{"id":13796,"date":"2010-06-12T06:29:48","date_gmt":"2010-06-12T12:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=13796"},"modified":"2024-02-14T15:26:38","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T22:26:38","slug":"2010-06-12-get-private-money-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2010-06-12-get-private-money-internet","title":{"rendered":"Get Private Money on the Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my real estate investing<\/a> business, raising capital is the most important function, right next to marketing. In fact, I think if you had to break down the two most important functions of an entrepreneur, they would be:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Marketing
\n2.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Raising capital<\/p>\n

For some businesses, each of these may rotate #1, #2 or perhaps both are combined into #1. If you ignore either one of these functions in your business, you\u2019ll be awash in red ink.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, when it comes to getting private money for your real estate investing business, these two functions are intertwined.<\/p>\n

The other day I wrote about how to get private money using the internet. Since then, I\u2019ve had requests to go into more detail on this and, not wanting to disappoint the adoring masses, I will oblige.<\/p>\n

First, I\u2019ve got to lead with a big left hook: most real estate investors just get this completely wrong \u2013 they don\u2019t use the internet correctly to attract private investors.<\/p>\n

Secondly, there\u2019s a lot of \u201clemming\u201d mentality with internet marketing (\u201cif this persons using this or this company is selling this, then it must work\u2026\u201d). Listen to your mom and don\u2019t jump off a cliff just because your friend Johnny is jumping off. Instead, focus on and learn what works and what doesn\u2019t work. The way to accomplish this in marketing is by testing.<\/p>\n

Only through testing and trial and error are you able to know what works and what doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Right now I\u2019ll share some tested online marketing concepts for successful private money lead generation.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Target your website<\/strong>. Your website must be a beacon for the visitor you want to attract. You should have a unique benefit for that particular visitor. Your goal of getting that visitor is to have them take a specific action (call you, get free information, etc.). Your website must signal out and wave at prospective investors. What are they looking for? What problems do they have that you can solve?<\/li>\n
  2. Speak to your prospective investors.<\/strong> Don\u2019t use terms like \u201cprivate lenders\u201d because most people that aren\u2019t real estate investors don\u2019t know what that term means. You should broadcast a specific and unique benefit to your targeted visitor. For private investors, you want to quickly demonstrate what is unique about your opportunity and why they should request more information from you. Rate of return and \u201csecurity\u201d rank lower on the benefit scale than emotional benefits, like peace of mind, stability and tangibility.<\/li>\n
  3. Focus on how you will get traffic<\/strong>. If you don\u2019t have visitors – qualified visitors \u2013 to your website, you\u2019re just wasting your time. You don\u2019t just want \u201cclicks\u201d \u2013 you want \u201cactions.\u201d Cost per click in an inferior metric to cost per conversion. What does it cost for you to get a visitor to take the action you want them to take, tied to the end result you want? There\u2019s a lot of talk about SEO and affiliates, but I have found that Pay-per-Click (such as Google Adwords) works best for getting traffic the fastest and testing your site faster so you can optimize it.<\/li>\n
  4. Your website should serve the specific purpose<\/strong> of generating leads for a sequential, multi-step marketing program where you convert them from curious visitor to qualified prospect to investor. You\u2019re not likely to have someone wire you $100k for a private money deal the first time they visit your site, so don’t shortchange the process.<\/li>\n
  5. Don\u2019t blare at the top of your lungs<\/strong> on every page why you are the greatest company in the world. Focus on the benefits that you provide to investors \u2013 make it all about them<\/li>\n
  6. Don\u2019t have anything else on\u00a0 your site<\/strong> except features and benefits relevant to private lenders \u2013 don\u2019t have information for motivated home owners to sell you their property, widgets for wholesale buyers, etc. This just muddies up and ruins the targeted message of your site<\/li>\n
  7. Don\u2019t run advertising on your site<\/strong> \u2013 this is almost never done tastefully and the small revenue you will gain will be negated by the prospective investors you will lose.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Once you implement the above steps, you will still have to test. You\u2019ll have to test your copy. Test your offer. Test the colors. If you take this stuff seriously, you\u2019ll get a ton of qualified leads. I\u2019ve found that \u201coff the shelf\u201d, template websites for private money are mostly junk and you\u2019ll spend a lot of money and hosting fees for minimal results.<\/p>\n

    One of my real estate mentors told me a long time ago: \u201cif you\u2019re gonna do something, do it right and do it the whole way through.\u201d This advice has served me well.<\/p>\n

    -Happy Investing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In my real estate investing business, raising capital is the most important function, right next to marketing. In fact, I think if you had to break down the two most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7403],"tags":[1907,3157,3160],"class_list":["post-13796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-private-money","tag-private-lending","tag-private-money-online","tag-reala-estate-investing"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}