Marketing and networking are the keys to growing your real estate business. If you are lacking in either of these two areas, your business will surely suffer. Fortunately, there are ways you can quickly revamp your marketing strategies to get the most out of them. Marketing, by itself, will not produce the leads you are looking for. You need to do the right marketing. Accordingly, you must know who you are marketing to, where it will be seen and what has the biggest impact. Perhaps even more importantly, you need to demonstrate a propensity for commitment. However, if it is absolutely clear that your marketing strategy isn’t working, it is time to reevaluate the direction you are heading.
Before you consider any changes, you need to look at exactly what it is you are doing. Marketing is often one of those things in your business that you may do over and over again without thinking about it. It is easy to relegate to the sidelines when you don’t see immediate results. You need to sit down and take a look at what you are spending, what you are getting out of it and how successful it is. Different strategies work in different areas. What works for a fellow investor may not work for you. By taking an honest look at what you are doing, it will give you an idea of what you should be doing. Many times, the problem isn’t with the marketing, but with the execution. If you have a direct mailing plan, but only mail each letter a few times, you can’t possibly know how well the letter or the list is. Before you commit to anything new, look back and evaluate past attempts.
Different levels of marketing have different expectations. In order to truly gauge if your marketing is a success or a failure, you need to attach realistic goals. If you mail 100 letters once and expect to get 20 phone calls and five deals, you may have set the bar a little too high. Out of every 100 letters, you should strive for a 10% call rate. Out of the calls you receive, your goal should be to convert 1-3% of them into deals. You can’t get frustrated if the response isn’t immediate or isn’t what you expect. This should be your expectation, and you should plan accordingly whenever you consider any new marketing. If you are unrealistic with your goals, you will stop what you are doing and then you will never know whether or not the marketing can really work.
You can have the best marketing plan in the business, but if you don’t know how to implement it you won’t get much out of it. You need to spend more time on this part of the plan than on anything else. If you are mailing, you need to lay out how you are handling the incoming calls. Are you going to have a separate phone number dedicated for this mailing? Do you have a script or an idea of what you are going to say when the phone rings? Are you going to make yourself available every day in the afternoons and evenings to answer any calls? These are just a few of the questions you need to answer before a single letter goes out. If you are missing calls or calling back hours later, you aren’t getting everything you can out of the mailing. Having a plan in place is important, but without knowing how to will implement it, you won’t get very far.
There are many different ways you can market in a given investing area. The key is to play to your strengths. If you like to talk to people in person, you should consider something that gets you in front of homeowners. If you come from a marketing and lead generating background, print marketing could be your strength. If you are tech savvy, you can play to the internet and social media platforms. This is your business and you can market any way you like. Find an area that you feel comfortable and go with it. The most expensive forms of marketing aren’t always the best. If you are truly passionate and enjoy the marketing you do, you will gain traction and eventually see the results you expect.
It is critical that your marketing efforts receive your full attention. Give them time to develop. We are in such a rush to see immediate results that we are often disappointed when things don’t happen overnight. Marketing takes time and repetition. Before you start, you need to be willing to commit to 12 weeks or 12 months of doing the same thing over and over again. You can make minor tweaks, but you need to stay consistent with whatever marketing you want to do. Not only will doing this prove to be more successful, but you will also find out what truly doesn’t work as well. Knowing this will show you what to avoid in the future instead of constantly trying the same new things and wondering why they aren’t working.
If you are not happy with your current marketing strategies, you can always change them. Marketing in today’s environment is as easy and efficient as ever before. This starts with evaluating what you are doing, what you want to do and how you are going to do it. It sounds easy enough, but the marketing you choose and how you execute it can make all the difference in your investing business.
