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Real Estate Marketing

Real Estate Marketing

How to learn from Junk mail

by Winston Westbrook | September 28, 2009

I go to my post office box once a week. I insert my key and kaplow out comes a pile of junk mail. Sometimes I think I am just paying for my post office box just so companies can send me junk, lol. Just a few years ago I would’ve been ticked off to be getting so much junk mail but now I embrace junk mail. I love junk mail.

I get junk mail from banks, auto dealers, insurance companies, fast food chains, super markets, travel, get rich quick schemes and the list goes on and on.

Fortune 500 companies spend millions hiring the top advertising agencies of the world to create and come up with the best advertising. These advertising agencies take into account every little detail and every word that’s said.

I know we don’t  have millions of dollars to spend on the best advertising money can buy so why don’t we learn from these advertisers and put together the best of best for FREE.  Let’s learn from our competition and such.

The next time you pull out a pile of junk mail and instead of just tossing it into the trash stop and look it over for a second.  Separate the mail that catches your attention from the mail that is flat out junk mail and uninteresting. Take the mail that seems interesting and look for the following:

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Real Estate Marketing

How to Increase Traffic to Your Real Estate Website with Backlinks

by Peter Kolat | September 27, 2009

You’ve probably heard about how having lots of backlinks can give you a huge advantage over your competition on the internet, right?  You’ve probably heard that commenting on blogs, forums and social media sites can give you some really good “Google link juice.”

But do you know how to utilize this strategy effectively?  If not, then you are in for a treat.

In today’s post, I am going to talk about SEO.  Now, I realize that search engine optimization is not for everyone and can be a long, enduring, tedious and hard work.  Yes, I said work.  SEO constantly changes, especially because of our friends over at Google.  They like to keep us on our toes.  Every once in a while, they’ll change their algorithm and if you are not playing the SEO game the right way and doing some blackhat stuff, your site will most likely drop in the rankings.

But that’s a whole other discussion.  Today I want to tell you about a strategy that will help you rank high in Google.  Now, since you are already using the internet, and going to different blogs, forums and social media sites, you should utilize this strategy for your business. Newbies to blogging can learn from these 77 mistakes new bloggers make.

In this post, I am going to focus on blog commenting.  Let’s get right into it.  First, you need to follow couple of common sense rules.

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Real Estate Marketing

4 Steps to Real Estate Newsletters that Work

by Molly Castelazo | September 25, 2009

Is direct mail a part of your marketing strategy?

It should be. More specifically, hard copy, good ‘ol fashioned snail mail newsletters should be part of your marketing strategy. Here’s why:

  • Other real estate agents and investors have stopped sending them. So you have a great opportunity to stand out from the crowd.
  • When people are making a decision to buy or sell a home – one of the biggest financial decisions of most people’s lives – they want to be informed. And they want to work with an expert. A newsletter is a great way to position yourself as that expert.

How to craft newsletters that work

If I’ve convinced you that you should be mailing newsletters, here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Get a good list. It’s an old adage in direct marketing that 40% of a mailer’s success (or failure) is due to the quality of the mailing list.

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Real Estate Marketing

One Marketing Question That Can Give You Bigger Pockets Every Time!

by J. Lamar Ferren | September 19, 2009

BiggerPockets QuestionWhen I first got started in real estate, out of all things that could be important, there was one thing that stood out the most . . . Having a website!

Now, I’m not saying you have to have a website in order to be successful in real estate, however I’m sure you see how powerful a website can be, if used correctly. Just look at this website!

Anyway, in spite of all the buttons, features, images and whatever else that makes a website look pretty, there is one portion of a website that you should be most concerned with. If you don’t have it, then you need to get one fast!

I only care about one portion of my website (on the backend) and that is my Lead Questionnaire Form. Basically this form asks questions that allow me to qualify/disqualify leads based on the type of investing strategy I use, as well as their motivation and their ability to do a deal.

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Real Estate

Real Estate Marketing Campaigns: Aim Before You Shoot

by Molly Castelazo | September 19, 2009

Real Estate Marketing - Aim Before You ShootI received the Google Analytics newsletter the other day in the mail and it got me thinking about long tail keywords.  But Peter Kolat has already written some great posts about that subject, so I shifted my thinking more generally to targeting your prospects.  Because that’s what using long tail keywords is really about, after all – honing in on the prospects that are searching specifically for what you offer.

What’s in it for me?

Let’s do a thought experiment: Imagine you’re looking for someone to clean up and fix the houses you buy before you flip them.  You happen, just as you’re thinking about it, to get three postcards in the mail.

