Top 10 Marketing Strategies For Real Estate Investors Part 5 “?” Classified Ads
Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark.
You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.
~Steuart Henderson Britt
Classified ads are a good cost /effective way to reach property sellers in Pre-foreclosure, and pre-default. Secondary niches who you will find contact you from your ads are Absentee Owners, Probate and bankruptcy. Classified ads are also good for selling any type of property.
Keys to Success:
Ensure that your headlines command attention and virtually DEMAND that your prospects take action.
You have to be UNIQUE. What do you have or do that makes you stand out from the chatter of the ever-increasing crowd?
Write as you speak rather than as a professional Report Writer.
Dont sell the prevention, sell the cure. As Jay Abraham says, Nobody wants the inch drill. What they want is a inch hole.
Take all the risk away from a buying decision by making an IRON-CLAD guarantee & STICK to it.
Cover concerns and likely objections of your TARGET audience.
Test your copy and your advertisements before you start to roll them out on a large scale.
Remember suspect = prospect = customer = client = raving fanand maybe even a friend
Estimated Cost
Print Ads: The costs for print classified ads are not cheap. But when we look are our ROI, (return on Investment), this form of advertising makes us money. We spend about 0 a month which is also ,000 a year on newspaper ads and we bring in an average of 4 deals a year netting us 0k annually. That is getting my money back 10 times!!!
Online Ads: There are many online classified ad spaces to place your ads and many are free. I always place my property on Craigslist.org and backpage.com. To get your information out to many online advertising resources very quickly, I recommend a free service at www. postlets.com .
Here are the steps to follow in placing print classified ads:
Website searches: www.newspapers.com or Search the term newspapers by your city, state online via Google or Yahoo.
Personal touch: Contact the Chamber for your niche city and ask for information on Main Newspapers and smaller Neighborhood Newspapers like the Penny Saver or Fickle Nickel; etc..and get the Name, Phone Number and Website Addresss for each one.
a.Then look at the each newspaper under real estate wanted & Real Estate Finance/Services. Check out what other investors are doing.
Call all the newspapers and find out the following:
oCirculation: where does the paper go and how many are delivered.
oAsk if they have any special days or sections catered to real estate. For instance, our paper is Wednesday and Sundays.
oWhat is the cost for an ad you have created to run 1 week? You can work with them on making changes to the ad to get the price down.
oAsk if they have any specials available right now. If so what?
oCreate your ad with the representative on the phone
oBe sure and ask for proof prior to printing if at all possible.
oRun an ad for 1 month in the most popular print ad spaces. This will allow you to really understand what kind of response you get. You can do 1 at a time or do 2 to 3 at once (depending on how busy you want to be and your budget)
oWhen you get calls always do the following:
Answer the phone. Or if you cant answer the phone, it would be best to use an answering service.
Keep track of your leads by asking where the seller saw your add
Also ask the seller: what was it about my ad that made them want to call me.
oIf you not receiving any calls it could be that the ad you placed is the reason. At this point it is best to tweak the ad a little and put it back out there.
oOnce you do the tracking for a month see which one brought in the most leads and stick with that one.
oRepeat the process when necessary.
Here are a few sample ads that have worked for me!
SAMPLE: FOR RENT OR RENT TO OWN
Online Classifieds Gaining Popularity
In its most recent in-depth analysis of the online classified ad market, Pew Research Center, found that the number of online adults who have used sites to post free classified ads has more than doubled in the past four years. Almost half (49%) of Internet users visited online classified sites, compared with 22% of online adults who had done so in 2005.
A year later, as of May 2010, that figure of online adults who use online classified ads rose to 53%; that’s more than Internet users who get information about sports (52%), politics (50%), or financial matters like stock quotes or mortgage rates (37%).
The free classified ad market is led by the perennial stalwart, Craigslist. That said, many emerging sites are encroaching on its territory and the reasons for the growth of online classified sites are evident. They offer, after all, ads for free, enabling consumers and sellers alike to reach a broader audience at no additional cost. The slumping economy is a factor, as well. People seeking extra income are going online to sell goods, while buyers are looking for the best deal available. In fact, rather than find a part-time job, sophisticated users of a free classifieds website can generate an equivalent amount of income selling goods from the comfort of their home, without the additional costs associated with commuting.
Not surprisingly, the growth of this market has had a profound impact on traditional newspapers that rely on classified advertising for income. Because of this, analysts following the industry were not entirely surprised when New York Times Company Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. recently conceded, We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD.”
Looking ahead, the next frontier for online classified advertisers will be leveraging social networks to further expand the audience of the marketplace. The opportunities are particularly acute across two segments: young adults and Internet users over 50.
Free classifieds websites are most popular with young adults; Internet users ages 25-44 are significantly more likely than any other age group to use post free ads. In fact, a whopping sixty-two percent of online 25-34 year olds and 57% of 35-44 year-olds visit free classifieds websites. And, not surprisingly, it is this very same demographic that has enthusiastically embraced social networking sites.
At the same time, social networking use among Internet users ages 50 and older has nearly doubled, from 22% to 42%, over the past year. Yet just over a third (35%) of online 55-64 year olds use classified websites. This dichotomy suggests an enormous opportunity for online classifieds to reach this growing demographic through social networking.
Realizing this untapped potential, online classified sites play an important part in the market, by leveraging Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking .platforms to place free classified ads and ensure that consumers buy or sell the right product or service at the right price.