You're listening to the “REI Marketing Nerds” podcast, the leading resource for real estate investors who want to dominate their market online. Dan Barrett is the founder of AdWords Nerds, a high-tech digital agency, focusing exclusively on helping real estate investors like you get more leads and deals online, outsmart your competition, and live a freer, more awesome life. And, now, your host, Dan Barrett.
Dan: All right, hello and welcome to this week's episode of the REI Marketing Nerds podcast. As always, this is Daniel Barrett here from AdWords Nerds and the REI Marketing Nerds podcast, which you can get at REIMarketingNerds.com. How are you? Hope you are well. Hope you are having a wonderful week, wonderful time, everything is going amazingly for you. [01:08.6]
This week I wanted to give you something that was immediately pragmatic and practical that you could just take and use, grab some kind of like broad, relatively philosophical discussions about marketing, where it fits and the marketing mindset, how you think about going out and finding motivated seller leads online, how to do that effectively in this very complex and shifting landscape.
Of course, look, if you ever want someone to help you with that, you can go talk to our team. We'll be happy to help you build a marketing strategy for your market that you can do with us if you want us to do it for you, or you could take and use for yourself, and always you could just go to MotivatedSellerLeads.com or AdWordsNerds.com, or REIMarketingNerds.com for that matter, and you can find a place to go talk to our team. [02:02.8]
But, let's say, you don't want to do that yet and you're like, Hey, Dan, give me some tips I can use right away, so I'm going to give you right now three fast action tips that you can use to amplify your lead generation processes for motivated seller leads, and I mean this. If you go and do these, these are pretty much going to have an immediate effect, and over time, they can really, really max out your lead generation. I mean, we're talking about easily doubling the volume of leads that you get every month, and so these are important. Even though they are fast and even though they're relatively simple to do, they are important.
So, let's get into them. Tip number one for massively amplifying your lead generation processes. Here we go. First one is to track your lead generation through to close. Okay, so track your lead generation through to close. [03:03.2]
Here's what I mean by this. I think most people understand the basic concept of you've got to track your leads, right? Let's say, you have a website with InvestorCarrot or you’ve got a website with REI BlackBook, or you've got a WordPress website that you set up or you're running ads, or you're running Facebook ads, you're doing SEO, whatever it is, or even your direct mail.
You probably have some way of tracking where the leads came from, right? If you're doing Google Ads, which is my bread and butter, you are sending people from an ad to a landing page on your website and they're filling out a form or whatever, and you’ve got some code on there that tells you, Hey, someone from this ad over here from Google, they just opted in, became a lead, that's where they came from.
I think most investors get this. This is how most investors try to calculate, hey, how much are you paying per lead? Obviously, when I work with investors as clients, we do all this in the background, right? We track their calls or we track their form fills and all that stuff. [04:05.8]
But—but, but, but—when you close a deal, so we are moving from the fact that this person is no longer a lead. They are now a prospect. You've had conversations with them and maybe you've gone to their house. You've sat at their kitchen table. The documents are signed, right? They’ve become a deal. They close. Can you tell me at that point where that contract came from? Can you tell me it came from Google Ads? If so, which ad, which keyword did it come from? Which campaign did it come from? Similarly, you close the deal and it came from Facebook. What ad did it come from? Did they call the number on the ad or did they email you via your website? What page did they opt in on? [05:00.0]
This may seem like nitty-gritty detail, but it is vitally important, and here's the deal. Here's why. Not every online ad campaign that looks profitable is profitable. I must say this again because this is really critical. Not every marketing campaign that looks profitable is profitable.
I will give you a real world example, okay? Inside Google Ads, you've got two basic networks that kind of coexist. There's the Google Search Network and the Google Display Network.
