Category Archives: Lead Generation

Direct Mail

Tweaking Traditional Marketing and How to Save a Fortune

Real Estate Postcard Marketing: Postcards + Website = Leads

These days an internet marketing strategy plays a vital part of small business marketing strategies (or any size business marketing strategies for that matter). Web site marketing is an important part of just about any business, small or large.

You can’t put up a beautiful (or any) web site and hope that people will just arrive. You have to let them know, IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY, that your web site is there. This HAS to be part of any Internet marketing strategy you develop. This is actually a basic marketing principle. Customers are not going to look for you, you have to look for them.

Promoting your web site on-line and building traffic is the subject of thousands of web sites, e-zines, books, courses and seminars. Using the web to promote your site, however, assumes that your customers are surfers. But there is a large percentage of our population that is not as savvy with the internet as we would like them to be.

So, what about the large percentages of the population who are not? They will only find out about you through traditional marketing and public relations media. This is particularly true if you serve a fairly local market. Fortunately these are the easiest and cheapest prospects for you to reach off-line.

Key Off-Line Internet Marketing Strategies
Continue reading Tweaking Traditional Marketing and How to Save a Fortune →

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization For More For First Page Listings

How your website is ranked by the search engines is very dependent on how many sites link to you.   Online links are like an Online Recommendation or Endorsement.  The way to think about link is similar to someone give you a recommendation or an endorsement. In the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) this is very important. Search Engines rely on “recommendations” to evaluate the quality and the legitimacy of your website.. A “recommendation” by a well known person carries a lot more weight then by lots of unknown people. The same rule applies with search engines.

When well known and trusted websites , the industry leaders, link to you ( thus giving you the recommendation)

It shows in the Search Engine indexes that you are a respected in your industry. The more of these types of quality back links, the greater the respect your website will receive in the eyes of the Search Engines. I am sure you can see that the internet is one big popularity contest.

Its not just who says it, but also about what they say.  You already know that both Search Engines and Web Visitors have a high level of trust in specific websites. We have been teaching how to  work with sites that people easily recognize such as Twitter, Linkedin, Ebay, YouTube, etc. People flock to these sites everyday because of the information they provide.  When you continue to add information to these sites so you will get a instant boost in both visibility and credibility.

We want to build on this strategy to get higher in the search engines for organic traffic.  Getting free leads by designing your site as “authority’ site is what makes this strategy  very effective. You are going to be in complete control of the information and how it flows. You will be the one who is behind the brand and trust of your business of how it appears to the online world.

How To Make Yourself the Authority Site

We are going to work with “parasite” sites to create even more links.  Just by having someone give you a recommendation ( a link) is not good enough. The most important aspect of the recommendation is going to be what they say about you. On the internet , this is referred to an “Anchor Text”. This Text is the clickable text within a link.  The best way to use Anchor Text should vary slightly from time to time. Search Engines will get suspicious if everybody keeps recommending you is saying the exact same thing.

Anchor text usually gives the user relevant descriptive or contextual information about the content of the link’s destination. The anchor text may or may not be related to the actual text of the URL of the link. For example, a hyperlink to the my SuperSmart Website  homepage might take this form:

<a href="http://www.easysellahouse.com">Sell House Fast Greenville SC</a>

The anchor text in this example is “Sell House Fast Greenville SC”; the URL http://www.easysellahouse.com displays on the web page as Sell House Fast Greenville SC, contributing to clean, easy-to-read text.

You must think about your entire website. I suggest that you do not have everybody link back to your homepage, but to point to specific pages within your site. When you only link to a page on your home page, it is referred to as “shallow Linking.” Too many of these types of links will raise a red flag to the search engines and eventually they will question the validity of your links.I know you are wondering … ok.. but “how am I going to get people to endorse me and my website”? The answer is very simple, YOU are going to do it for them! This is what makes this strategy course very effective. You are going to be in complete control of the information and how it flows. You will be the one who is behind the brand and trust of your business of how it appears to the online world.

The proper way to link is by a method referred to as “Deep Linking” or ” “Link Wheel”  . These deep links are pointing to your internal content pages. Let’s take a look at one example.

A review about your company may mention or refer to different aspects of your services on your website. When the reviewer is mentioning a specific service, they will link directly to that page. ( deep link) instead of just pointing to your home page (shallow link). Search Engines favor these types of links because they look more natural. So with this in mind, make sure your “recommendations” link to a variety of different pages on your website. This action is going to give your links a high effectiveness and it ensure maximum exposure to the number of website pages which will appear in the Search Engines.

