Investment Real Estate Marketing Plan – Putting Details Into Action

Marketing is one of the most important things a real estate investor can do to grow his business. It is also one of the areas that is easiest to make multiple mistakes. From failing to properly plan, failure to track your results and even worse, failure to control spending; marketing is fraught perils that beginning investors and long time investors alike must be aware and prepared to avoid.

There are 3 main areas of marketing to concentrate on when seeking to grow sales and revenues. The first is education, the second is planning and the third is tracking for adjustments and success. All three are important for investors to watch as they seek to grow sales and revenues and more importantly, build a business model that is sustainable through any real estate cycle.

EDUCATION

Educating yourself as a real estate investor and marketer is absolutely paramount if you are going to have success and grow your business. There is simply no excuse for not understanding the basics of each as they both are extremely important for the longevity and ability to stay relevant and profitable. Here a few examples of places to become educated on good marketing techniques for real estate investors.

1. Local Library – There may not be a better place to become educated on real estate marketing than the local library. Break the topic down into two subjects and you can have the basics down inside of a week. Under the real estate section there are multiple titles that explain the basics of real estate investing from beginner levels to expert levels. In addition, many of these books will give a basic outline of some simple marketing techniques and tools to get you started. When you combine that knowledge with a good Marketing 101 book from the library, you can quickly pick up the basic outline of why marketing must be done and how properly set up a marketing plan. The best part about an education from the library is the cost – practically free!

2. Real Estate Investment Clubs – Often times, these clubs are referred to in the industry as REIA’s. Associations of local real estate investors who come together several times a month to discuss topics relevant to real estate investing. These are great sources for so many things related to real estate investing, including marketing ideas and plans. By attending and immersing yourself into these groups, it is easy to develop friendships, partnerships and even mentors who can answer questions and provide guidance. By paying attention to what the top performers are doing in the field and how they are marketing their businesses, you can pick up ideas and integrate those ideas into your marketing plan. It is called modeling and it is one of the best ways to educate yourself on what is working in a particular real estate market. The biggest upside to becoming educated at a REIA is that you are surrounding yourself with the type of people that are going to be vital to your future success. The costs are usually very affordable and you can often avoid mistakes made by other investors before you.

3. Go it Alone – There probably does not need to be a tremendous amount of discussion under this heading. It speaks for itself and generally goes against all advice I could ever give any business person, especially a real estate investor. As far as education is concerned, it is an approach that many investors choose to take and often at a tremendous cost. Going it alone means deciding to jump into the deep end of the pool with both feet and learning as you go. Trial and error can be good and can sometimes lead to good results, but often after many hours and many ups and downs. Strictly looking at costs, many investors have experienced huge losses in the areas of marketing to learn what works in their particular market and often are a little behind the actual trends due to not properly learning to track and adjust.

My suggestion when it comes to education to use all the resources available including those that come with little to no costs. When you are becoming educated on how to set up a proper marketing plan complete with tracking and adjusting, then I would make sure I was a part of a local real estate investors association so that I am always up to date with the latest marketing techniques.

PLANNING

When I talk about planning and marketing, I mean to process of laying out the actual strategies you are going to use to market your business, the time frame you are going to use those strategies, the way you are going to track those results and the possible adjustments you are going to make as your results come in on your plan. One of the biggest mistakes that we see today in the real estate marketing world is not a complete failure to plan, but a failure to lay the full plan out from beginning to end. That being said, here are a few tips to properly develop a plan.

1. Know what you are currently doing and what results you are currently achieving. Even if the answer is that you are doing nothing, you can not work on where you are going if you do not know where you currently are starting from. You should be able to pinpoint today any marketing you are doing and the cost of that marketing as well as any results you are seeing.

2. Know what results you are looking for before you begin. So once you know where you are starting from, the next question is were are you going? Lay out concrete results you want to achieve and be specific. One of the glaring mistakes in this area is not being specific enough. You cannot track abstract goals. Your goals must be specific and detailed so that you can verify if you are achieving them. An example would be a specific number of new leads you want to bring in from each marketing source.

3. Give yourself set time frames to test your marketing. This is definitely the second biggest problem for real estate marketers and most marketers in general. Marketing plans must be given time to take shape and develop. Most real estate marketers are developing marketing plans which are call to action in nature. They are asking their target audience to take a particular action so that they can capture that action and develop a new lead. An example would be to “Call Today to Sell Your House Quick!”. This is a call to action marketing phrase. Often times, there will need to be multiple impressions of that message before the action is followed. Failing to plan a specific amount of time such as 60 days or 90 days, leads to a marketer stopping his action before his target audience responds. If you allow your plan to last longer and stick with all of your marketing pieces and techniques longer, you give yourself a greater chance for success in the long run. It allows for you to see over a longer period of time the results you are getting and that provides a clearer picture of what works and what does not work. DO NOT quit marketing after a couple of weeks simply because your phone is not ringing off the hook. Set your time period on the front end and then let your marketing plan work.

4. Failing to get input from other experts can be costly. If you have access to other real estate investors, I would definitely get their input on your marketing plan before implementation. If they are able to give you advice and direction it can often times help you to figure out the best route to take or at least if you are on track for success. If you have taken your time and all the steps necessary so far to put together a quality plan, then take advice from other experts, but do not be persuaded to change everything. Simply let others take a quick look for feedback, but be prepared to move forward with your plan and any adjustments they think would make a difference.

