It is human nature to rest on your laurels when things are going well. Any success you are currently having must stay this way forever, right? The reality is that things can change in an instant. Unless you have laid a good foundation, your business can be turned upside down. Many investors view real estate marketing as something they have to do only until they start getting deals and stop once they get busy. One or two deals lost at the closing can leave your pipeline dry and you looking for deals. Marketing needs to be something you do consistently, every day, even if you have deals you are working on.
You don’t necessarily need to spend a lot of time with your marketing if you are doing it every day. You can have a few big mailing campaigns a year if you are diligent with your follow up and you do it consistently. Thirty minutes of emails or phone calls to prospective sellers can give you a few extra leads every week. If you can turn those leads into just a few more deals a year, it will leave you with a business that can weather the storm if things get slow.
What the most successful real estate marketers know is that every letter or email you send has a compound effect. There are instances when a homeowner will contact you because of a letter they received months ago or an email from a friend’s attorney. Just because you are not getting the immediate results you are looking for doesn’t mean your marketing is not working. It may not be working as quickly as you would like, but if you stick with it you will start to see results.
Not all marketing is designed to make your phone ring right away. Sending out thousands of letters to a targeted distressed homeowner list should get you a substantial number of leads, but following up with a realtor you met last week may not. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an impact. They may be in the middle of a few things or not have a need for an investor buyer at the moment. If you stick with your marketing when they do you want to be the one they call. If you give up on your follow up and marketing you will never know who you can work with.
Once the immediate results fade, so does the action. Instead of marketing only when you are slow, spend just a half hour every day to send a dozen or so quality responses out. If you do this for the work week, you will have made 60 new contacts or follow ups. Doing this for the month will give you close to 250 and even if you get just two or three lunch appointments or homeowner meetings that should be considered a success. If you do that every day, you should get a handful of deals that you would otherwise have not.
The key with any marketing is consistency and the follow up. If you make marketing a habit every day, even when you are busy or don’t want to, you will start to see results over time.
