Real estate investing is probably the most popular form of investing. Its low barrier to entry (especially on the residential side) and potential profits, make it an attractive investment option for investors. Most local real estate markets are made up of a large amount of investors – both full-time and part-time investors. In times where the number of real estate investors seeking underpriced properties outnumber the number of real estate deals, it is imperative that investors find creative means of separating themselves from the large pool of real estate investors. Whether you are employing a buy-and-hold or a buy-and-flip real estate investment strategy, the lifeblood of any active real estate investor is finding good real estate deals. Gone are the days where you could find great investments by scouring through local multiple listing services or standing in front of courthouses waiting for a good deal during an auction.
Although there still could be good finds using these strategies, there is a high possibility that the pool of investors in your area will be standing with you at the court house. So, what was thought to be the deal of a lifetime becomes a dud, because your competitors bid it up to a price that’s not worth the investment. The question is, “How can I find deals that are not visible to my competitors?” In comes digital marketing. Surprisingly, real estate investors have not taken advantage of what has become a sure way method of growing any business in today’s world. Today, a person’s first instinct is to go on the Internet when they are looking to make a purchasing or selling decision. In this case, it is that homeowner who is anxiously looking to sell his inherited home without having to deal with fixing or updating the property. That homeowner more than likely will go on Google and type one of the following keywords — “how to sell my home fast”, “how to sell my home without a realtor”, or “need to sell my house fast”. Picture yourself being the first and only investor that this very motivated seller speaks to. This is exactly how deals land in the lap of digitally minded investors. Here are two digital marketing strategies that savvy investors leverage to increase their real estate portfolios.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
This entails marketing a business using paid advertisements on search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo). In this model you pay for your ad to appear when a prospect performs a search using keywords that a motivated seller will typically use such as “how to sell my home fast”, “how to sell my home without a realtor”, or “need to sell my house fast”. You can also increase the number of keywords used in your ads by utilizing Google’s keyword planner tool, which will output a number of keyword permutations that your targeted audience typically uses. The downside to using this method is that paid ads targeted towards motivated sellers are relatively expensive, especially for investors that are on a limited advertising budget. According to Google Adwords keyword planner tool, the suggested bid for the keyword “how to sell my home fast” is $18.15. That means it will cost you around $18 each time a prospect clicks on your ad. Although expensive, it is well worth it simply because that one click to your website or landing page could lead to a real estate deal of a lifetime.
Inbound Marketing
By all accounts, inbound marketing has been the most effective marketing method for doing business on the Internet. It is a marketing strategy that is focused on creating quality content that naturally attracts the right customer to your company or product. Applying this to the earlier example about the anxious and motivated seller, let’s pretend that motivated seller found your excellent write up titled “The benefits of selling a property without listing it on the market”. The content you provided in the article just might have been the necessary information the seller needed to make a decision on selling their home to an investor.
Guess whom he or she will likely call about selling their home? Chances are it will be you. You are probably wondering how you would get your excellent write up in front of this type of prospect. There are basically two ways your targeted audience will find your write up. It will either be found organically through the search engines or you can promote your content using the various social media platforms. For content promotions, it’s very important that you are targeting the right audience. Luckily, social media platforms such as Facebook have targeting tools that you can leverage to get in front of your targeted audience. You want to make sure that your ideal prospects are reading your content.
These two digital marketing strategies provide more effective ways of increasing your real estate portfolio compared to traditional methods of finding real estate deals. It is high time more real estate investors embrace the various digital channels that are available to them, and enjoy the benefits that will come with using them to increase their real estate portfolios.
Charles Muotoh is the owner of dcrealestateguru.com, a full service real estate firm focused on leveraging digital marketing to serve Washington D.C. area real estate buyers and sellers.
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