There are essentially 5 steps to being successful in real estate marketing. Before we go into the 5 steps of real estate marketing, I want to encourage you to become a student of marketing. The moment that you are able to find your own deals – on demand – the more money you will make! It’s a direct correlation.

When I started out in real estate, I didn’t understand how to “really” market for deals. I was depending upon real estate agents, local real estate investing groups, etc. I did a lot of deals, but I realized I wasn’t making the kind of money I knew I could in estate.
Follow these five steps to successful real estate marketing and you’ll be on your way to filling your own funnel full of five-figure deals.

Define Your Target Market: You must be focused; If you run in too many directions, focusing on too many real estate markets, you’ll always be skipping around, never getting ahead. You need to learn overcome objections; you need to know how to handle the different situations that arise. Once you master one market, then you can duplicate your system across market after market. For instance, you may choose to start working with foreclosures or out of state owners. Once you get the real estate marketing system in place for one, add the other. Then, you can simply duplicate it over and over again! The single most important thing to remember is that you MUST target motivated sellers… PERIOD.
Execute your plan: It has been said that successful real estate investors have three things: specialized knowledge, ability to take action, and consistency. It’s not enough to have the knowledge. You have to act on that knowledge. Let’s say your real estate marketing strategy involves bandit signs. You need to have a system for distributing signs on a consistent basis, a consistent method for filtering leads, and a bullet-proof follow up system. If you’re going to execute a direct mail campaign, make sure you have a system for sending out the whole series. For instance, our foreclosure direct mail system consists of 6 sequential postcards. It doesn’t do you any good to come off the starting block at 100mph if you don’t have the ability to sustain that pace or the have tools to fulfill the plan. If you only have the resources to send the first postcard, don’t bother wasting your money. Find another real estate marketing strategy.
Pre-screen your leads: Scribbling notes on the back of an envelope while you’re driving is not a system! We actually send our leads to a separate voicemail line or a call center depending on the marketing campaign. Our students and staff have been trained to do this because it takes emotion out of the system. If I’m having a bad day or sitting in traffic, I can’t focus on that call from the motivated seller, so all of the calls are fed through the system. We request that the seller leave certain information on the line or with the operator. We then take that information and do our basic due diligence before we even have our first conversation with the seller to find out if, in fact, he/she is a motivated seller.
Make your offer: By following a specific real estate marketing system, you’ll be prepared to make an initial offer during the first phone call. By asking the right questions and having a pre-screening sheet in front of you, you’ll quickly learn if they are a motivated seller or simply just wasting time! If your real estate marketing system has this component in place, you’ll know what the property is worth, have a ballpark idea of what the repair costs are, and will know if the seller is motivated. Consequently, you will know at what price you should make your first offer.
Contract/Exit Strategy: Once the seller has accepted our verbal offer, or is close thereto, it’s time to put the purchase offer in writing. We include 3 contingencies – or escape clauses – into the contract. – Inspection – In the event of buyer’s default, the deposit is the sole remedy – Subject to property appraisal

Based on this due diligence, we are then able to decide which exit strategy is most appropriate. All of this follows a basic flow chart process. There’s no thinking! It’s like when you call in for technical support on your computer. They ask you a question, and based on your answer… they go to the next step. This is how you want to run the marketing division of your real estate business.

Keep in mind that your real estate marketing efforts should be in concert with the types of deals you’re looking to do. For instance, if you want to flip properties, your marketing system might target motivated sellers facing foreclosure. On another note, if you’re looking to build a rental portfolio, then you might consider building a real estate marketing plan to target landlords filing evictions.

Real estate marketing can be either your secret weapon or a real estate system that you wish you had never attempted. There are lies about real estate marketing that have been spread around for years by those who don’t want agents to unlock the power of marketing. Many of those who have spread these lies have done this unintentionally and others intentionally.
By discovering these real estate marketing lies you will have the secrets to turn your real estate business into a machine.

Marketing Is Expensive. Many agents believe that marketing is expensive so they never bother to look into how they can make it work for their business. Bad marketing is very expensive and can ruin the experience for an agent. When marketing is done correctly it is about spending little to get a large return. For example if you knew that you could spend $280 on marketing and you would get back $4,000 in return would you consider it expensive? So the only marketing that is expensive is marketing that hasn’t been tested, hasn’t been proven, and won’t generate you leads.
Marketing is About You. Have you ever seen a postcard, flyer, or a website of a real estate agent where the only thing that you see is a giant picture of them riding a horse or with a dog? These agents have been told that as long as they “get their face out there” they will be successful. I would like to ask you the following question and answer it honestly: Do people care more about themselves or people they don’t know? If you answered that people care about themselves more than us that is correct. Marketing that is about you will only be one of the most expensive forms of marketing you ever do and not produce the results that you desire.
Marketing Only Works Once You Are Already Successful. Often in hallways across real estate offices all around the country agents say “That agent does marketing because they are successful”. Agents don’t do marketing once there are successful they market to get successful.
“Your” Market is Different So Marketing Won’t Work For You. Every market is different however people often respond to messages that are similar. My team routinely tests 300+ messages to find 6 that work all over the country. Finding which one of the 6 that works in a particular part of a country is the work that must be undertaken in a one on one setting.
Marketing Doesn’t Generate Good Leads. Regardless of how you get a lead whether it be an open house, a sign call, a magazine ad, a flyer, a referral, or a website 85% percent of leads will be a total waste of time. The key with marketing is to generate a leads with hoops designed to find the top 15% of leads. For example allowing leads to contact you directly can cause waste your time.
Marketing is Too Difficult To Figure Out. Marketing can require testing which is why many agents avoid it for their entire careers. Without a formula to test each marketing piece you take out against it can be nearly impossible to find a winning formula. Marketing that generates results need to demonstrate to the prospect how you can benefit them and it has to do this in 10 seconds or less. When each of your marketing pieces clearly shows the prospect how your service benefits them and has a clear call to action the marketing will become far easier to figure out.
Marketing Doesn’t Provide Any Way To Prove That It Works. When a marketing piece goes out with 5 different phone numbers, a website, and no clear message it had no chance to work. Providing tracking on marketing allows an easy way to find out what is working and what prospects are responding to. This can be done with free tracking tools like Google Analytics when marketing is done on the Internet or a low cost 800# such as proquest.

By unlocking the secrets behind these 7 lies you will be able to improve any marketing that you currently are using as well as and future marketing you put to use to generate new business.