We are entering one of the best phases of the real estate marketing for wholesalers. To make the most of it, it is vital that investors avoid these very common, big blunders, and get a lot more from their time, budget and efforts.
Watch out for these frequent pitfalls, and know what to do instead…
SEO Keywords
Most real estate investors are completely lost when it comes to SEO, Google rankings and keywords. Many try to DIY patch together some knowledge from old, out of date and amatuer information. Then end up blowing their marketing budgets without getting the real returns they hoped for.
Many are plowing a lot of their time, energy and money into trying to rank for keyword phrases like “we buy houses NYC,” without even thinking about it. Someone with no real real estate marketing experience said that this keyword had the most search volume, or they saw a competitor doing it.
Pause and think for a second.
If you are trying to connect with motivated sellers, what are they most likely going to type into Google? There may be thousands of other investors searching for that phrase, because they were told the same thing, but what are sellers actually Googling?
When thinking about keywords, you not only want search volume, but commercial value too. You want to rank for something that is going to turn into dollars.
Besides, if this is the hottest keyword phrase in your market, and you are going up against the likes of Zillow, who is happy to bid over $25 just for a click, and happily throws away billions of dollars a year just to drown out the competition, is it worth it? Or are you just getting sucked into their game that is designed to put you out of business?
SEO and Google Ads can work, but most need to apply a little more strategy and common sense in order to create a campaign that is profitable.
Content Length
Content is still a huge part, if not the core of all real estate marketing. There are many forms, but blogs and articles are still the heart of that. Just be careful about getting caught up on content length.
One month someone posts that the ideal length has moved from 250 to 500 words. Then a year later someone says that blogs need to be at least 2,000 words. Then back to 1,000. By the time you read it, you’ve missed the boat, and it’s changed again.
There can be advantages of very long form content. Yet, there are two big pitfalls too. Firstly, you are going to pay a lot more per piece. If it costs $100 for a standard 500 word blog post, expect to pay double for 1,000 words, and double that for 2,000 words. Instead, you could have gotten 4 articles for the same budget, and given Google the consistency it loves most.
Secondly, who is going to read it? When was the last time you had the time to read a 2,000 word blog post? That’s something like 10 pages of a book. Content needs to be actionable. Your prospects have to be able to digest it and still have time to take action when done, before getting distracted by something else.
If you’re still reading this, this post is already double the normal length we publish!
Don’t Bank it All on a 3rd Party Platform
Your business and income will never be sustainable and reliable if you are betting it all on one of two third party platforms. We’ve seen it with Facebook and Google, and we’ll see it again. These can be great tools, but should be just a part of your business. Be sure to be investing as much in online assets you actually own. Like your own website.
Hiring Marketing Help
It’s pretty ludicrous to pay a social media marketer (who often has little real experience) a $3,000 fee to run $3,000 worth of ads in a test for you. If you did it yourself, and got it 50% wrong, you’d still be at the same level, only you got double the exposure.
However, the bigger mistake that real estate investors make is not hiring the best they possibly can. Look at any really successful entrepreneur, investor or company. The difference between them and all the millions who didn’t make it is primarily that they hired the best help.
So, even if you can’t afford to hire them to do a lot, you’ll probably get a lot better return by using the best possible help, and then using the profits from that to scale up.
You know from going into any store or using any service that poor service and employees are the fastest way to put yourself out of business. Don’t make the same mistake.
Communication
Even if wholesalers get everything else right, this usually ruins any potential deals.
Here’s the bottom line, every prospect is going to have their own preferred method of communicating. You can choose to only deal with people who will call and talk by phone, but then your lead pool might instantly shrink to 2% out of 100% of the available market. Talk about a huge waste of advertising dollars.
Most people don’t answer the phone today. Most prefer text and email. Many are even moving to only talking via social media DMs.
If you want to ensure every potential lead really has a chance of closing, be sure you have as many communication options available as possible.
The Wheel
So many investors are trying to replicate reinventing the wheel, when it already exists. This especially applies to generating lead lists. Would you really go out to your garage and try to reinvent and manufacture your own wheel and tire for your car next time you get a flat? Or would you just put on a spare, or preferably have a pro do it for you? Marketing funnels are important, but many investors are spending months and obscene amounts of money when they could have all the leads to contact that they can handle today, for a fraction of the amount. Before you create anything from scratch for your business, see if there is an existing solution you can plug in or at least replicate. Do the math on the upfront hard costs and your time.