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Housing

How to use Postlets to Improve Your Craigslist Posts

by Justin McClelland | September 17, 2009

There are quite a few features that Postlets offers, some fee-based and some free.  In this post I’m going to focus on the free features and show you how you can take your CraigsLists posts from this:

To This:

Postlets Tutorial for Craigslist

In this tutorial postlets.com does most of the work for you.  However, in relation to my previous post, I’ll also show you how you can create the illusion of an embeded YouTube property video.  The procedure is as follows:

Step 1:

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Real Estate Marketing

How To Find End Buyers For Your Real Estate Deals On The Internet In REAL TIME!

by Peter Kolat | September 12, 2009

find-buyers-on-internetThis past week, one of my new clients asked me the following:  “Peter, my entire business is focused on flipping houses, mostly to real estate investors.  To tell you the truth, I don’t see how the internet is going to help my business?”

Here’s my answer to him and to anyone else:

The internet is a goldmine for such a business.  Consider this . . . If you are a real estate wholesaler or flipper, then your main sources of end buyers are other investors including rehabbers.

Where could you find other investors and rehabers on the internet?

There are many sources for that, but today I would like to talk to you about one source, social media.  In fact, BiggerPockets is one website where you can find thousands of other real estate investors who are looking for what you have to offer.  Few other websites including Facebook and Twitter offer the same opportunities.

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Real Estate Marketing

Real Estate Marketing Strategy: It’s All About the ROI

by Molly Castelazo | September 11, 2009

How do you, as a real estate investor or Realtor, determine the “just right” amount of money to spend on marketing? Two ways: 1) Your marketing activities need to fit within your budget – you shouldn’t spend money you don’t really have; and 2) to optimize your spending on marketing, you should think in terms of the return your investment generates (your ROI).

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Real Estate Marketing

How to Embed YouTube Videos in CraigsList

by Justin McClelland | September 10, 2009

I’ve come across what was once a road-block and have created a workaround. With creative thinking there is always, and I mean always, more than one way to skin a cat.

The issue:
CraigsList will not allow a user to embed a YouTube video. More specifically, CraigsList has a short list of acceptable HTML elements and the <embed> HTML element is not one of them. This means that you can’t “embed” any video in your CraigsList ad, thus a page visitor can’t watch video residing on your page.

Why this should matter to you:
If you are an investor and/or a Realtor, you can find great use for YouTube videos for property marketing.

Google reigns supreme as the most popular search engine, they have the greatest market-share of all search engines. In November of 2008, YouTube (a Google company) surpassed Yahoo in search engine market share to take the #2 spot and has extended its lead margin as of July 2009 (comScore). CraigsList is #7 worldwide in terms of english-language page views.

By implementing two heavy hitting websites such as YouTube and CraigsList together, you will greatly increase the marketing exposure of your business.

The Solution:
While you could just place a text hyperlink to your YouTube video on your CraigsList ad, this isn’t very effective. Web users respond more to imagery than to text. If you simply use a text hyperlink, chances are the end-user will skim over the link and never view the video.

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Real Estate Marketing

Strategies for Realtor Success in Today’s Marketplace

by Glenn Plantone | September 10, 2009

This past week, my Re/Max broker gave me an award congratulating me for having the 9th most sales in the region. In order to achieve this, I had to sell over a million dollars in real estate in each of the last two months. And I can tell you… you have to sell a lot of condos at $30,000 to sell over a million dollars in real estate. This got me thinking a little bit about what am I doing right. I asked myself, “What am I doing that has afforded me the ability to sell so much real estate in what some call the worst housing market in our nation’s history? What do I perhaps do differently than the average Realtor, that enables me to do a lot more business?

Thinking Like An Investor

The first thing I do, is that I think like an investor, not like a Realtor. I understand what the investor wants and I find it for him. Savvy investors in today’s market want good, new houses or condos at the lowest price possible, with the highest cash flow, and the greatest appreciation potential. More than ever, investors know what they want and they are able to make a good, fast decision about buying it provided you get them the necessary information in an expeditious manor. In today’s market you have to be ready to pull the trigger immediately if you see a good investment property. The key is to train both your investor clients and your owner occupants to be as aggressive as you need them to be in order to get the deal under contract and closed.

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Real Estate Marketing

Real Estate Marketing Strategy 102: Think Before You Act

by Molly Castelazo | September 5, 2009

Last week I blogged about Real Estate Marketing 101 – the first three steps that should be part of any good marketing plan. As you know, this plan is your “bible,” the document that guides you, keeping your decisions on track with your larger strategic goals. It’s the document that will make it easy to project a consistent brand in every media. It will make integrating your strategy online and offline a smooth, effective process.
Real Estate Marketing Warrior
The fourth step in creating your marketing plan is to choose your marketing media and develop your messages. “How?” you ask. Read on. . .

Step 4: Choose your marketing media and develop your messages

Now it’s time to put the rubber to the road, your nose to the grindstone, your money where your mouth is. You’re going to create your marketing campaign, based on your answers to the questions in steps 1-3. If your budget allows, think about an integrated campaign that incorporate a number of different media.

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Real Estate Marketing

Using Voice Broadcasting through CallFire to Close Real Estate Deals

by Justin McClelland | September 3, 2009

A tag cloud with terms related to Web 2.As one that invests in Real Estate, time maximization and lead-generation are imperative. It’s ideal to utilize automation tools to outsource tasks that allow your business run efficiently and to maintain a constant influx of leads.

