Top 10 Marketing Strategies forReal Estate Investors Part 1:Aim – Ready – Fire – Talley the Score!

Quote of the Day:

“Without promotion something terrible happens… Nothing!”

P.T. Barnum

In order for you to make money as a Real Estate investor you need your phone ringing off the hook (or your inbox full of leads), each and every day so that you can make offers for properties and cater your offers to your buyers. The great thing is these Motivated Sellers and buyers with cash in their bank accounts are actually looking for you because you can provide solutions to their problems.

But guess what typically happens… They can’t find you. Why? Because You’re not marketing yourself. OR if you are marketing you are not marketing correctly.  Working harder does not always bring the best results unless you are also working smart.

Did you just hear about the investor in your local RE club that closed on a deal netting them $20,000 and they didn’t even have to lay a hand on the property? Or what about the person that just bought that rental house on the same block for 40-60% less than what you paid for yours? Are they just lucky? Or are they working smarter than you?

The best place to be is a little bit of both. Somewhere in between luck and chasing deals is where you should be in finding truly motivated sellers, or rather helping them find you.

Have you ever heard when someone is ready to shoot a gun at a target say, “Ready, Aim, Fire”?

I have. And in shooting a gun, that is appropriate. However for marketing we want to change that line up a bit.  The following goes over some basic Marketing principals following Ready, Aim, Fire, and Talley the Score.

1) Aim……Who is Your Target Market?
The most important element of any marketing to be done is to assure that what you are saying AIMS directly to your target market. Who are you trying to market to? If you are advertising “I buy Houses”, What types of properties and real estate opportunities are you seeking?  If you are advertising that you have houses for sale and are looking for buyers,  what does your advertising say to bring in the most promising prospects for you? The more narrow your focus and marketing efforts, the greater success you will experience.  As an example, I am a REI coach and trainer.  In the past, I had been marketing to “real estate investors” and “real estate investing coaching and training”.   Now you will find my marketing more niche focused – Flipping is my niche.  I focus on turning profits for quick profit. Not that I can’t teach on anything else.  I just decided to pick the niche that  best suits me and go for it.

WHO are you aiming at? Who is your target market? In Aiming, you want to first look at who it is that will bring you in what you are looking for in your business.  You might need a buyers, sellers, a power team, money sources, referrals, etc.  for every ad you place, you will want your marketing message to be, first and foremost, clearly directed at who/what it is that you are attempting to reach/sell/buy.  And you will want to know the ages, gender, nationalities and locations for the majority of your target market.

WHERE are you pointing your gun…. In other words where are you advertising to reach your target market?  The second consideration when Aiming is to assure the type of ad you are placing is they type of medium your target market will see.  Wherever you are advertising, be sure and verify historical numbers for who is paying attention to that medium whether TV, newspaper, online, billboards, etc. Make sure the mediums you use are those that those who are your target market will see.

WHAT ammunition are you using? What are you saying in your ads by the words and graphics used?  Is the copy enticing enough to make you stand out? What is your USP (Your unique selling proposition) What makes you special?  Many people pay copywriters to write their ads, (yes, even individual real estate investors), in order to assure what they are saying is the right way to put the message across.  If writing effective ads is not your cup of tea, you might want to reach out for help. You can have the right medium, pointing to the right target, but you if you don’t say something appealing, then you wasted your time and money.

2) Ready….Your Marketing Plan
Your Marketing Budget: You will want to create a marketing plan starting with a budget. We all have basic living expenses that need to be paid. If you are just getting started and short on cash, could you cut back on the budget anywhere to find a little money to create a small advertising budget?

List the marketing mediums to be used: In addition to the budget, you will want to make a list of the mediums you will use that meets the criteria we have discussed in Aim and Ready sections in this book.

Consistency is Key: You simply DO NOT have to have a large marketing budget to be effective to grow your RE business. One 42 cent letter netted me $70,000.  It’s all about consistency. You will want to be realistic about your monetary constraints to start out and then incrementally build your marketing program as you experience more and more success.  It is vital that you don’t base all your decisions on one attempt. Consistently do marketing to same target market using the same medium for at least 1 month …1 X week.  Often people need to see repetition in order to the idea to call you to sink in to where they take action.

3. Fire…Do your marketing plan!

So many people spend too much time telling themselves all the reasons they haven’t done marketing, mostly revolved around their lack of time and money.  However, to run your real estate investing business effectively and profitable, (or any business for that matter), you must get the word out to let others know what you do.  There are many low cost and limited Fire at the target and see the results!