The purpose of this course is not to make you a Search Engine Optimization Specialist. I only want you to have an overall understanding of how the Search Engines work. You will be following my system so that when you are building pages and linking them in a way that will reach thousands of web visitors. This is what makes this course so valuable. We will be guiding you to maximize your traffic by attracting both web visitors and Search Engines. You will find this is the most powerful combination in Online Marketing. You can applies these principals to any online business you may ever choose to do to beat your competition.

Fast Start For Getting Your Site “Recommended”

I do not want you to spend YOUR time doing this, when you can get it done for you at a very low cost. Check out the link below to use www.Fiverr.com to find a virtual worker who will do this for you for only FIVE dollars :

http://fiverr.com/gigs/search?query=linkwheel&x=17&y=16

NOTE : What about Returning Links?

DON’T DO IT…NO.. There is no need to do any reciprocal linking. You want notice all your “recommendation links” coming into your website and NONE are going out. Please don’t link back to any of these sites. If you do link back to any other website, it dilutes the power of this strategy. No “I will scratch your back if you scratch mine” allowed or needed!

This system is very effective because Google uses a system called Page Rank to analyze the amount of quality links pointing to your website.

Google states :  ” In general, webmaster can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high quality site that link to their pages “

If you read this sentence carefully, you will notice the phrase “high quality”. The trick is not to focus on the volume of links to your site, but to add HIGH QUALITY links referring back to your website. When you implement the strategies outlined in this course, you will be creating the back links that you for the most part CONTROL the quality of.

The other things to keep in mind is that when you implement my strategies, you will be looking at

Link Placement How is the link buried? Is it at the displayed at the bottom or is it PREDOMINATE in the first paragrapha?

Credibility Is the website or page credible that refers back to you?

Total Number of Links Is the link to your site on of the many or one of the few? You do not want to have your link competing against other links.

I have given each strategy a rank in regards to importance. If your time is limited, do the techniques with the higher point value first. Then you can come back at any time and do the others. This way, it looks more natural to the search engines. Remember it the quality of the links NOT Quantity.

TIP:  When signing up for these online resources do not just choose ANY USERNAME. The trick here instead is to use KEYWORDS that relate to your website (such as City,NameRealEstate)

Direct Mail

4 Steps to a Deal in 30 days – Direct Mail and Great Leads

Today’s post purpose is to take you through the process of getting a wholesale deal from start to finish. The dream to “flip” (quick-turn) houses full time has become a reality! To the chosen few who understand that to be successful, they must take four steps to make this business work. I will reveal you how easy real estate investing is by following this 4-step “recipe” . My strategy has been proven to work time and time again. Please follow the recipe exactly as outlined below: The trick to the business of real estate investing is two-fold:

 

Continue reading 4 Steps to a Deal in 30 days – Direct Mail and Great Leads →

Direct Mail

6 Easy-To-Do Action Steps to Get Increased Response from Your Direct Marketing Campaigns

I think it really goes without saying that direct mail marketing is a powerful marketing tool for finding sellers who are motivated. When you combine direct mail marketing with the internet, response rates increase significantly. It’s important to provide quality information in the content of your marketing material, rather than just a simple “I buy houses” approach. Especially if you’re targeting pre-foreclosure, tax liens or any other type of list that will likely have sellers getting barraged with “we buy houses” letters. Offer them exclusive time sensitive information on your website to start sorting the leads.

Try sending frequent mailings to your prospects that provide your website links to quality information that is beneficial to the seller, and provides information on how they can find help out of their situation.

Sending repeat mailings with this type if information will help you to.…

  1. Establish your credibility

  2. Develop a reputation as an industry expert

  3. Cultivate a relationship with your prospects

  4. Inspire loyalty

  5. And maintain regular contact

The big mistake I see a lot of investors making is thinking that simply sending a single letter to a list of prospects — and then forgetting about it — is going to attract sellers by the thousands. Even if your list is highly targeted, this is going to produce disappointing results.

You need to be prepared to send a minimum of three mailings to each list. You will get much better results sending multiple letters to a smaller list, than a single letter to a larger list. If budget is an issue, then sending three post cards to a list is better than sending one letter.

Here are 6 easy-to-do action steps that you can take to generate high response rates using multi-step direct mail marketing campaigns… Continue reading 6 Easy-To-Do Action Steps to Get Increased Response from Your Direct Marketing Campaigns →

Lead Generation, List Building

Turn your Business into a cash machine with other people’s money

Many people start out investing in real estate using their own money and credit. This works fine for the first few deals. But eventually, as you purchased 20 to 30 properties, your lenders  will cut me off from further deals and your personal funds may dry up. I had built up a great deal of real estate equity, but was locked out from doing other deals with my traditional lender and could barely pay for my own groceries.

