How to Successfully Invest in Real Estate
How to Successfully Invest in Real Estate
There are many forms of marketing methods for real estate enterprises. There are few that I find consistent enough to create leads. They are as follows:
Classified Ads
One of the most heaviest producer of leads for local real estate investors are classified ads in some of most prominent newspaper in your region. It is costly and sometimes it doesn’t generate phone calls, but you need to be persistent. Just place the ads and leave it. It is part of toll of performing the real estate business. Running it 365 days a year, you will get noticed as a real estate professional.
One of most common mistakes for many real estate investors, is that most of them put ads for a couple of weeks and then they remove them and put them just on the weekends. You need to put an ad in the newspaper and leave it in there. Don’t worry if you see that your ad is among other real estate ads. Just make sure that you actually answer on your phone and leave your phone on all the time, otherwise you will be spending the money on ads for nothing.
One of the worst case scenarios is when a potential customer calls the number from the ads and they get an answering service. This will turn off a potential customer. They need to reach a person that will help them quiet their anxiety and to tell them that everything will be ok. The answering service will not do that, they need a human being.
Ads in the “Freebie” Papers
One of the strategies can be running advertisements in the freebie papers. Advertising in the freebie papers you can talk about terms on your rate. There is a probability that you get a better rate for a longer period of time
Road Signs or Bandit Signs
One of the best lead producing tools are bandit signs. Put them few to half dozen or so in a month. One of the greatest real estate marketing and advertising values for an average price of $4.
Some of the sign manufacturers usually have discounts. Check for discounts.
One of most common things that I do after purchasing any property is to place a sign in the front yard. You can use wire stakes or wood stakes for your signs. My favorite ones are wood stakes, the reason is very simple, they are less expensive and they don’t bend.
Flyers and Bulletin Board Postings
Another cheap way to advertise yourself are flyers. Flyers will get word out that you are real estate investor. There are lot of free online flyer softwares that you can use for creating flyers. For just a few cents for a copy you have a really inexpensive advertising and marketing.
Place the flyers on every bulletin board in your region or a town where you would like to buy a property, distressed home or foreclosure. You can use plastic sheet shielders to protect your flyers from the rain. Although they are not prominent as the bandit signs, they will attract phone calls.
These are some areas that I would suggest for putting up flyers:
- Taped to the inside of the phone booths
- Grocery store bulletin boards
- Laundromats
- Employment center bulletin board
- On any business organization that will let you place the flyers
- Public office bulletin board
Promotional or Imprinted Items
Pen knives, pens, key chains, coin holders are great ways of advertising.
You can leave this promotional items anywhere. In the store, bar, gas pumps, just anywhere.
For example 50 knives, 100 pens and 50 coin holders can cost around $100, this is cheap advertising. Lot of these promotional items you can find discounted, so make sure that you look for discounts online.
Business Cards
Every successful real estate investor has a business card. You can order a 1000 cards. You can look online for cheap companies that print business cards. Make sure to pass your cards everywhere you possibly can. The best cards are simple cards. The simpler the better.
Car Magnets
One of the things that you can use for a long time. Place the magnet on the back of your vehicle, so people behind you can read
Clothing
Design your logo and place the logo on shirts. You can find companies that can create logo for you as well as print it onto shirts that you can hand out.
You can give out custom imprinted hats to everyone you know who wears one. You can give out shirts as well.
Other Advertising Tools
Some other advertising tools are: billboards, yellow pages, TV and radio advertisements, door hangers.
I hope that these tips have given you an idea and will help you in your real estate marketing efforts.