At one point of another, you’re probably heard that “marketing” is the key to successful business. “If you’re not marketing, you’re not in business.” Or, perhaps more harshly . . . “If you’re marketing your business, you’ll soon be out of business!” But something you may not realize is that “marketing” is not just about advertising and sending out smoke signals to bring in customers. At the heart of it, marketing is simply about effective communication to get what your want. This is an essential skill not only for running a business, but also for being successful in all aspects of life. If you can effectively “sell” your ideas to the masses – or even just to your smug boss – you could stand to make a lot of money. Your ideas will earn more respect. Your confidence will grow, and as a result, your credibility among your co-workers will skyrocket.

Want to strengthen your relationship with your spouse? Communication + Getting What You Want = Marketing.

Need to train the dog not to sleep on the furniture? Yup, that’s “marketing” too.

Solid communication is essentially the key to the door of success – in all aspects of your life. But for now, “back to business,” so to speak. It’s agreed that in order to reach as many potential clients as possible, every business – large or small – needs to establish a well thought out marketing plan. There are as many ways to market as there are businesses. Just to mention the most general categories, there’s Internet/web, radio/TV, print ads (magazines, newspapers, industry journals, etc), and direct mail (postcards, flyers, etc). There are specific techniques and methods that apply to each of these methods, as well as different “tweaks” that would be employed for each type of business or product. Still, there are basic concepts behind marketing that always apply, regardless of the company type or marketing method. Take a good look at these established “do’s and don’ts” list. There are probably at least a few tips below that you can incorporate into your business practice immediately to increase your marketing effectiveness.

Grab Your Potential Client’s Attention

Perhaps more than ever before, people are distracted and have a short attention span. Use a compelling, involving image to your advantage. If you’re creating a marketing piece with text, make sure to “sell” the reader with your first sentence. The first sentence of anything you write – whether that is an email subject line, an opening to a promotional letter or the headline of an online ad – is the most important part of the whole piece. After all, if the customer never starts reading, they’re zero chance of them reading anything that comes afterwards! When there’s a lot of text, it’s not the reader’s job to stay interested and keep reading – it’s your job to grab their attention and keep it. When in doubt, cut text down! Never make it longer than it needs to be. Don’t overload your potential customer or client with extra information and data in a business card, post card, flyer, or radio ad.

Keep It Personal

“Dear Friend, I have to tell you a secret. People yearn for personal, one-on-one contact. I think they want to be treated as unique individuals.” Did the above statement hit you a little differently than the rest of this article? If so, you can see that in anything you write – even an Internet ad – you should make your potential customer feel special. There are many ways to do this. In email or letter correspondence you could use a personal greeting, or their name (if you know it). Or, you can make the customer feel like they’re part of a very special, small group. No one wants to feel like just another face in the crowd!

Make It Clear What You Want Your Customer To Do

While none of us are likely to admit we like to be told what to do, in reality, it works well for advertising and marketing. We like our advertising to tell us exactly what our best option is.It’s your responsibility as a marketer to command your reader. Tell them exactly what you want them to do.“Order now by clicking here…”,“Get started today by calling…”
“Call your personal consultant right now…”And, here’s a related idea. Americans love choices – in fact, we’re used to having too many choices in our land of plenty. Perhaps you have stood confused in the aisle of the supermarket, trying to decide which of the hundreds of kinds of cold medicines to buy. A similar “paralysis of analysis” can happen to your customer if you offer too many options in your marketing. Don’t risk confusing your customer by putting too many attractive choices in an ad. You run the risk of inviting your potential client to ponder which one is best, and the result in no choice/sale at all. Whatever it is that you want your reader to do, make sure you tell them - in plain English.

Be Accessible

 

Have you ever seen an advertisement or come across a website that promoted a service or product you were interested in? But, when you went to find a phone number, physical address, or email contact, it was hard to locate. If you’re the impatient type, you might have even gone to a competitor instead! Don’t be that “hard to contact” business. Always include an e-mail address, a phone number, and any other critical contact information in easy-to-spot locations on all of your printed documents, your website, or any other marketing pieces.

Be Honest

We humans are funny creatures… we won’t do much of anything if we don’t trust someone. You need to build that trust through your advertising, through your communication and through your support. But you don’t always have the ability to build a lot of trust in one specific marketing piece. So, you need to work extra-hard to establish this critical “relationship” between your company and the customer. Your claims should always be believable. You simply can’t trick someone into buying something (well, you don’t want to at least). Most savvy consumers can sniff out a scam. If you’re going to make claims in your marketing, back them up with facts or proof.