You will have to find another way to fund real estate deals or your investing career was over.

I discovered private lenders who have funds to lend for real estate deals, but do not want the headaches and paperwork to actually manage tenants or properties. These individuals are generally middle class people, like you and me, who have some extra funds to lend. They can be retired business people, corporate executives, professionals such as doctors, lawyers, or business owners or even blue collar workers all looking for returns substantially above the 3% to 5% they get at the banks.

Let me first explain my definition of “Private Money”. Private money is funding that comes from private individuals, friends, family, IRA’s or any source other than institutional or conventional means. It is sometimes referred to as “Hard Money” or “Flash Cash.”

The question I had to figure out was, “How do I find enough of these folks to run an active real estate business buying 2 to 4 houses per month?” To address this issue, I developed a marketing plan that would allow these individuals to call me and raise their hand to indicate their interest in our lending program.

How Do I find Private Lenders?

Well, frankly, we advertise for them. It’s as simple as that! Finding private money is not nearly as difficult as people think. My simple marketing plan includes many of the following activities:

Network with everyone you know and develop a 60 second “Elevator Speech”: “Are you getting a safe 9 to 12% return on your idle cash or retirement funds? No! Well, we buy houses and pay cash for each house and we use private lenders to fund our deals. We pay 9% to 12% on notes secured by local real estate. If you are not getting that type of predicable return on your money, I’ll be glad to get you the details. We occasionally hold a free small luncheon for potential investors, or I could also sit down with you at your convenience and show you how it works. If you like what you hear, simply let me know how much you’re looking to invest and how long you can have your funds tied up. I’ll put you on my list and look for an investment opportunity that meets your needs. When I find one, I will call you. At that time you can pass or play. There’s no obligation.”

Newspaper Ads such as Private Money Needed, Earn 14% plus 5 points, Rental, 70% LTV $65,000 call xxx-xxx-xxxx or Mortgage Note for Sale: $190,000 1st mortgage at 9% with low LTV. Call xxx-xxx-xxxx

REIA Newsletter and CraigList Ad: PRIVATE LENDERS NEEDED – Earn 9% to 12% hassle free on your idle cash or retirement funds secured by local real estate. I’m a professional real estate investor with over 50 successful transactions completed since 1999. I am not a financial planner, but a full-time buyer and seller of single family homes. We use private funds to pay cash for our real estate purchases and can pay you 9% to 12% when you help us fund our purchases.

To learn more visit us at www.xxxxxxxxx.com or call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Invest by xxxx 31, 200x and earn a $1,000 bonus.

Flyers, Postcards, and Speeches/Presentations: We also use flyers and postcards with a similar message using the above examples. Also, one of the best ways to get private lenders is to speak or present to groups. Senior citizen groups are always looking for presenters to attend their meetings and these people quite often have excess cash in CD’s or IRA’s that make them a natural lender.

Having private capital resources is critical to the success of the serious creative real estate entrepreneur. Even if you desire to use your own money, it never hurts to have another source or two available. If your funds are tied up, and a great deal comes along, you can immediately jump on it.

If you follow some or all of the above marketing suggestions, you will have people with money seeking you out to lend you money for your next deal.

 

 

Lead Generation

Hot Tip for finding more leads

 

Here it is.. keep this one to yourself….

If you can find out who in your city is in charge of properties for wards of the city, you may be able to come up with some creative financing in a tight market. For instance, many older people with our beneficiaries become wards of the local government

When the older people are no londer able to take care of themselves, such as alzheimers, ect. then the local goverment often steps in. You can often times buy properties from the city, where an older person still lives, and then lease back the property to the city. Then take possession once the older person has passed on.

We should call this the PRE-PROBATE market!

 

 

 

 

Lead Generation, List Building

How to get Realtors to send you leads

I have spoken in front of many real estate investor groups over the years. As I talked to  investors I was often asked, “how do you get real estate agents to give you the really good deals?”   Another nuance on this same question is, “why would a real estate agent pass a truly great deal on to you? Wouldn’t they take it for themselves?”

To respond to this question, I must first let you how real estate agents and brokers think. They think in terms of commissions. They are not thinking with the attitude of profit by investing themselves.

Now, there are always exceptions to this rule, but the  majority of real estate agents and brokers that you will find are looking for houses to list or buyers that are looking to buy right now so they can earn a commission from selling a house. They are rarely interested in buying an investment property for themselves and there are more deals than they could take themselves.

