Online And Offline Real Estate
Investing Marketing Strategies
By Peter Vekselman
The author has permitted the reprinting and redistribution of this
article.
You may have jumped into real estate investing with one eye on your
dreams and the other on your potential to become fabulously wealthy in
a very short time. While it’s true that it’s
possible to become the richest person you know, the reality is that it
will probably take time to happen. Another reality you may not have
considered is that as a real estate investor, you also wear another hat
professional marketer. If you can’t devise a winning online
and offline marketing effort, your dreams will be largely unrealized
and your destiny will be held hostage by unfulfilled potential.
There are a number of offline marketing strategies you can employ to
encourage possible buyers and sellers of residential real estate to
contact you. Some of the most common ones are
• Bandit signs
• Radio & television ads
• Brochures, flyers, and billboard signs
However, to turn the corner with your marketing, you can really ramp up
your offline marketing strategies by establishing yourself as a noted
real estate expert within your local community.
There are three great strategies for doing this
• Local media interviews – The best way of getting
your name in front of News Directors and Program Directors is by
issuing pertinent press releases. They need to be well-written and they
need to discuss newsworthy issues of importance to their viewers. Once
you’ve begun to establish yourself as an expert in your field
your phone will ring more regularly. These media appearances can
increase your exposure and improve your name recognition which can
result in increased investing deals because of your perceived status as
an expert. Many people with whom you’ll be trying to buy
properties from or sell properties to will know your name –
and be more willing to trust you – as a result of your
prominence within your local community.
• Seminars – Giving free seminars in a real
estate-related niche can increase the size of your portfolio. As a
residential real estate investor, you could give a free seminar about
topics as wide-ranging as “How to Sell Your House for Your
Price in a Down Market” to “How to Buy a House with
Bad Credit.” The key here isn’t to directly market
yourself. Your goal is to come across much like a financial planner.
Show your clients what you know – and how you can help them
– and they’ll gladly show you their money later on.
• Public speaking – This may not seem like a natural
offline marketing strategy, but it has potential you may not have
considered. Most people aren’t natural public speakers; if
this identifies you, don’t despair. Join your local
Toastmasters club and learn the fine art of public speaking. While
you’re learning, you’ll be exposed to business and
community leaders (many with cash) who would be prime candidates as
potential investing partners or sources of private cash for long term
investments or down payment and rehab funds.
Online marketing strategies are like gifts that keep on giving because
the overall costs are reduced. This allows you to cast a wider net and
increase the area in which you invest. In addition, you’ll be
able to build buyers lists and prequalify prospects without an
investment of time, which is one of your most precious commodities.
Effectively reaching potential clients with online strategies
increasingly demands that you have a website of your own, in order to
prescreen prospects, build buyers lists, and to gather other vital
information. None of these efforts mean a thing if you can’t
figure out how to drive Internet traffic to your website.
Your online efforts will generally revolve around two basic strategies
• PPC – Pay Per Click campaigns are a good way of
getting visitors to your real estate investing website. However, if you
don’t carefully analyze your target demographic and get
crystal clear about which words and phrases you wish to bid on, your
expenses could explode and you’ll have nothing to show for
it. Google and Yahoo have helpful analytic tools that can help you
determine what words and phrases make the most sense for driving paid
traffic to your website. In addition, they also offer the ability to
target traffic based upon geographic location of potential clients, so
your ads would only be seen by those most likely to be good targets.
• Organic placement – This form of marketing
won’t cost you a penny, but the competition for top ranking
can be fierce. The key to achieving top ranking is by having content on
your website that is relevant to the needs of your site’s
visitors. While SEO can play a role in your search engine rankings,
you’ll have greater success by ensuring that your website has
great content. Resources related to real estate investing –
articles and ebooks about wholesaling, short sales, rent to own, or
whatever areas in which you concentrate, can gain you improved ranking
by the search engines. Concentrate on relevant, high quality written
content and you’ll be rewarded with traffic. The increased
volume of traffic will mean you’ll gain more prospects, which
will generally translate into more buyers and sellers for your
residential properties.
While your online and offline marketing efforts will differ, in many
cases you can tie them together for maximum effect. For instance, any
offline marketing materials will have physical contact information. If
you can include a catchy and memorable web address, you’ll
increase your exposure to potential clients while reducing the legwork
necessary to pre-sell them on doing business with you.
Marketing your real estate investing business may seem like a waste of
time and effort, but by paying close attention to these efforts you can
win over potential clients, increase the size of your portfolio, and
move yourself closer to realizing your dreams. If you’re not
familiar with the marketing strategies you want to employ or
you’re at all uncomfortable with your knowledge of specific
real estate investing techniques, you should consider finding a good
mentor that specializes in the type of investing in which
you’re most interested. Their experience and guidance can set
your mind at ease and their wise counsel can help get you on your way.
Peter Vekselman has been successfully investing in real estate since
1996. He has completed over 1000 real estate deals, owned a
construction company, been a private lender, and owned a property
management company. Peter currently works with clients all over the US
httpwww.CoachingByPeter.com
If
you would like to take advantage of the market and learn how to invest
in real estate and you are local to the Dallas Fort Worth area, I know
a really great teacher and mentor here in Arlington Texas. Please take
a look at his web site: DennisJHenson.com,
Dennis has a great Mentoring and training program, I know because I am
one of his former students. I learned a lot from his one on one
teaching technique. - Michael Harman 817-457-7572
mchfun.business@gmail.com
http://www.biggerpockets.com/articles/