Best Marketing Tools?

[ILoveRealEstate]

Hi Everyone,

I am wondering which marketing tools that you have all found to be the most useful. I love marketing - it is often my favorite part of the businesses that I have been a part of. It's very social and fun. What works best when it comes to Real Estate and what are the best ways to make yourself easily accessible to people through marketing?

[fractional-homes]

I am wondering which marketing tools that you have all found to be the most useful. I love marketing - it is often my favorite part of the businesses that I have been a part of.

Internet, internet & internet. Yellow pages are outdated, newspaper / magazine ads are useless, magazine ads or TV commercials are too expensive. There are many venues for internet marketing - pay-per-click, banner ads, partners' sites, etc.

[Wally]

Well for me that depends.

I too love Creative Real Estate but most of my entrepreneurial time has been spent on Network Marketing so I love marketing as well.

I own just about every top dollar Internet Marketing course on the planet. Mike Filsaime, Mark Joyner, Mike Dillard, Pat Berry, Tillman Knutson, Maria Veloso, Tim Sales and the list goes on.

I also love building my own web sites from time to time.

But when it comes to real estate the question is, what are you marketing and who are you trying to attract?

When I'm marketing the consulting side of my business and trying to attract Sellers or Tenant/Buyers who are "Do it yourselfers" I will market where they are looking, News Papers or On-line searches. With my services I can consult with the seller and the buyer on how to properly structure Lease Purchases.

I recently put up a blog about Lease Purchase Solutions and I know that will be very effective in the coming months. I also post articles about deals I've done, and posted on my blog and web site.

When I'm marketing my Lease Purchase One-on-One Mentor Services I usually place ads in places people look for a business opportunities. I find ezines to be best for this audience. PPC would be good as well but I have not gone there yet with my Real Estate business. I spent thousands there with Network Marketing programs.

Other good places are - Youtube videos, Blog/Forum posts, Craig’s list.

When I'm Marketing for tenant/buyers I've found Craig’s list and News Papers are a great place to advertise, but even better than that are UGLY Signs.

Yup, after all the money I've spent on Internet Marketing and News Papers, I've found most of my leads come from a yard sign either in the yard of the home or next to the exit of the local Wal-Mart.

When I put up an ad that says,

RENT TO OWN
50% - 100% Rent Credit
Phone #

I average 15 calls a day as long as the sign is up. And I get a few owners/investors contacting me asking how I do that.

So, decide what your marketing, who you're trying to attract and keep it simple, it's worked best for me. And don't forget about business cards.

Wally Carmichael

[Sean McAlister]

Well for me that depends.

I too love Creative Real Estate but most of my entrepreneurial time has been spent on Network Marketing so I love marketing as well.

I own just about every top dollar Internet Marketing course on the planet. Mike Filsaime, Mark Joyner, Mike Dillard, Pat Berry, Tillman Knutson, Maria Veloso, Tim Sales and the list goes on.

I also love building my own web sites from time to time.

But when it comes to real estate the question is, what are you marketing and who are you trying to attract?

When I'm marketing the consulting side of my business and trying to attract Sellers or Tenant/Buyers who are "Do it yourselfers" I will market where they are looking, News Papers or On-line searches. With my services I can consult with the seller and the buyer on how to properly structure Lease Purchases.

I recently put up a blog about Lease Purchase Solutions and I know that will be very effective in the coming months. I also post articles about deals I've done, and posted on my blog and web site.

When I'm marketing my Lease Purchase One-on-One Mentor Services I usually place ads in places people look for a business opportunities. I find ezines to be best for this audience. PPC would be good as well but I have not gone there yet with my Real Estate business. I spent thousands there with Network Marketing programs.

Other good places are - Youtube videos, Blog/Forum posts, Craig’s list.

When I'm Marketing for tenant/buyers I've found Craig’s list and News Papers are a great place to advertise, but even better than that are UGLY Signs.

Yup, after all the money I've spent on Internet Marketing and News Papers, I've found most of my leads come from a yard sign either in the yard of the home or next to the exit of the local Wal-Mart.

When I put up an ad that says,

RENT TO OWN
50% - 100% Rent Credit
Phone #

I average 15 calls a day as long as the sign is up. And I get a few owners/investors contacting me asking how I do that.

So, decide what your marketing, who you're trying to attract and keep it simple, it's worked best for me. And don't forget about business cards.

Wally Carmichael


On the spot there,

The main thing, especially with internet marketing is to increase your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and generate traffic.

You can also write articles related to your business and submit them to article directories. Put a link in there to your site.

One of the best and easiest solutions to getting an online presence is to set up a blog until you get everything else figured out.


Cheers
Sean

[cyndy4re]

Paul, that community website idea is a great one... But what would keep a potential competitor to do another website for the same community? Practically nothing. $20 is a piece of cake / month. So, both agents will loose.
Internet is the key, that's sure... but needs to be somehow unique for each one. A free service of some sort that the neighbors really need.

What is "SEO" ?

Can you point me up a bit where would be some places to post articles?

Thank you

[DMike]

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it refers to different tactics so that the site gets higher rankings in search engines. There are many tactics which you can use for SEO and there are also "black hat tricks" - these ones refer to tactics which are not approved by the search engines - it's better not to use them as search engine penalize the sites who use them - if you have a domain which you want to keep for some years, you'd better stick to positive SEO - just my two cents on it

[cyndy4re]

I'm not a very Internet and technical person. To understand correctly... SEO will make your website score higher in the Search engine results, right?

[krolfe]

Excellent points! In regards to the community website and another agent doing the same thing you're absolutely right that it has to be different. My suggestion would be to change things up on a regular basis. If you are offering some kind of incentive, change the incentive weekly. The bottom line is, and it is obvious because everyone talked about, you have to have a website. Good Luck.

[cyndy4re]

Yes, I don't have a website. I need one. I will get one. A friend of a friend has a cousin that knows the sister of someone that does these :)

It's my next thing to do on my list. I was also thinking of doing a website for every listing I get (not that I got any yet)... Oh well... Thanks for your points.

[Wally]

Yes a web site in todays world is important but not a show stopper. What a web site has done for me and my business is let people know who I am. That has worked very well for me. Some people have seen and found they would rather not work with me and others have seen it and feel they can trust me like a brother.

Either way, I get to work with people who are more like me and that makes the deal so much more fun.

My sites are very basic and not high crisp quality. I like it like that. Just like my ugly signs. They work best for me. I built my own web sites, I like doing it and taught myself with books and other courses.

Some day I may pay someone to build me some fancy site but I will always keep these home made sites because they work.