LeadPropeller or Investor Carrot?
Sumter, SC · Member since 2013 · 105 posts · 10 votes
I am looking to invest in one of these 2 website companies to start my online marketing but I don't know which is better. What do you prefer between the 2?
Hey Matt! Thanks for taking a look at InvestorCarrot!
The coolest thing about this thread is the support the community has thrown our way :-) Thanks guys! Means a lot.
Anyhow, LP is a solid product, and I don't know Danny but it looks like he's out to do the right thing and he'll keep innovating on his product, so it keeps us on our toes :-)
Our prices aren't the lowest and never will be, but the long-term ROI that people are getting are insanely high.
But the main reasons people join InvestorCarrot and the reason people stick w/ us...
Anyhow, we'd love to connect w/ ya and see if it's a fit.
We have some really cool innovations coming out over the next several months that you'll love.
Hit me up if you have any questions.
As a last tidbit, what we found when we started InvestorCarrot was that our best customers are the ones who value and understand the long-term ROI really well. They tend to get the best results and implement what we teach. Our pricing when we launched was about half what it is now... but we found that high achieving investors cared more about real results and personalized help than they did about that extra few bucks a month. So we beefed up our product and support even more, added that weekly mastermind call, added our Content Marketing System... and have focused on investing more money back into our customers success. Our prices are higher... but long-term ROI for customers who leverage the tools and resources we have is much higher than the alternatives.
Good luck on your decision and whatever way you go you'll be in good hands!
- Trevor
I like the work Danny Johnson has done and used his "free template" once upon a time. I haven't used Lead Propeller but am familiar with the product. I chose and used Investor Carrots Pro service for the better part of a year and highly recommended it. The content is good, the interface is simple and effective, and their customer support is ridiculously good! I actually just had to contact them again this weekend and was impressed again!
Let us know what you choose!
Thx...I am leaning toward IC but someone I know uses Lead Propeller and mentioned that to me.
@Matt Ellis thanks for posting this question. I'm interested in reading the replies
@Matt Ellis Here is a podcast with Trevor Mauch you might find it helpful
http://redpillinvestor.podbean.com//e/episode-390-content-marketing-interview-with-trevor-mauch/
So far my experience with LeadPropeller has been great. I've been very pleased with the ease of setup and support.
As far as lead generation, We've just recently launched and it's too early to provide any trackable data.
@Scott Costello What site are you using through investor carrot? I'm kicking around the idea of using them.
Thanks,
Frank
I have many REI clients (SEO), so I'm a bit familiar with both solutions. You cannot go wrong with either, however, I think Investor Carrot is hard to beat. It's built on a very flexible, but simple platform (kind of a WP platform but tweaked specifically for REI's) and is quite powerful "out of the box".
Customer service is outstanding (as told to me by clients), video training is outstanding and while they make things simple, it is still powerful and seems to convert leads into prospects very well.
An SEO expert could get both to do great things, but in my opinion IC also makes it very easy for a beginner to get up and running with a very effective online presence.
I am so glad I came across this post and I just started doing my own website and it is ALOT more work that one would think to put into a website for it to not only make sense but be effective and rank on Google. I am definitely going to start my IC this month and hopefully can start pulling more leads soon. UGH! Totally exhausted, really! Lesson learned on not reinventing the wheel. Its hard to do that when you consider yourself good at a few things. Lol.
Hey Matt! Thanks for taking a look at InvestorCarrot!
The coolest thing about this thread is the support the community has thrown our way :-) Thanks guys! Means a lot.
Anyhow, LP is a solid product, and I don't know Danny but it looks like he's out to do the right thing and he'll keep innovating on his product, so it keeps us on our toes :-)
Our prices aren't the lowest and never will be, but the long-term ROI that people are getting are insanely high.
But the main reasons people join InvestorCarrot and the reason people stick w/ us...
Anyhow, we'd love to connect w/ ya and see if it's a fit.
We have some really cool innovations coming out over the next several months that you'll love.
Hit me up if you have any questions.
