there. But due to the way I have my phones messages and websites set up, I can still collect all the many many leads that these signs generate and not get in any sort of trouble from sign haters. I don't ever even talk to any one that comes from a sign until they have already been filtered through my pre-screening process and I am sure that the lead is hot. Now I realize that I said before that everything needs to match, but this is one aspect of your business where you don't want to be recognized but you still want to reap the benefits of these highly effective signs. REIcreator.com can supply you with eye popping bandit signs, designs or both. We are experts in generating leads and avoiding trouble with these signs.

Excerpt from: Step One: Establish Your Business's "Home Base" With a Home Buying Website


When I use bandit signs for selling houses, I use them a little bit differently than when buying houses. For some reason, people tend to not get as offended by the signs that have houses for sale on them. I use a few different signs for my home selling. First, I make a batch of signs that have the actual property address on them and some details about the house. These have a phone number and pin number on them for each house. They also have a web address and pin number. When someone calls the phone number and puts in the pin number they get a message explaining the details of the house for sale and might even give them the lock box code for them to gain access to the house themselves and take a look. If they are interested, they can leave a message and I will return their call and try to get them into the house as fast as possible. Sometimes I don't put the lock box code on the message. In those cases I give them the code number when i speak to them or I will make an appointment to have one of my people show them the house. They can also visit my website and look at photos and the details of the property. If they are interested, they can apply for the property right there on my site and I get emailed instantly when they submit their information.

I put these signs in the area where the property is. Mainly to attract people that drive through the neighborhoods looking for a potential home. These also give the people in the neighborhood all the info they need if they want to refer the home to a friend that might be looking to move into their neighborhood.

A lot of times, the house will sell before I run out of these property specific signs. You might think, "what a waste". On the contrary, I continue to put out the signs after the specific property has sold. To some this might seem odd but here is why... If someone calls about the property after it is already sold, I simply tell them that it is sold but I can get them into a house in the same neighborhood that is just like it about 90% of the time. I simply gather their information and add them to my potential buyers list and then proceed to find another house in the neighborhood that I can match them with if I don't already have one in my inventory.

The other home selling signs I use are the usual "for sale by owner" sign with the arrow pointing into the neighborhood and the address on it. I usually just use a few of these around the neighborhood and write the specific info on them with a magic marker. I get the blank signs with the arrow and "for sale by owner" in bulk to save on printing costs.

Another sign I use for selling simply says "own your own home today! Home purchase programs available for anyone" and it has the phone number and website address on there to tell tell how to get more info. I pretty much put these ones wherever I can. For some reason, these ones still don't cause as much trouble as the home buying ones.

One more little trick I use is that I will take some of the old signs from sold properties and turn them over and hand write "for sale by owner" with the phone number and web address on the back with a big fat magic marker. This gives the impression that the house is for sale by a private owner. These signs look "unprofessional", but they work awesome. If someone looks at the message on the back... that's ok because that is mine too.

It is easy to find houses for sale. In order to sell them after you buy them, you need to have a list of buyers at all times. Generating a buyers list is crucial if you don't want to be left sitting on some unwanted house. If your buyers list is constantly growing, you will be able to sell your properties with no problem. In some situations you will end up having a buyer for a house that you don't even have yet. Obviously, this is not a bad thing.

Fliers

Using fliers can be a very effective way to generate calls and web clicks when done right. I have seen many flier campaigns fail over the years and it is always because of two things... either you are offering something that absolutely nobody wants, or you simply gave up. Obviously, being able to pay cash for some one's house and being able to save them from foreclosure and save their credit does not fall into the first category (especially in today's market) so the only way your fliers will fail to generate leads is if you give up on your fliers. To be more specific, a lot of times people will think "hey I am going to put out fliers and get a bunch of calls". While they are correct in thinking that, most of the time, when the phone doesn't ring a single time after the first round of fliers, people get discouraged and they don't put anymore fliers out because the first ones didn't work. The trick here is to not give up. You must hit the same houses over and over again with fliers that are branded to your company's look so that the message gets drilled into the recipient's mind over and over again. Pick the areas that you want to buy houses in and hit them with fliers again and again. Don't spread yourself over to much area unless you have a good way of delivering all of the fliers. Fliers don't usually start working to their maximum potential until after the 8th time they are delivered to the same place. After your flier has been dropped off ten times to the same house. those people will inadvertently remember your message and most likely will tell someone about you if they hear that someone wants to sell their house or if they are about to get foreclosed on.

Another thing to think of is the fact that the people on your delivery route might be living happily, safe from foreclosure, and don't need you... yet. If in fact they ever are in need of getting out of their house quickly, they will already know who to call because you have been dropping fliers off to them regularly for as long as they can remember. The key to effective fliers is repetition. When I pick a fresh area for fliering I hit them twice in the first month of delivering and then hit them once a month after that for a while and sometimes will drop that to quarterly after i feel that the neighborhood knows I want to buy any house that comes up for sale or is in danger of foreclosure in that neighborhood. Of course I put a message on there about how I give cash rewards for referrals. This gets people to tell me about vacant houses nearby or their friend's houses all the time.

