Become A Real Estate Marketing Specialist

Posted on September 19, 2009 by Torrey

Marketing is the key to every business, no matter what it is. If there is no marketing, there are no customers, and soon the company will die. As a real estate investor, marketing is the heart of my business. A mentor of mine once said that we are professional marketers, not real estate investors. His point was that if you want to succeed in this business, you must learn to market to the right audience effectively and generate leads. You must become a “real estate marketing specialist“.

Currently I am focusing my marketing efforts on absentee owners and 60 day lates. As for the absentee owners, I send them a post card once every 3 – 4 weeks. This is a bit more frequent then what other investors do, but I want the seller to think of me when the decide to sell, not my competition. I use 4 different types of postcards for the absentee owners. Each is a bit different but they all convey the same message, “We want to buy your house”. I use a system through Click2Mail to send out my cards. They are by far the best in the business. Only 36 cent per card you send out and there is no minimum or maximum on what they will do. As of now I am getting approximately a 8-12% response rate from my absentee list. This is a great response rate and one that I can live with. I usually send out 200-300 cards per week and this runs me approximately $90. One deal can net me $3K minimum and up to $20K. Not a bad return.

As for the 60 day lates, this works a bit different. I contact these homeowners every week via mail. I actually write my own yellow letter with my wife. The letters are short and to the point. Once the homeowner gets to the 90 day mark, we change the letter up to express the time restraints the seller has. Currently I’m only sending out approximately 100 of these cards a week witha response rate of approximately 8%. Not bad either. We are in the process of setting some of our clients up for a short sale. This is the the best time to catch a homeowner to perform a short sale on the property. The reason why is that we don’t just want to make an offer on a short sale, but we want it to be listed for a minimum of 30 days to see what the current market is offering the property. If the listing is getting traffic but no offers, then it is probably priced to high. If it is getting traffic and offers under the list price but not too low, then we know what ball park figure to offer for the property. This is the key to getting these short sales accepted. You must also have it listed for at least a month so that the broker’s price opinion is influenced to come in at the bottom range of the price for the home.

These are the two niches I am currently marketing to. I plan on implementing new marketing techniques, including SEO and PPC, within the next 2 weeks and I will keep you posted. The bottom line is that you must test and measure your results from your marketing to see where you are getting the most effective response. Everyone’s market is different, so you have to see what works in your area. When you perform direct mail marketing, be sure to measure your response rate using an 800 number instead of a website. This will give you a more accurate reading on your results.

Till My Next Post,

Torrey Brothers

PS. I have a deal we are closing next week from an absentee owner. He responded to my 5th or 6th postcard. This is why it’s important to stay in the sellers face with your marketing material.

PSS. Also have another deal we are closing by mid October where the seller is offering owner financing. $5K down and seller financing the remaining $20K. $3,500 of the down payment is my assignment fee.