As a last tidbit, what we found when we started InvestorCarrot was that our best customers are the ones who value and understand the long-term ROI really well. They tend to get the best results and implement what we teach. Our pricing when we launched was about half what it is now... but we found that high achieving investors cared more about real results and personalized help than they did about that extra few bucks a month. So we beefed up our product and support even more, added that weekly mastermind call, added our Content Marketing System... and have focused on investing more money back into our customers success. Our prices are higher... but long-term ROI for customers who leverage the tools and resources we have is much higher than the alternatives.
Good luck on your decision and whatever way you go you'll be in good hands!
- Trevor
Hey, Matt.
Just wanted to chime in and let you know more about LeadPropeller and our different philosophy.
At LeadPropeller, we believe your real estate investor site doesn't have to fit an exact mould to be effective. Yes, it can look good and do very well.
The reason I built LeadPropeller is because I've personally used a house buying website in my business for about a decade. I've been through the early frustrations, the ups and downs and have had to keep up with what worked and what didn't.
We're talking LOTS of trial and error. :)
What I learned a long time ago on forums like this and others when people would ask about what their post card or letter should say for their direct mail was that, "It's more important to let them know what you do and get the message in front of people in need of your service than what the exact message you use is."
I love that answer because it cuts through all of the salesman crap. :)
Conversion rates can be improved by doing certain things on websites and we've included many of them on our sites, but the fact is the most important thing is to get people that need your service to your site and make darn sure that they can figure out what they need to do when they get there. It's really as simple as that.
One of the biggest things I've learned over all of these years (and yes, I still flip houses), is that true motivated sellers could care less about what color a button is on your website...meaning that little tweaks might improve conversion rates for the average visitor to a website, but we are focused on motivated sellers and not tire kickers that will waste your time.
If you have a website that shows your personality and the fact that there is a real person behind it that will be working personally with the seller (who is usually in a rough time in their life), you will do very well.
Now, we haven't been around nearly as long as the other guys, but we are constantly improving and providing new training to our customers.
Our customers are climbing the rankings very quickly and we are excited to see that what we are doing is working. Obviously, it takes time to rank websites and a lot of it depends on the market and the competition within the market. But, we are here to help you and provide VERY fast support by people that are in the office with me in the same room.
Oncarrot seems to be a great product and I'm sure you can't go wrong with going with either of us. We do have different philosophies but at the end of the day we are both out there to help you get leads for your real estate investing business.
I'm sure we will all agree that real estate investor websites are an awesome way to generate motivated seller leads, but they do take dedication...just like any other form of marketing for leads.
Regardless of who you choose to go with, please be sure to not give up too early on it. The commitment will pay off very well over time.
I can only speak for OnCarrot as I am a user of this technology. The customer support is on the ball and helpful. No long delays for help. If you took a look in the past - take a look again as they keep adding more and more benefits and training that goes well beyond how to make their websites work well and rank.
This newbie appreciates everyone's input and information! I shall visit both to see their products.
Margaret B
@Matt Ellis Did you ever sign up for either of these sites? If so, any more info you can share on this thread? I have seen a couple of the Investor Carrot sites and they seem very busy. Almost too much information going on. I like very simple, clean sites that don't confuse people but also still answer all the questions at a quick glance. Probably just a personal taste and I really don't know how motivated sellers view these sites but they seem a little gimmicky.
Great thread. Nice to see Trevor and Danny's comments. Both are solid options.
Hey @zach! Man I'm a bit late on the reply here but I wanted to shoot a quick note over on your question.
So, one thing I learned years and years ago was that what we (as the marketers) thinks looks "good" versus what performs are often two different things.
I've been really surprised countless times by what I thought would perform the best (convert more qualified leads) vs what actually did.
We've tested pretty sites, ugly sites, sites with little content, sites with lots, just squeeze pages vs. full "mini-sites", sites with no-sidebar and sites with a sidebar, etc, etc.
You can see many of the tests that we run each month in some of our blog posts on our Inbound Marketing Blog
But in the end, we always follow the data.
The website format we currently use is still that way because we haven't found a format in our testing that has out performed the current site design.
Yes they do have lots of content on them and may be "busy"... but that's to our eye as the marketer who is looking at the page with a totally different mental frame than a buyer or seller.
In our tests and countless heatmaps we've ran... it's a fine balance between too little content and too much in the wrong places.