I also will hand out fliers (or pay someone to hand out fliers) at any place that has a large group of people attending. You never know who you might hand a flier to at your county fair or the rib cook off or any event that the general public attends. Fairs, festivals, parties and any place that I can get a backpack full of fliers into, I will be there passing out fliers. I recently attended a NASCAR race and was there before the race "tailgating". I could have kicked myself for not having my fliers with me. I could have handed out 10,000 or more in one place and still been able to enjoy the day at the racetrack after planting the seed for an unreal amount of leads. I will defiantly be showing up early to sporting events in the future, armed with as many fliers as I can carry.

REIcreator.com has great prices on all types of fliers and flier designs pre-made to match our web sites. We have been responsible for the distribution of millions of fliers resulting in thousands and thousands of leads for all kinds of business's and services. We know what works and what doesn't. The bottom line with flier is basically this... if you choose to use fliers, you must commit to using fliers. Otherwise you might as well not bother buying the first batch, because usually the first ones won't generate many calls at all. If you continue to flier the same areas again and again the effectiveness of the fliers will snowball over time due to the brand recognition you will automatically gain through repetition.

Now that we have discussed the general theory of fliers and repetition to generate brand recognition. We can apply the technique of repeat delivery of your marketing through a few avenues. This is how you build a successful marketing campaign. You must use as many ways that you are able to use in order to get your message to the people that need to see it. The more ways a person receives your message, the more they will remember you. As with the fliers, you must continue to repeat the ad a few times before you can expect real results. Don't try to many for you to handle or afford... but the more you can put into action the better.

Let's talk about this a little more in depth. Fliers can work very well any which way they are delivered. At first you might put them out yourself. After a few deals, you might pay someone you know to put them out. After a few more, I would recommend a few different ways of actually delivering fliers. First, I would try to manage the cost of getting my flier delivered inside the newspaper. This is very easy and is not that expensive a lot of the time. The price obviously fluctuates from paper to paper, but this is definitely worth giving the local newspaper (or anything else that is already being delivered) a call. You might even be able to get a local pizza shop to put your flier on every box that goes out of their shop. You could even go so far as to offer a pizza related special on the flier like "sell us your house and get free pizza for a year". The sky is the limit with gimmicks but the point is that there are already many things being delivered to everyone everyday... you can usually find a way to get your flier in the door without paying someone just to walk around posting fliers on mailboxes or doors... Unless you are a doorknocker. In which case, go out there and knock on those doors and leave them a nice piece of reading about what you do. Having it look nice looking and informative is key. Also try other items such as key chains, mugs, magnets, pens and anything else you think of. Get creative, but remember, it also should match the look of your over all branding or you will reduce each item's potential effectiveness.

Postcards

In the same category are postcards or mailers. You can get away with mailing fliers by simply "blanketing" an entire zip code. Your flier doesn't have to look like a postcard or be addressed or stamped or anything. You can simply take the stack to the post office and tell them to deliver them to every house in an entire zip code. Many post offices will even let you choose the actual subdivisions and areas within a zip code. All you have to do is ask. The price is a bit higher than other delivery methods but your ad gets placed in the mailbox by an official federal employee and people know that cost money. This gives you a little bit of instant credibility. Hit the same neighborhoods 10 times in a year and you will get plenty of leads. Don't be discouraged by the lack of calls from the first mailing. You can't expect too many calls from these blanket campaigns but they will generate leads if you keep them going. One more great thing about this technique is that you can use the same fliers that you already give out to everyone and whatnot... so you can just keep getting the same design over and over again for quites some time... maybe switch up the message from time to time and make special ones for the holidays if possible. I personally try to make the best possible flier i can imagine and get as many as i can possibly afford. Some people think buying 100,000 fliers is crazy, but if you are able to, you can cut your marketing cost dramatically by buying your marketing materials in bulk.

Doorhangers

Door-hangers can be used exactly like fliers but I personally wouldn't use them this way unless I was actually out door-knocking. First of all, door-hangers are more expensive than fliers. Second, Door-hangers are harder to put on each house than a flier. They take longer to distribute each one because you actually walk up to each door and place it on the handle. This doesn't sound tough but try doing 1200 of them in a day and you will see what I mean. I personally use door-hangers only when I (or my bird dogs or flier guys) see a house that looks either vacant or like it could be a lead. The message I put on the hangers is pretty much the same message as a flier, but I get door-hangers that are perforated across the bottom to create a "tear-off business card" that looks a lot like my generic business cards I mentioned before. If I am driving through a neighborhood and I see a house that looks like I might want to buy it for whatever reason... I pull over and grab one of the door-hangers that I keep stocked in my car at all times, and I pop that thing on the handle and drive away. Other things I keep in my car at all times are... a ton of fliers, business cards and other promotional items just in case I need to give something to a potential lead. REIcreator.com can supply you with these "rip hangers" as well as all of the other marketing items I have discussed so far that are all designed to match your site and company branding.

This just about covers all of the common ways that investors use for their marketing. I will discuss more traditional advertising methods such as newspaper ads, other periodicals, auto trader, billboards, wrapped vehicles, TV ads, radio ads, creative billboard type ads, co-branding to save money and other ways to get your message out there in part two of this article.

 

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