So, once we know that, we can focus on helping real estate agents get what they want so that we can get what we want. How do we get them to think of us when they have really great deals? We need to think of them first. Here’s how.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been sitting with some motivated sellers where the offer I was making to them did not quite fit… maybe my price was too low, maybe my terms were too long, maybe I was not offering them enough cash, maybe they thought the house was worth more than what it could be sold for quickly. It really does not matter; here’s how I handle it the overwhelming majority of the time.

Once they express to me that there is something about my offer that will not work for them and after I try to overcome their objection, if they still are not ready to accept my offer I tell them that the next best thing is to have the best real estate agent I know sell their house for them.

And here’s the part where you will have your real estate agent sending you (and only you) all the best deals… I then tell the seller that I’d like to have the best real estate agent I know work up a free sales comps for them and let them know what he could sell their house for. Then, I pick up my cell phone and call my real estate agent. Here’s about what I say (and right in front of the seller)…

Mr. Agent, I am sitting here with Mr. and Mrs. Seller and unfortunately what I can do for them just won’t work for their situation, but I just told them that you are the best agent I know locally that could actually sell their house for them quickly and for the most money. If it is alright with you, would you be kind enough to research what you think you could sell the house for quickly? Would you like to schedule a time to meet with them to show them what you can do?

Then, I pass the phone to the seller so that they can schedule a time to meet.

Do you see the power in doing this? What an amazing referral for both the seller and real estate agent!

And what is great about this for me is that I only get about 1 offer in about 10 accepted, so I am doing this 9 times for every deal I do get under contract.

Would an agent run comps for you if you are referring this many people to him? Yes.

Would an agent send you Christmas gifts if you are referring this many people to him? Yes.

Would an agent send you the best deals he could find if you are referring people to him in this way? Absolutely.

Do you know why? Because if he isn’t you’ll stop and he lose a ton of business. That’s how to get real estate agents to send you all their best deals.

 

 

 

 

 

Hungry Buyers, Selling Fast

Finding Hungry Buyer Basics

The primary responsibility for finding buyers for wholesale properties you have under contract rests with YOU, not someone else. The vast majority of the time, the buyer of a particular investment property is going to be a LOCAL buyer.

Even though we do  market the property nationally, such as submitting it to our large and growing buyer’s list, putting up web sites, etc., it should all be considered secondary to the things you do locally to find a buyer.

Keep in mind that wholesaling is a numbers game. The better a deal is, the higher the likelihood of selling it. Also, the more marketing you do, the more likely it is to sell. However, bear in mind that you’re NOT going to sell every house you put under contract. You might sell 1 out of 3, maybe 1 out of 10, maybe even only 1 out of 20. A lot of it depends on your market conditions, how good the deals you get really are, your personal sales skills, and how much effort you put into it.

Nobody should come into real estate investing, especially wholesaling, with the misconception that this is a business that requires very little effort, and that you can get rich working 30 minutes per week. It simply doesn’t work that way. You really should treat this like a part-time job at the very least, and expect to put in 5 hours per week, and make offers on 100 potential properties per month if you really want to wholesale a house every month or two.

With that said, what do we expect of you in terms of finding buyers for the properties that you find and put under contract? Well, at a minimum, here are the things I think you, the wholesaler, should be doing for each and every property you have under contract:

  1. Put a large, ugly sign in the yard with your phone number or recorded info line (large Magic Marker on yellow coroplast signs work great!)
  2. Put up directional signs leading to the house (arrows pointing to the house from major arterial streets within 1 mile. Can buy these online or at hardware/home improvement stores).
  3. Plaster the house for sale on Craigslist.com in your city, every 48-72 hours.
  4. List the house for sale on Zillow.com. Search for the house, then follow their steps for saying it’s for sale.
  5. Visit your local real estate investor group and pitch the property to them.
  6. Let your local Dream Team members know about the property.
  7. If you have LOCAL web sites where it is popular for people to look for houses for sale, post the property there.
  8. Consider distributing flyer’s door to door in the neighborhood surrounding the house announcing that it is for sale. People know people that are like them, have similar tastes, and might want to live in a similar type of neighborhood as they do. Check local laws about flyer delivery.
  9. Consider putting the house in your local “throw away” paper. Something similar to Thrifty Nickel or Penny Saver. It costs me $9 per week to put a small classified ad in the local American Classifieds around here. Say something to the effect of “highly motivated seller”, “must sell”, “handyman special”, “$20k instant equity” – whatever the situation on the property warrants. These type of headlines get fair response for this type of media.

I’m sure that I’ll think of additional things that everybody should do on this “minimum” list, but this is off the top of my head for right now. Also, keep in mind that everybody that contacts you off your efforts to sell THIS house should go on your own buyer’s list, because even if this house doesn’t fit their needs, a future property might. And, as many marketing gurus have said, the power truly is in the list.