Actually... to prove this point... lets take one of the highest converting and best performing ecommerce websites in the world (probably the most).
amazon.com Here's a screenshot of their home page below.
They are the king of following the data and their data tells them that this format, at least currently, outperforms and is more profitable than their previous formats.
Very busy.
Of course though... the way most people use Amazon is by either landing directly on a product page from a Google search... or they hit the search box at the top of the site to find what their looking for. So the search box on their home page is the #1 focus (which is why it's displayed prominently at the top... see below). Everything else on the home page is there to further support the person in finding something on Amazon to buy... behind that search bar.
Amazon's Primary Focus...
Now Relating This To Real Estate...
We've tested simple squeeze pages (actually testing a very simple 1 page format right now on a bunch of members site who are generating a lot of traffic / leads) and more often than not the simple and low content / uncluttered landing page didn't perform as well as landing the visitor on the home page of our sites the way they are structured.
But just like w/ Amazon... we pick the #1 focus we want the visitor on (which is what we call the Hero section... seen below)... knowing that the more attention we can put on that the easier we can get the visitor to that section to take action... and then everything else on the page and the entire website is geared to support that act of helping the seller find the solution to their problem and getting them an offer.
If you don't have the info the prospect needs to feel good about continuing to interact w/ the page and to entice them to opt in or call... the visitor will bail and find another site that will.
But ya, I'm with you man. I LOVE clean simple design. Our own sales website is that way because that's what our particular prospect (real estate investors) want to see. In that circumstance we've tested the ugly page and our current clean design outperformed it.
But for motivated sellers, cash buyers, and we're finding it with tenants as well... the prospects are in information gathering mode.
They're not doing a Google search thinking... "man, I hope I can find a site to put my email address into".
They're doing the search in information gathering mode and are looking for info that'll help them solve their problem. Our mechanism for helping them is that we need their property address and contact info to give them the full info on what we can offer... but your site should do a good job of doing whatever it needs to to engage the visitor, build credibility, and make sure you keep them on the site engaging w/ something vs. leaving feeling their questions weren't answered.
But ya, we're testing lots of things right now and I honestly hope we find a pretty and simple version that performs as good as our current version. But human psychology doesn't change easily :-)
To hammer it home... some of the most effective websites in their industries are also some pretty darn cluttered sites. Why? Because the target person on that site is in a mindset to consume and information gather... and the fewer ways you have to engage the person on the site to help guide them toward the goal... the more apt the person is to be unsatistied and leave the site.
Examples:
- huffingtonpost.com
- Amazon.com
- facebook.com (once you get into FB, look at all the ways they try to engage you to stay on the site.
According to our data, the longer we can get someone to stay on the site the higher the chance for a conversion (also the more qualified the lead more often than not). Carrot members brought in over 15,000 opt in (that doesn't include the phone call leads) leads in the past 30 days... 51% of them on mobile devices which is crazy... because of the relentless testing we do. It keeps it fun and interesting for sure :-)
But ya, follow the data man.
Setup some tests on your own site and test some different variations and then go w/ what performs the best. Reach out if I can help you in any way!
Good luck!!!
- Trevor
Hi All,
I thought I would chime in as well. I'm not an affiliate of either, and have used both. Both are GREAT! I've spoken for hours with the IC folks, and consider Danny a friend. With that being said, I lean towards lead propeller- but not for lead propeller itself. Strange huh? Well....
I was more interested in a whole solution, and Danny's REIMobile (http://reimobile.com/)
backend ties it all together very well for lead submission to disposition. The webiste is just an avenue to solicit leads. After that, you still have to capture them and manage them- and never one let one get lost!!
If you've not taken a look at that, you should.
I've also been using Podio, etc. prior but was frustrated with all of the bandaids needed to put in place to work. I wanted an out of box solution so that I could focus on deals rather than mechanics that end up directly not putting money into pocket (being defined as action that directly produces revenue).
Thanks,
Jim
Great thread. I'd love to hear if @Matt Ellis decided to pull the trigger - and if so, which company and how has it panned out.
I'm conducting my due diligence on all things lead-generation (lists, yellow letters, fliers, 1-800 #s, etc..) and of course online and mobile lead generation is a part of that.