TRACKING

Tracking means having a way to actually follow and measure all of the marketing activities you are doing and the number of results each gets you. Here are some examples of the things that real estate marketers need to track for every marketing action they take.

1. What are the total number of leads generated per marketing technique tracked daily, weekly and monthly.
2. How many of those leads turned into qualified prospects daily, weekly and monthly. (qualified prospect means you were willing to invest more time to develop the lead)
3. The number of offers made to purchase property daily, weekly and monthly.
4. The ratios of offers made to where the original lead came from.

I am going to insert a quick note here to make sure everyone understands exactly how to track. It is not enough to simply know how many calls you are getting or how many leads are generated or how many offers or deals are being done. When you actually purchase an investment property, you MUST know where that lead came from at the very beginning. Tracking ratios is extremely important to this. It is important to be able to track and measure not only the leads but the quality of those leads. You can have one lead generator that gives you a majority of your leads and another that gives you a majority of your transactions. It should be obvious that you would want to spend more time and resources with the marketing technique giving your more transactions unless you are in the business to simply feel busy and not necessarily to earn a living!

5. What is the cost per lead generated, per marketing technique daily, weekly and monthly.

6. What is the average income generated from each transaction generated by each marketing technique daily, weekly and monthly.

When you are able to track your business in this way, it makes it much easier to make adjustments as you go and it definitely gives a clearer picture of how well you are spending marketing dollars. Often times, as legendary basketball coach John Wooden would say “we mistake activity for productivity” The entire reason for developing and implementing a proper marketing plan is so that we can determine what works, what does not work and what changes we need to make so that we are spending the fewest dollars possible for the greatest impact and result. If we fail to implement any part of this type of marketing plan, then whatever success we achieve cannot be measured against any activities and therefore cannot be duplicated.

I am a big proponent of education and immersion as the best learning tools available and I believe that when it comes to marketing, it is simply too easy to learn the proper way to plan and track. When you have the

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7 Real Estate Marketing Tools You Should Be Using Right Now

Real Estate Marketing Tools- Traditional

Aside from the well-known bandit signs and billboard signs, there are many other traditional real estate marketing tools that are still working for many professionals in the industry. While online real estate marketing is still raking in most of the real estate sales and leads, it’s foolish to ignore other avenues that are still generating clients and revenue for some of the most prolific real estate agents and companies in the world.

Seven Offline Real Estate Marketing Tools You Should be Using

To help you get a better idea at what offline real estate marketing tools are working in this online marketing-driven climate, I’ve put together some of the most effective offline realtor tools for you:

1. Host a Broker Event. This will help you network with the people in your industry about the topics that matter most. This is an excellent way to keep an ear to the ground and possibly get ideas for your blog, fill holes in your marketing strategies and even come to an agreement with colleagues that might find clients you need, but they have no use for.

2. Print Media. A standard-bearing classic in offline real estate marketing tools, be sure to invest in professional designs and printing materials only. Stick with the basics here: research papers, white papers, product descriptions, brochures, marketing material, etc. Whatever will get your message out there and keep screaming it once your client gets it home and reads it.

3. Support Local Organizations and Charities. From sponsoring a local baseball team to adopting a highway, there are tons of ways that you can give back to the community. Not only will this establish you as a pillar of the community, but your name will become instantly recognizable.

This comes into play when a community member’s friends or family are looking for a real estate person in the area-guess whose name is on the tip of their tongues? Be sure to be selective and choose organizations that are inline with your message and values.

4. Press Releases. The goal here is two-fold. First, you want to get informative press releases out that establish your real estate agency as the “go to” firm in the area. These releases have to be timely, well-informed and address all of the latest topics and breaking news in the area.

This will garner the attention of news and program directors at your local media stations, leading them to contact you for matters in which your expertise is needed. These are the types of media appearances that will make your agency a household name, thus building up buyer confidence and increasing your sales and referrals.

5. Hold Free Real Estate Seminars. Give speeches meant to show potential real estate investors how to enter the market, or show people how to get the most added resale value on their home. Talk about topics that people are going to benefit from-give them “the get” as in “what are they going to get for attending?” Then, deliver on that get. Don’t sell your services, but rather establish authority and be helpful-it will come back to you tenfold.

6. Catchy Business Cards. Business cards can make you stand out or get thrown out-it’s up to you which name on paper you want to be. For instance, drop-cards are a nifty way to gain attention. These look like folded up bills of money, leading people to at least pick them up and look at them.

When they see your name, they associate putting money in their pocket and are left with a good impression. Drop these in places where people will pick them up. Or how about a business card that folds up into a house? Have a plain white business card? That’s perfect for them to write someone else’s phone number on and then throw away when they’re done with it. Just sayin’ (wink-wink)

7. Vehicle Wraps. You drive around your town or city everyday, passing hundreds and thousands of people. Why not use your car for free advertising? Get your vehicle wrapped with your real estate agency’s name or your name and face. Let people know who you are, wherever you go. It’s a one-time cost and super effective at getting you recognized as a person about the community, not just some name on a sign in front of a house.

Of course, integrating these offline marketing tools with online marke