As a real estate investor, your time is limited. So the question is: where do you put your time to get the best opportunity to do more deals?
Should you invest money in postcards or invest time in social media?
Some marketing experts present this question like it was an epic fight between traditional and modern marketing!
You want to grow your real investment business and make the best investments in the kind of marketing that will help you. How best can you market your business if you’re limited in time or money?
If you’re focused on wholesaling houses in a particular neighborhood, mailing postcards in that area is a great way to get your name out there and start to convince people that you’re the person to call if they want to sell their home quickly or for cash or without having to fix it up. Having a particular angle like this will help your marketing. What kind of motivated sellers have you had the most success in dealing with? A postcard that speaks to a real problem faced by real homeowners will get more response than a general “We Buy Houses” approach. And if you’re able to make a list of people in that situation your postcards will be even more effective.
There are ways to research and build lists of people with probate houses or people facing pre-foreclosure or absentee owners. Once you have the message and the list, create those postcards and mail them out. Track the results and continue to fine-tune the process month by month for maximum effectiveness.
Postcards lead to deals, but over time you may find what a lot of investors find: you see how much you’re spending on postcards and you wonder if you can get the same result by spending less money (but more time) on social media.
Don’t be seduced by the possibility of instant results. Social media can generate great results, but it takes serious effort and time to generate buzz. Ultimately you need to decide whether you want to spend money or time to get deals.
If possible, a great approach is to do both. Here’s why:
Postcards are effective but are also a blanket marketing tactic that reaches a number of people in the hopes that some of them will sell.
On the other hand, building a social profile that is easily found in your area can have the opposite effect: instead of a blanket approach in search of deals, deals come to you when they are ready.
So, you might get fewer leads out of social versus postcards but potentially those leads could be better because they actively sought you out (which means they may be ready to sell).
As you post new content to your website, use social media to promote that content to the people in your community who need to see it. And this is really important: post content that people in your network will promote for you. You’re looking to create an online reputation for your business in your community. Generating leads for your real estate business using social media will require networking, ongoing research and learning from social media experts; but it works and it’s the way to reach more and more people all the time.
Postcards v. Social media is not an either/or decision. They are both proven strategies for growing your real investment business. You want to use your assets to promote your business. Take stock of your time and your money. If you have less time but you do have the money to invest in postcards and you can create or buy a list of prospects, this is a great way to market your real estate investment business. If you have more time than money, stepping up your marketing using social media is a great strategy (and even better if you have the website content to support it). Start where you have the asset strength, money or time, postcards or social media, but aim to eventually work on both.
About the author: Aaron Hoos is The Real Estate Investing Copywriter. The best investors in the country turn to Aaron for copy because they know they’re getting copywriting FOR real estate investors BY a real estate investor. To level up your investing business with more effective copywriting, check out www.RealEstateInvestingCopywriter.com