In my previous life I worked for large retail companies within their e-commerce department. A consistent multi-channel message was a must. There simply was not the option to just do an online marketing campaign or just an in-store marketing campaign. One of the frustrating aspects to having similar messages all over the place was it became difficult to pinpoint where exactly did we first "touch" the customer. Sure maybe they bought product in the store or online or maybe both. But we couldn't - at least effectively - tell when and where they first received that message.
What I am wondering, for those that have had success with either LP or OC, what other marketing efforts are happening at the same time? Does all of your collateral point back to the website? Have you tested different campaigns with different URLs to see response rates from both off & online efforts?
I'm looking forward to all responses and appreciate the time to read & reply.
Jeffrey
I checked them both out and like them both but right now I am with Carrot. They have amazing training and support. I really like them
Great Post!
I use four OnCarrot sites. The platform works for me. I have generated over 1000 leads. (buyer,seller,rto) Their support is awesome and they know what they are doing. 99% of my questions are answered within minutes so I can keep moving.
I ask a lot of questions
@Nettles Mason , haha! You do ask lots of questions... but that's why you've pulled in so many leads. You didn't let a lack of knowledge or any roadblocks get in your way. You just knew you had a roadblock... you knew you could reach out to us on a mastermind call each week or support, and applied what we told you to do.
Those are the kinds of questions we LOVE! Closing any of those deals from those leads?
@Matt Ellis We're glad as heck to have you aboard and REALLY appreciate and are humbled by your awesome words. The 2 reasons our members are pulling such great results are 1) our technology: It does streamline the process to rank more easily and convert more of your visitors to leads. 2) Our training and support... because the best technology won't solve every problem... so we invest our years of experience in this area into making sure our team is there to help you push past any obstacles. Often that's the difference maker.
Reach out anytime man! We're here for you.
@Jim Foil Glad you found a home w/ Danny and his products. As long as you're getting the long-term ROI you need you're at the right place!
As far as the CRM, our focus has always been being the best in the industry at what we call the "pre lead" process. Basically, helping our members attract and convert more qualified leads that turn into deals than their alternative choices. Which is why our members are pulling in over 20,000 online leads per month (when you count phone call leads too) and controlling more top 5 Google rankings for motivated seller and cash buyer phrases than other solutions. Our philosophy is to focus first on generating so many leads that you need a more robust CRM to handle them... then we integrate with other CRMs that most investors use like Podio, zoho, salesforce, infusionsoft, etc. etc. We have lots of members closing 50+ deals per year just in our default CRM, and lots who choose to integrate their podio account or other CRM w/ their Carrot account.
So we focus on the pre-lead and conversion side... because without the leads a robust CRM won't matter. And this winter we'll be building out more robust lead management features on our CRM as well which we're excited about.
What Danny and his team built w/ REImobile is a damn good looking product and I'm sure you'll love it. Good luck and go out there and crush it! Reach out any time if you need any help with anything at all.
- Trevor
Definitely a great post. Very informative. I'm stuck on that same see-saw as well. I'm leaning towards IC from the reviews and also just based on the training/videos I've seen/listened to with Trevor in them. Also when I did contact support, they were ON IT.
But I don't want to short LP at all. The techie in me however REALLY likes the REI Mobile tie-in for LP. Having in a business in a different field I know way too much about trying to work with different systems and dread the thought of having to do that with real estate investing.
Both LP and IC look like amazing products so what I'll do is try them both and see which one fits my business best. Thanks to everyone for contributing to this thread. It makes life so much easier when you have folks willing to provide such valuable insight.
- Lawrence
Hi there! I am deciding between building my own site on Weebly (I have used Weebly before and am pretty proficient with it) and utilizing Carrot or LeadPropeller. My main concern with Weebly vs your service is SEO and actual lead generation. I know nothing about SEO besides a bit about keywords, so I fear that, unless I hire an SEO person, I will not ever get any leads.
My question is - if I choose the Core plan with Carrot, how quickly might I see leads coming in? From the posts I have read on BP, it seems like most people talk about great results a year or so in...and they all have a Content Pro account. But a CP account is not in my budget at the moment, so I am wondering if a Core plan is even worth it in regards to SEO?
Thanks!