Despite what you learned in kindergarten, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 doesn’t always equal 4. If you leverage the power of integrated marketing, it can equal 7 – or more. It’s not funny math, I promise; it’s reflective of the greater power your marketing efforts will have as an integrated group rather than [...]
I was driving around Baltimore City earlier this week. At a stoplight I got stuck behind an SUV with a sticker on its back window that read “lose 10 pounds in 10 minutes, call XXX”.
I immediately laughed and thought to myself, “yeah right.”
Why did I think this? Because it wasn’t honest and it wasn’t believable. [...]
I’m a marketing director at a real estate firm. If I had to sum up what I do every day in three words it would be, “I generate leads.” It’s both much easier and much harder than you would think. Confused? Let me take you inside and show you why everyone in the real estate [...]
In the last weeks, I wrote part 2 of my short series on 7 different internet marketing strategies for driving a lot of traffic to a real estate website without relying on search engines. Dozens of people re-tweeted that post and several commented on it. I wanted to thank you for your support here — [...]
Ok, there’s something I’ve been thinking about for a very long time that could possibly bring in some good business.
What I’m going to cover here is an offline marketing strategy that has not been tested before.
It’s just something I’ve been thinking about and I want to know how you feel about it.
Before I let you [...]
I just got back from a week in China — for business mostly, plus some tourist time at the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, and wandering the hutongs (traditional neighborhood alleyways) of Beijing. I saw firsthand what I had earlier only read about — the importance of relationships in China. It got [...]
I think we’ve all heard about Shadow Inventories, the Coming Foreclosure Wave, and the poor health of the real estate market in general lately. If you haven’t, I’d wonder about your status as a member of the human race. For the rest of us as investors, agents, and marketers.. we’re all trying to figure out [...]
Now, before I get started, please keep in mind that I am not a lawyer, nor should you consider what you are about to read as legal advice. I am just trying to pass something along that I think you should all be aware of.
In case you haven’t heard, on October 5, the Federal Trade Commission issued an update to its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising–the first update since 1980!
This update is mainly concerned with two things; first, stopping fake blog sites where the blogger is a totally made-up person with a totally made-up story designed to sell something (you know, those fake weight loss blogs, teeth whitening blogs, and money-making blogs we’ve all seen time and again), and second, how advertisements can use testimonials and endorsements.
I received an email earlier today from someone who wanted to share a “clever marketing video” with me. I get many emails like this every week, and most of the links that are shared are simply a waste of my time. Expecting the worst, I followed the link and was in for a pleasant surprise — I was glued to the video from the start.
The video below is a perfect example of a viral video that is not only clever, but that also meets its purpose – to promote a product or service, the Harris Real Estate Group out of Vancouver.
So, without any more delay, I would like to present to you a man named Gary Shlitz, who will instruct you how to be a good real estate agent . . .
Meet Gary Shlitz
. . . by NOT being like Gary Shlitz!
Kudos to the guys behind this video – I’m a huge fan now!
In today’s article, part 2 of this short series, I am going to give you the next 4 ways to drive traffic to your real estate website. Let’s get started then, shall we?
Strategy #4 – Joint Ventures
This strategy is one of the most overlooked and ignored strategies out there. Why? Because a lot of real estate investors view it as “my competition will steal my leads.” Let me explain how this strategy works:
Let’s say that you invest in Chicago surrounding areas. You have a real estate website where sellers can contact you to use your services. However, you have found that there is a significant amount of people who contact you that want to sell their homes in other areas in Illinois or even other states. Since you only invest in Chicago surrounding areas, you have to turn these people away.
What if you contacted other real estate investors who have websites and invest in those other areas? What if you created a joint venture with them? What if you told them that you can send them some leads for their areas and for every lead you send them or for every house they buy, you get something in return. Now, if you get paid for this, make sure you obey any and all laws.
The marketing method I’m about to share with you always seems to elicit a lot of emotional responses. A lot of people hate it and bad mouth it, but guess what? I don’t care. Why? Because it makes money and it gets results. You should track all of your marketing methods and if they’re working keep doing them and if they don’t, then obviously stop.
I’m pretty much willing to bet that anybody who doesn’t like this method has never used it (the most likely reason) or has never gotten a deal from it because they don’t know what they’re doing (I’ll show you the perfect plan.) So what method am I talking about?
Here’s a blurb from an email I received last week, from one of my partners…
“Over the past week I have been putting out my new signs, I attached a pic of it, check it out. So far the signs have been pulling an excellent amount of calls. I’m getting an overwhelming response. For example, I put out 50 signs last night in high traffic areas and just today I got 11 calls.”
You’re sitting down to write a property listing. You know my first rule of marketing: Make it personal. But how do you do that – and stay within Fair Housing guidelines?
The Fair Housing Act, explained
The purpose of the Fair Housing Act is to ensure that a person can buy or rent a house or apartment wherever they want regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, religious preference, disability, family status or national origin. In some areas, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is also prohibited.
Unfortunately the Fair Housing Act doesn’t actually list the words you are and are not allowed to use in your marketing communications. The language you can and cannot use while remaining faithful to the spirit of the Act is up for interpretation.
If you’re just getting started in real estate investing or wholesaling, and are looking for a few cheap and effective ways to locate motivated sellers and land a deal, look no further! Following are three different marketing ideas that you can start implementing immediately that won’t break the bank.
Free Online Classifieds
Posting ads on free online classified sites such as Craigslist, Kijiji, and Backpage, is a great way to get the word out that you are looking for deals. You will want to post your ads in the “Real Estate Services” section of these sites, and say something along the lines of..
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to get your listings on Google can be a very daunting task for some in real estate. In fact, with Google “slapping” search engine listings whenever they feel like they need to, it can be very hard to maintain first page listings.
Therefore, I wanted give you some quick tips and strategies to drive traffic to your real estate website without relying on Google. The following strategies are in no particular order. What I would recommend is for you to see which 2-3 strategies suit you best and then run with them.
In this blog post, I want to tell you about 3 powerful websites that can post your property listing ads all over the net on autopilot for FREE.
I don’t know about you, but I hate manually posting ads because it takes up too much of my time. I’m always look for ways to make my business marketing easier so I can concentrate on putting more deals together. Although my assistant has taken a lot of this weight off of my shoulders (which is something you may want to consider getting, if you haven’t), I still feel that online ad syndication sites are top notch.
In my last post, I shared with you the first 3 ways to drive traffic to your real estate website without search engines. If you missed that post, you can see it at 
You’re sitting down to write a property listing. You know my first rule of marketing: Make it personal. But how do you do that – and stay within Fair Housing guidelines?
Joshua Dorkin
Charles Feldman
Ted Karsch.
