What Marketing Methods Will You Use to Promote Your Business?

Over the last two months we discussed Step #2 of “Determining Your Marketing Plan in 7 Easy Steps” which was to “Determine Your Market”. We broke Step #2 down into 2 parts which were to determine “Who and What is Your Market?” and “Where is Your Market Place?” This month we’re going to move along to Step #3 which is to “Determine Your Marketing Methods”.

Webster defines a “method” as a careful or organized plan that controls the way something is done. Coming up with an organized marketing plan is exactly what the 7 Steps are all about so we want to put some careful thought into the methods we will use to get our desired results.

In Step #1, you determined how many leads you need to achieve your personal and business financial goals. In Step #2, you determined who you want to market to and where you want to market.

In Step #3, you need to determine what marketing “methods” you will use to promote your real estate investing business to your desired prospects in your market area so you can generate your desired number of leads each and every week/month to reach your financial goals.

Will you use “Prospecting” and go out and search for and find motivated sellers? Will you search for vacant properties and track down and initiate contact with the owners? Will you knock on the doors of homes for sale? Will you use “Advertising” to get motivated sellers to call you or visit your website and submit their information about their property for sale? Or, will you use a combination of Prospecting and Advertising to find sellers and to have them find you?

Will you use “Mass Marketing” techniques to reach a broad spectrum of sellers, potential sellers and non-sellers? Will you use “Direct Marketing” techniques to reach a very targeted set of home sellers? Or, will you use both Mass and Direct Marketing techniques to not only cast a wide net in your marketing area, but also target specific sellers and properties in your farm area?

What methods will you use to generate the highest quantity versus the highest quality of motivated seller leads and properties that meet your buying criteria? Do you want a high volume of any type of seller/property leads or will you settle for a lower quantity of much more specific, highly qualified seller/property leads? Or, do you prefer both a high volume of any type of leads as well as your lower volume, high quality, targeted leads?

You get to choose your answer to all these questions as you complete Step #3. In the next few articles in this series, we will cover the following topics in much greater detail:

• Prospecting vs Advertising
• Mass Marketing vs Direct Marketing
• Quality of Leads vs Quantity of Leads
• One Step Marketing vs Two Step Marketing
• Examples of each

Now all the questions above are some great thoughts to ponder until the next article, but here are a few more…

Thoughts to Ponder

1. If you were a motivated seller with a house for sale (Listed, FSBO or neither):
   1. Where would you look for buyers?
   2. Would you mind if a buyer knocked on your door and asked about your property?
   3. How would you prefer to be contacted by potential buyers?
2. As a consumer:
   1. What types of marketing methods from other businesses do you respond to most favorably and why?
   2. What types of marketing methods from other businesses do you despise and why?