The Search Network is like when you go on Google and you type in “I want to sell my house,” the ads that you see there, that's the Google Search Network. If you are just browsing around on CNN.com or whatever, KatyPerry.edu or whatever website you are spending your time on when you're browsing around, did you see those image ads over in the corner? That is a Google Display Network ad. [06:03.9]
Okay, so Google Display Network shows up on other websites, usually images. You might not be searching in that moment. Google Search Network, you go on Google, you search for something, you type it in, and you see the ad.
Now, these ads and these networks perform very differently in terms of cost. Google Display Network is probably 10 times the size of Google Search Network in terms of potential volume of clicks. It sends many, many more clicks. We're talking about hundreds more clicks over the course of a week, and the leads are much cheaper. Sometimes the clicks from Google Display Network can cost as little as 40 cents or 20 cents a piece versus Google Search Network where they can be anywhere from $12 to $40 in some networks, per click we're talking about, not per lead, per click.
So, if you are looking at click costs, you are very much going to determine, wow, Google Display Network, I get way more for way less. We should definitely run a bunch of that. [07:11.6]
And I run Google Display Network ads for clients all the time. I'm not saying it's a bad network by any means, but what I will say is that if you track those leads all the way through your pipeline to the close, meaning you track your leads from the very moment that they opt in all the way through the process until you are sitting down at the kitchen table and signing the contract, you will notice something.
You will notice that even though the Google Display Ads are much, much, much, much cheaper, and there are many, many, many more of them, the return on your investment, meaning the amount of money that they generate to your bottom line, is far less, because the fact of the matter is the reason that Google Search ads are expensive is they close more often, a lot more often as it turns out. [08:13.2]
And so, it is vitally important. If you are doing marketing that you track your leads all the way through the pipeline to the close, typically the way you do this is, that tracking code, that stuff that you install, what they call a UTM variable where it's pixel-based or whatever it is, whatever system you're using, when that person ops in and that information comes to you, you've got to get that into your CRM. Whatever system you use to track your pipeline, do your deals, whether it's InvestorFuse, REI BlackBook, whatever it is, whatever system you are using, that information has got to get in there and be associated with that lead, so that when you go to mark that lead as closed, as turning into a contract, you can see exactly where it came from. [09:05.0]
Now, let's talk about tip number two, tip number two to massively amplify your lead generation for motivated sellers. Here it is, tip number two, split test at the page level.
Now, here's what I mean by this. Most people that are running ads in real estate investing or even if you're just doing direct mail, for example, you're sending out postcards, sending out yellow letters, whatever, most investors understand the importance of split testing. Okay, so you're going to send out 1,000 postcards total, first 500 get Postcard A, second 500 people get Postcard B, and each have a different phone number on them and you track which one generated the most results, right? This is a basic way of determining how effective a piece of marketing is. It's as old as time, right? We've been doing this since the old days. Nothing new about that. [10:02.4]
Most people, when they do it, if an investor believes that it's time for them to move online, start investing in this channel where so much activity is occurring, then they typically bring that into the online space and we split test ads, right? So, at AdWord Nerds, we set up a campaign for you. We're going to split test, I don't know, anywhere from literally 100 to 300 ads at any given time, and that's just one account, much less the stuff that we are split testing across all of the accounts that we manage, right? So, it's important.
But what many people forget to do is to split test their landing page as well. They split test their ads, split test their messaging and split test all sorts of stuff, but they forget that they have to split test their website. For example, can you change the headline on your website and raise your response rate? Can you change the number of fields in your field and change your response rate? Can you change the size of your phone number and change your response rate? [11:08.7]
By the way, I will give this one to you for free. One of the easiest ways you can raise the amount of leads you get right now, you can do this literally, right now. I mean, if you're listening to this in the car, don't do it right now, but you can pull over and do it later. You can do it literally just right now. Go onto your website, whatever kind of website it is, and wherever you are hiding your phone number, I'm going to go ahead and bet it's in the top right hand corner somewhere, just make it three times bigger than it is and change the color, so it's really bright and eye-catching. That's it. Literally just go wherever your phone number is, triple the size, make the color stand out and you will start to get more leads. You will.