Get Emotional

We’d all like to think of ourselves as highly rational and intelligent beings. But . . . the fact remains that its our emotional side that often spurs us into action. Design your marketing to invoke your target customer’s emotions. Firing up feelings of desire, curiosity, hope, fear, surprise, respect, humor, or even anger can make your message (or what you want them to do - #3 from above) that much more powerful and memorable.

Show Them How You Can Improve Their Lives

A related way to really connect with your potential client in marketing is to show them how your service can make their lives better. It all comes down to a “problem – solution” approach to ad creation. Before starting any marketing campaign, you should first consider these simple questions:• What are my customers’ problems?
• How does my service solve those problems?Remember, you’re still relying on basic human emotions. We all have real problems, and we carry them with us through our day. So by employing the “problem – solution” marketing method, you appear to present a perfectly rational argument. But, when the customer sees the benefit, it produces an emotional response of “wow, that would be really great!” or “that’s just what I need at the end of a long day . . .”, etc.

Don’t Self-Promote Yourself and Neglect the Customer

It’s fine to give the client compelling reasons to spend money with you. But if your marketing campaign brags about the size of your operation, how your product blows away the competition, focuses on your company growth, and doesn’t once mention how much your product or service benefits the customer, you’re possibly ignoring – and insulting – the very people your ad is targeting.
Consumers typically want the following two things in order to spend money:• Be shown a solution to a problem they have, (or make them aware of that problem)
• Be offered an attractive solution to that problem.Provide compelling reasons that your business provides the best way to address that problem, and acknowledge the customer’s belief that they are the most important part of the business transaction. Do this well, and your marketing efforts are sure to be a hit.

Follow Up!

Don’t assume that a customer remembers what you discussed last week, or that they received (and actually read) that pretty sales flier you mailed out a month ago. If your business deals with a limited number of clients with highly personalized service, consider calling them a week later. Or, if you have hundreds or thousands of people in your leads list, mail a follow-up marketing piece or email that reminds them of the special offer you made previously. One of the cornerstones of marketing is repetition. And, you will often be rewarded for going the extra step to remind a customer of what an incredible offer you extended to them previously.
Sometimes, that additional contact is all it takes to convert a consumer who is on the fence with a “hmm, I like this, but I’ll decide later” mindset into a “I shouldn’t put this off any further – I need to do this now” customer. Use the above eight tips to make your “pitch” compelling – then help your customer to take the next step in completing the buying process.

Monitor and Adjust Your Marketing

You’ve invested both time and effort you’re your marketing strategy. Maybe you’re convinced it’s the best campaign possible. But don’t be “sold” on the merits of your own work and ideas. Take a hard look at the results, track how your marketing performs over a period of time (don’t make a decision to change things too quickly) and be open to making adjustments if necessary. It might be worth hiring an outside consultant to review your campaign and results. It’s better to have to spend more money retooling your marketing program into something that brings positive results than to keep pushing out a weak or ineffective message, or the right message by the wrong channels of communication.

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Scenario:
You get that first magical list that you anticipate as being the answer to finding truly motivated sellers. It doesn’t even dawn on you the hours you spend typing up the letters because you’re so focused on all the great deals to be made. It seems like the letters are just burning a hole in your hand by the time you get the stamps on them and to the post office. Next week rolls around and your hopes were just about dashed by the time got that first call from a seller who received one of your letters. Now we’re talking! It becomes obvious shortly into the conversation they’re just “fishing” around and trying to find just how much you would pay for their property and no they are not in any hurry to sell. What happened? Why didn’t you get more calls from truly motivated sellers? Everything you heard about direct mail in real estate was that this is the way to go in having a system set up for motivated sellers to find you.

The “Real World”
After you’ve read the above scenario know just two things right now:Many new investors using direct mail without guidance sometimes experience these types of results and get discouraged from using direct mail again. These individuals will tell you, “oh, I tried mailing out letters and postcards once but I didn’t get many (or any) deals”.

Direct Mail Finds Truly Motivated Sellers!!
Now, this latter statement is what I hope by the time you finish reading my points will convince you that a well thought out direct mail plan is extremely effective but takes some thought on your part. You need to be more sophisticated than just throwing darts in the dark hoping you hit something. Sure, the majority of your letters/postcards won’t be responded but did you know that a success rate of substantially less than 1½ can still make direct mail very profitable for you in real estate. Read on my friend!