3) Talley the Score… How many times did you hit your target?
Did you receive a return on your advertising investment, (Often referred to as an ROI)? We miss the boat on this one so much. When you are incorporating bandit signs, direct mail, flyer campaigns, into your marketing etc… it can start to get confusing where and if your success rate justifies the money and time put into the marketing mediums you are using. You will need to mainly pay attention to one thing … was money you profited higher than the money you spent to get the lead to call you. You will want to pay attention to two elements in tracking your responses.

When someone calls, be sure and ask where they found your phone number and track the “response rate”. for each particular form of advertisement.  This will tell you what ads hit the target!  From this information, it is easy to track the return on your investment to see how much money you make from each response and adding those dollars up.  Tracking your responses and closures of deals by how they found you is necessary so that you can identify areas that need to be tweaked or worked on. If you are not getting response, you will want to evaluate if that is the correct medium or if what you are saying is not working. If you are getting response, but not closure, you will want to change your ad to bring in more focused leads.

And when you find out that great mailing list is really working or the flyers in a particular neighborhood is getting tremendous feedback….then increase your marketing in that area! I mean when you are measuring success and can track it effectively, it allows you in full financial confidence to justify any increase in marketing expenditures that is bringing in more than you are spending.

My hope is for you to realize that marketing for the real estate investor is the lifeblood of his/her business. Great deals rarely knock on your door to find you without some kind of influence to do so.  Marketing is key.

Over the next few weeks I will  provide details on several types of marketing I have used in my real estate investing business with some success.  For your marketing plan, you will want to put into place no more than 2 or 3 of these marketing strategies at one time, amending your plan depending on the results.  Watch for more to come!

Most importantly, whatever strategy you use, follow these steps:

Aim, Ready, Fire and Talley the score!

To Your Massive Profits,

Tamera Aragon

60 thoughts on “Top 10 Marketing Strategies forReal Estate Investors Part 1:Aim – Ready – Fire – Talley the Score!

  1. Thank you for the information. I can see how deciding on one area to focus on would be time saving and more profitable.

  2. I agree with you on advertising dollars. Keep working on different ways of advertising until you are getting a good and profitable response.

  3. Thanks Tamera. Great practical advice and techniques we can implement right away.
    I have listened to your videos before we have connected and they really get to the
    heart of the matter in real estate.

  4. Hi Tamera,
    I thank you for your article, it’s a great analogy and it’s practical and certainly will give us positive out come.

  5. Thanks Tamera. Two things I learned from this: Consistency and Tally. I would like to learn more about how to evaluate the results.

  6. Thanks for the information, it helps to know we can count on your insite and knowledge to build our business as a pro.

    • Hi Eric,
      The very first session of my 60 hours of training included in http://www.coachingu2profits.com walks you through this most important foundational step of setting your goal – your target. More than I can put on this single reply. BUt a good start is researching fastest moving markets right now. You can Search this online or find at National Association of Realtors site.

  7. Thanks for the nice article. I appreciate you sharing the practical steps which are pretty much standard for any type of business.

    Good content.

  8. I think everything about marketing made total sense! And yet how many times do we try to make things harder than they need to be. Good to have a basic reinforced!

  9. Pinpointing the market with respect to media,location, and audience while tracking the results. Great info Tam ! Looking forward to the next lesson.

  10. Tamera your input is right on point. I never thought to record my responses i was getting when i put out bandit signs and even when i sent out absentee owners i didn’t factor in the responses or non responses so i can continue in the area or not. But with this blog you wrote about i am now willing to try this important information
    Thank you Tamera

  11. That is very true with point number three that because of time or money that is
    why they are doing marketing I also want to add that because of lack of
    Information like what you are giving that is why most people are not doing Real Estate Business
    Thank you Tamera

  12. Thanks so much Tamera for taking the time to explain marketing in a easy to understand way. You are helping to see what actions I need to be taking. Very motivating.

  13. I do have a tendency for not having laser focus with things and do tend to skip a few steps with things. I just get so excited about the many different types of ways to do things that I have not figured out a solid plan.
    I appreciate the direction offered because there is definitely high value to it. Thanks.

  14. Heard a lot about the mailing system and how effective they are with and repetition, and if you are consistent. I have been sending letters/cards myself and it just takes too much of my time. May I know what company you use?

  15. This blog on marketing is very good to know where to start and the steps and planning to make our marketing a success. You’ve got a lot of info here. You said there are 5 blogs – is this just the first one? I don’t see links to other blogs.
    Thanks for this great info

  16. I know that marketing is the key. finding the one to fit niche maybe the problem .extra work on this one thank you

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