Using Internet Marketing to Flip Houses

As I’ve said and many other successful wholesalers will always tell you is that “Marketing” is the life blood of your business. “Marketing” is the process of getting leads as well as getting your houses sold, which is how we make money right? And I’d say there are (3) main goals associated with your Marketing:

• Finding Motivated Sellers
• Finding Cash Buyers/Investors or Retail Buyers (building your buyers list)
• Marketing to get a house SOLD

There are many different forms of marketing that we teach and that we use – including but not limited to: direct mail (letters and post cards), bandit signs, posting ads online and in newspapers, websites, flyers, business cards, telemarketing, door knocking, door hangers, social media, etc. YES – that was a lot, and you’re using ALL of them, right?

It wouldn’t hurt to try all of them at some point to see which one works best for you – depending on your personality and your resources (time and/or money). In other words, if you have NO money – telemarketing and door knocking take very little money up front. If you have LOTS of money – big direct mail campaigns might be good for you. I could go in depth on each method, but I’m going to focus on Internet Marketing for the remainder of this article – which encompasses a few of the methods mentioned above.

Here is a list of the most common Internet Marketing strategies for real estate investing:

• Posting Craigslist Ads: “We Buy Houses” (for motivated sellers) or “Deep Discount Houses for Sale” (for Cash Buyers/Investors). Also post here for selling your houses. And it’s FREE!
• Websites for sellers: build website for your business. Could have multiple – one that says “WE BUY HOUSES” or something along those lines to find motivated sellers. Have your ph# and/or a way to capture their info to follow up with.
• Websites for buyers: This site should attract cash buyers and investors and capture their information. You could also post your properties for sale here.
• SEO: Another layer to your website strategy could be SEO (search engine optimization). There are Free and Paid ways to get your website ranked higher on Google which is what you need to do or nobody will see your site.
  • Free: relevant keywords all over the site (real estate investing, wholesale houses, we buy houses, cash for houses, we pay cash for houses, discount houses for sale, etc.).
    • Linking your website to other websites – article directories, social media.
    • Updating your content – adding articles/blogs & videos – Google likes fresh content.
  • Paid: paying Google to rank your site higher – Google Adwords. You pay for getting your keywords ranked. Very competitive in the real estate investing space – it’s a bidding system. The keyword “We Buy Houses” costs more to get ranked than “We Buy Toilets”. Can be pricey, but the ROI may pay for it.
    • You can also pay a marketing firm to do it all for you: update your SEO, post links, post to social media, write articles and make videos for you, etc.
• Social Media: Create a Facebook page, a YouTube page, a Google+ page, a LinkedIn profile.
  • Post updates to these pages.
  • Post links back to your website.
  • Post to your Social Media pages that you are looking for houses to buy – make sure everyone knows.
  • Create Groups on Facebook and LinkedIn and build your network. Post properties and share ideas, tips and tricks.

These are all ways to build your brand and get leads. If you are an internet nerd like me, some of these things will come pretty easy to you and some of it may be more comfortable to you than other strategies like door knocking, cold calling Craigslist ads, driving for dollars, writing letters, etc. I personally have had more success driving for dollars and writing letters, but I’ve also worked with guys that have never driven for dollars or anything like that and just did ALL Internet Marketing for all of their deals, working behind their laptop (in their shorts and flip flops).

It all comes down to ROI. For example: say you build a website and pay Google Adwords $1500/mo. ($50/day) to keep your website ranked at the top of Google search page 1. That site brings in 20 leads a month – with 1 to 2 of those leads turning into deals (say $4K profit each). So that’s $4K-$8K profit per month on $1500/mo. of advertising. These leads are typically some of the most qualified out of all marketing strategies so the close rate is much higher. Couple that with any other marketing you might be doing, posting ads in newspapers, sending postcards, etc. and the # of leads you have coming in has seriously multiplied and more leads equals more deals.

I hope you put some or all of this into action as soon as possible if you want more leads coming in. I have examples of the tools I use on my website at www.HowToWholesaling.com – check it out and good luck!

Matt