What Makes A Great Direct Mail Campaign?
Now let’s get into what you really need to know in starting your direct mail campaign. Get a organized game-plan together on how you are going to make sure that you get as many motivated sellers calling you as you can handle!

Define Your Target Market
You need to know what you’re hunting so to speak. Just an “I Buy Houses” message to your market doesn’t come close to what you need to do in direct mail. There are many, many ways to make money in real estate and finding the truly motivated sellers with direct mail means your message should be reflective of the target market you are seeking. For example if you are targeting pretty house properties that are in pre-foreclosure then included in your message the seller doesn’t need to know you take over properties with tenant terrors or that buy junker houses. They need to be informed that you can possibly take over their payments and know how to find tenant buyers that will help resolve their situation so they can move on with their lives. Define your target market because the message you send needs to reflect accordingly.


Generate Your Mailing Lists From Quality Sources
I’ve seen many types of mailing lists that weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. If you’re keying into pre-foreclosure properties then make sure the source providing the information is reputable and you can test out on a month or two basis before being tied into a one year contract or paid up front fee. Later when you find out the information is out-dated and inaccurate then you’re stuck.Another example is you may be into finding absentee owners. These are a great source of deals if done correctly and basically these are owners of a property where the tax bill is being sent to an address different than the subject property. Ninety nine times out of a hundred that is a prime target for a tired landlord or junker deals to be made. However, it can be quite frustrating when you find out the information you purchased hasn’t been updated for over a year on the property tax records. Ouch! Come to find out after doing a little investigating almost half the properties you would have been sending letters/postcards to changed ownership. You paid for but didn’t receive quality information. Make sure before you buy mailing list or property tax information that you have a chance to do a test basis on some of the material. Most all reputable companies selling quality information will have no problem sending you a small bit of test data to look over.

Don’t Stop At One Mailing

This is a key principle that many investors seem to never grasp the concept of. If you have fulfilled the prior two steps in securing quality mailing list material and you know exactly your target market, then send them multiple mailings. I have my software system set up where for example any category that I key into will receive letters and postcards from me. The text messages will be incremental in nature building up and playing on different angles and ideals trying to prompt them to call me. Sure, I’ll get most responses from the initial mailing but many times it may take a little bit more persistency to get the seller persuaded. I’m glad I didn’t stop with one seller sending out only five letters. On the sixth letter we finally put together a deal and netted me over $8,000 quick cash. With another seller it was actually over a year of mailings before he came around but the deal got done.

Let Your Letter And System Pre-Screen The Sellers
Time is my most important commodity. I don’t have the time to talk to unmotivated inflexible sellers wanting all cash and retail value for their property. You don’t and won’t have the time to waste either with these types of sellers. Sure, some will get in under the radar but for the vast majority of the sellers that receive your message they will know a few things very quickly. You are an investor and expect to make a profit and yes you have many creative ways to buy properties. In fact you can probably even close within 48 hours if you run through your due diligence checklist. However, the message in your letters/postcards needs to state that if they need all cash and full retail value not to call you. However, if they have some considerable degree of flexibility in either the cash price or terms then to call you as soon as possible. You need to be seeking quality of sellers and not quantity of sellers fielding fruitless phone conversations.

Direct Mail Is A Investment…Not An Expense
Make no mistake it does cost money to initiate and maintain an effective direct mail campaign. When you put together the cost of postage, letters, envelopes, postcards then you’re talking substantial monies dedicated to this marketing medium. In a prudent investor’s budgetary considerations these are costs that most like to consider. When you’re experiencing success and know how to effectively secure quality mailing lists or generate them yourself then you soon change your mindset that you simply can not spend enough on postage. Let me try to explain from the sense that just because you don’t like to spend gas for your car should mean that you don’t ever put gas in it. If you don’t realize that fact then you aren’t going to be going anywhere fast and you can make the same comparisons if you don’t consider direct mail costs as an investment in your real estate business.

Summing It All Up
Direct mail is one of the best ways to find motivated sellers or rather have them find you but take some time and forethought from thought to finish on what you’re trying to accomplish. Your goal is to find truly profitable deals and the means you go about doing this are contingent upon your target market, quality of the mailing contact, multiple messages to same contact, pre-screening ability, and finally your commitment to direct mail and an investment in your real estate business. Be organized and focused in your direct mail campaign and soon you too will be finding all the motivated sellers you can handle!