A way to accomplish both is by utilizing a call center. And I don’t mean usage of a traditional call center which may come to mind. Call centers with expensive set-up fees, high per minute rates, or agents who answer your business’ calls among others are unnecessary and a thing of the past.

Move into Web 2.0 by leveraging cloud computing for your call center, or a cloud-call-center. With a cloud-call-center service such as that offered by CallFire, you can optimize their Infrastructure-As-Service model to obtain great marketing results.

callfire

I’ll pose an example case-study scenario, just to give an idea of how such a service could be utilized:

Case Study for the Use of Cloud Call Center Applications

Justin is a real estate wholesaler and had a house under contract that he absolutely had to assign as quickly as he could. He gave himself a 60 day time-window in the contract to find a buyer and 20 days had elapsed. Justin turned to his primary contract-assignment options; he called the buyers on his existing buyers’ list, he placed 50 bandit signs around town, he put an ad in the paper, he blasted information about the property on the internet.

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Real Estate Marketing

Following Up On Leads: the Most Important 15 Minutes You’ll Ever Spend

by Glenn Plantone | September 3, 2009

Today’s post is the fifth in my series, “The Investors’ Realtor.” In previous posts, we have discussed thinking like an investor in order to find and gain investor clients, as well as looking for current hot spots (not necessarily in your own backyard) and going to where the investor actually wants to buy. In the third edition I explained how to start and run a local real estate club in order to gain exposure for yourself, market your services, find prospects, and network with others in your local market place. My last post detailed how to find and generate quality, qualified leads for yourself using principles that apply to all business professionals, not just Realtors.

Building off the tips shared in last week’s edition for creating leads, I would like to discuss following up on the leads that you generate. Great marketing and great lead generation are useless if you do not follow up on your leads promptly and effectively.

Following up with your Real Estate Leads

The first step I perform is to log all of my leads into an Excel spreadsheet. If set up correctly, this spreadsheet can then later be exported to an email blasting service like Constant Contact or sent using a program like Microsoft Outlook (which is what I use) to send bulk emails to these potential clients. While Outlook allows you to blast up to 50 emails at one time, newsletter sites where you pay a monthly fee for their services allow much larger email blasts from your qualified list.

The Spreadsheet
In my “new leads” spreadsheet I create the following fields: Name, Phone, Email, Source of Lead, Date, Notes, and three columns to record each of the three times that I try to make contact with a new lead.

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Real Estate Marketing

How to Generate Quality Real Estate Leads

by Glenn Plantone | August 30, 2009

In this, the fourth installment of my “Investors’ Realtor” series I would like to dive into how to market yourself and create quality leads. In my mind, quality leads are real, qualified prospects that are ready, willing, and able to buy real estate from you.

My BiggerPockets blog post from last week detailed how I use a local real estate club to generate leads. I realize, however, that starting a real estate club isn’t for everyone; this kind of marketing can be costly and very time consuming.

Press Releases for Lead Generation

The second tool that I use for lead generation requires less initial outlay of time and money. About two years ago, one of my local friends, Robin Jay (author of “The Art of the Business Lunch” and an accomplished public speaker) told me about one of many internet press release websites that allow you to write articles and press releases about any topic you like, and post them electronically on the site. They then distribute these articles to various internet ezines, blogs, websites and other publications.

I have used these services extremely effectively over the past couple of years to promote myself as the “Foreclosure Expert” in the Las Vegas real estate market. As I noted in my previous blog entries, in order to succeed in real estate it is important to pick a niche in which to focus your energies and efforts. Once you decide on your niche, you need to become an expert in that field through reading and doing. Once you are an expert, it is not that hard to sit down, write an outline on a subject that you know a lot about, and create an article that will be valuable for someone who is looking for information on that subject.

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Real Estate Marketing

Can Split Testing Improve Your Real Estate Ad Response Rates?

by J. Lamar Ferren | August 29, 2009

I remember how frustrated I used to get whenever I would go to Craigslist.com or Backpage.com and post multiple ads for buyers, investors, sellers, or even my deals; I’d get responses here and there. I’d just keep re-posting the ads that wouldn’t get any responses, hoping they would eventually get me a lead.

Foolishly, I never saved all the ads that worked and I kept concentrating on the ads that had low responses. I kept re-posting to various sites because I thought they were awesome ads and I didn’t understand why nobody would respond…

BTW – If you have also been getting little to no response with your advertising, then keep reading!

I then came across and interesting concept… Split Testing.
 

Split Testing Can Improve Your Marketing!

split testingI can’t tell you how crucial Split Testing is to your business. Split Testing will usually tell you if you have a good ad or not.

What is Split Testing? Split testing is an extremely powerful strategy for increasing the effectiveness of your marketing. You can use it for almost anything. It is a way of testing two or more marketing campaigns and identifying which one is more effective.

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