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Are You Making This Common Mistake When Trying To Attract Motivated Sellers

By: Sean Flanagan
Submitted: 05:35AM on Tuesday 28 October 2008

Regardless of what kind of business you own, if your marketing is poor… you probably are, too. This is especially true if you haven’t build up a large list of people who send you referrals. Since the majority of investors, especially newer ones, don’t operate entirely on referrals, let’s discuss marketing.

For all intents and purposes, there are 2 types of advertising. There’s advertising which establish a brand name and theirs direct response advertising. Advertising which establishes a brand name is usually done by large companies with a bunch of money to “waste”. A good example would be a full page ad in a magazine by Cadillac that just has a real pretty picture of a car and then says “in the pursuit of luxury”. Advertising which has a strong “Call To Action” (referred to as CTA) is referred to as direct response. A good example of direct response would be a late night infomercial that is selling a product at a special price with the speaker on the commercials telling the viewer to “pick up the phone and call right now while supplies last” and a countdown timer in the corner of the screen which counts down the minutes left until the special offer expires.

So which form of advertising is better for the real estate investor?

Without fail, direct response gets significantly better results when trying to attract motivated sellers for several reasons, the biggest of which is that it prompts immediate action from the seller. For example, a bandit sign which reads “We Buy Houses Cash 800-555-1212” is probably not going to perform quite as well as one that says “We Buy Houses Cash- Call Us Right Now For A Guaranteed Cash Offer 800-555-1212”. Savvy investors compare results of their marketing campaigns and probably already have found this to be true. However, far too many investors are content with advertising that simply says We Buy Houses Cash. Not only are they forgetting the important Call To Action, but they’re also using possibly the most “worn out” marketing phrase in the history of time. I have written entire articles on why the term We Buy Houses Cash does more harm than good for real estate investors worldwide, but the main point is simply that it’s very generic. It’s basically “We Buy Houses Cash – INSERT YOUR NUMBER HERE”, resulting in absolutely no reason for a motivated seller to do business with you as opposed to the other several hundred investors in your area who are saying the exact same thing in their advertising.

My personal marketing campaign, used by myself and a growing number of savvy investors nationwide; incorporates a catchy, memorable and unique slogan combined with a strong Call To Action to drive motivated sellers directly to me instead of the “We Buy Houses Cash” competitors in my area. The slogan is Lucky Buys Yucky Houses® and the Call To Action is “pick up the phone and give us a call right now at 1-800-22-LUCKY. We have operators standing by 24 hours a day to take your call”. Of course, that statement is used on TV commercials, infomercials, billboards, postcards etc. but it can be scaled down to fit on a bandit sign quite easily as referenced in the above example.

In closing, I would encourage those who are serious about their real estate careers to either learn as much as possible about direct response advertising and immediately begin to apply what you learn into your marketing campaign, or find a “done for you” type of real estate investor marketing company which uses a pre-produced marketing campaign to generate real estate investor leads. Your investment of time and/or money will be paid back tenfold by simply taking these simple steps.

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