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Click Here Don’t pay full price for your home. Visit RealtyTrac for homes at half price.

Looking for an “in” to real estate investing? Working a nine to five job swapping time for money can be incredibly dispiriting. After the futility of it all hits home, it’s all you can do to limit the number of home business opportunities you investigate to twenty per week. One of the more compelling home business opportunities is real estate investing. Real estate investing is the perennial wealth builder, and the transition from working a job to achieving wealth through real estate investing is becoming increasingly well documented. You’ve probably thought about investing in real state yourself but you’ve not gone for it because you thought you needed tens of thousands in savings for a down payment, and perfect credit along with strong banking relationships.

Well, you can get all that together if you want. It doesn’t hurt to have those resources. But it’s not necessary to have a huge pile of cash and perfect credit to buy a house cheap and resell it for a profit. It’s especially not necessary in the preforeclosure market. Preforeclosures are houses in the default phase of foreclosure; where the bank has filed initial foreclosure papers but the sheriff sale or trustee sale where the bank auctions off the property, or repossesses it if no-one buys at the auction, hasn’t occurred yet. Buying during the preforeclosure period is one of the best ways for anyone to get involved in real estate investing. With little more than a few hundred dollars and some specialized knowledge you can buy a house at a substantial discount and resell it retail picking up a five figure profit check in the process.

Don’t Believe It?
Well, let me give you seven reasons why it’s true:1.) When people are in default on their mortgage they have stopped making payments to the bank. So when you are negotiating with the seller, and the bank, right up until the point where you buy, no-one is making the payments. For novice investors worried about holding costs this is a huge advantage.2.) Preforeclosures are a very well defined niche market. One of the most deadly mistakes rookie investors make is trying to be a jack-of-all-trades, going after any and everything they can lay their eyes on. The result of this lack of focus is they are soon back at their jobs. By being a very defined market, preforeclosures allow you to develop focused marketing campaigns and standardized processes to get deals completed and closed.3.) One of the fundamentals of real estate investing is contacting and talking “only” to motivated sellers, and avoiding all the rest. Sellers in preforeclosure are some of the most motivated sellers you will find. Their world has been turned upside-down, they are about to lose their house, and their motivation is such that they just want out of the house and the bank off their back. By buying houses from people in preforeclosure, creating 30%+ equity spreads on houses often in good condition is not a difficult thing to do.4.) Buying houses in preforeclosure enables you to create unusually large equity spreads. Recent economic uncertainty has caused a lot of foreclosures, and rising rates will cause more in coming years. If banks had to take back all of the properties that went into foreclosure the FDIC would shut them down. They know this, so they try not to take properties back they don’t have to. By requesting the lender discount what is owed on their payoff, large spreads of equity can be created on houses that are totally “maxed out” with loans. This can’t be done on loans not in default.5.) Because lenders are under pressure to liquidate bad loans rather than take the property back, large discounts can be negotiated. After becoming familiar with the issues that cause lenders to discount, larger and larger discounts can be achieved as you hone your negotiating skills.6.) If your plan is to buy and hold the property, having good enough credit and financials to get bank financing excludes a great many people from getting into real estate. On top of that, if you do get a bank loan, your financial exposure is at it’s maximum when everything is in your own name and personally guaranteed. Buying houses in preforeclosure allows you to simply take over the existing financing already in place. No qualifying needed. You can take title to the property in a land trust, begin making payments on the existing mortgage(s), and still get all the tax advantages, appreciation, depreciation without any of the risk of being personally liable for the mortgage and the property.7.) If you have ever bid at auction for property at the courthouse steps, you are only too aware of the competition breathing down your neck. Lots of mind games. The 40 thieves are talking trash to you trying to get you not to bid. If you are Larry Bird, no problem. Make sure you have $500K on your credit line though. However if you are not the ‘Bird’ and you don’t pack half a mil’ of credit, you can sneak in and avoid this NBA showdown by buying the house during the preforeclosure period… before the auction.Make no mistake about it, there are many ways to make healthy profits in real estate investing. But when you look at how easy preforeclosure makes it to buy houses cheap and resell for five figure profit checks, all the while helping people out of agonizing life circumstances, it makes little sense to pursue real estate investing any other way.

Automate your multi-step mailing campaigns, merge and print custom letters, and schedule repeat follow-ups using this revolutionary new software system… click here to learn more!

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