Now, look, I don't know how much it's going to be. Maybe it's going to be 2%, 5%, 1%, I don't know, could be anything, but that extra percentage, two percentage, five percentage points, over the course of a year, that is a massive impact. A massive impact, not to mention, if you then start to drive more traffic to the site and the site becomes a bigger part of your marketing program. [12:14.2]
These little leverage points are everywhere, but you never find them if you don't test. This is why when clients come in, it's a mandatory process for us that we always split test something on the page, even if the page is doing really well, because we want to build that habit. We want to build the process right away, so we have a web designer on staff. That's all she does.
But in any case, even if you don't want to dedicate a bunch of time to this, it doesn't have to be a major thing. Once a month, try one thing. It doesn't have to be a big design thing. Could just be rewording the headline, could be changing the size of the phone number, anything, but try it because you can have 11 tests where the thing that you tried out is worse than the default or doesn’t really do anything. If you get one test a year that has an impact on your response rate, that's all cumulative, right? That's all compound interest and that compound interest applied to your bottom line is an absolute danger. [13:19.3]
Want to find motivated seller leads online, but don’t know where to start? Download our free 2019 Motivated Seller Keyword Report today. AdWords Nerds have spent over $5,000,000 this year researching the most profitable keywords for finding motivated seller leads, and you can grab these exact keywords when you download our report at www.AdWordsNerds.com/keywords.
All right, last tip, tip number three to massively amplify your lead generation for motivated seller leads and this is the one that really drives me up a wall, so I'm glad I guess they're good to bring this up. [14:03.2]
This is a really easy one. This is a really, really easy one. You can go and do this today. My guess is that this probably gets you alone and it's free to do, by the way. This is going to get you, again, I'm just guessing, depends on how many leads you get, yada, yada, yada, probably an extra deal this year. So, if you want an extra deal this year for free, I'm going to tell you how to do it right now.
Whatever your follow up processes, you've got a lead that comes in, they call you, they email you, whatever they do, and you’ve got your process for calling them back, you’ve got your process for emailing them, you text them, whatever you do, I want you to put them in an automated email sequence. You can do this in an InvestorFuser or REI BlackBook. I personally use ActiveCampaign for my business, but there's all sorts of real-estate-specific companies that give you these tools or these automated email tools or client-relationship management tools, whatever your CRM can do this, just put them in an automation. You can probably even do this just in Zapier and a Gmail address, so you don't even need to automate it. [15:08.4]
However you do it, put them in an automation and after the initial follow-up kind of drops off, so whatever your thing is—let's say, you really go after them for a month and then things kind of quiet down or two months, whatever, however long it is for you—put them in an automation, so that the automation kicks in when your regular follow-up process kind of dies down and all you do is every single month for the rest of the year, or for 12 months or however long you want to do it, every single month, you are going to send this person, this person that opted in and they didn't put a house under contract, they didn't become a client, you didn't buy their house, they ghosted you, whatever it is.
For whatever reason, they did not become a deal, so you put them in an automation, you send them one email a month and the email says, Hey, have you sold your house yet? Your name. That's it. [16:05.4]
So, if your name is Bob, can I call you Bob? Right? I would send you an email and I would say, Hey Bob, have you sold your house yet? Dan Barrett. If you want to be real fancy, you can say like, Let me know. Dan Barrett. That's it. One email a month. That's it.
Here is the reality that so many people forget, which is that nobody, nobody, nobody, and I mean this—and, look, you know I love real estate investors. I love you. I work with real estate investors every single day. I have dedicated my professional life to making real estate investors more money. So, you know I like real estate investors. I'm going to play it straight with you—nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody wants to talk to a real estate investor. All right? This is not fun.
It's like going to the dentist. You can be the coolest dentist in the world. You're still a dentist, right? People have nightmares about the dentist. I'm sure most dentists are wonderful people. They’re there to help you, right? It doesn't matter. It's unpleasant. It's not a fun process. [17:09.6]
Oh, it's going to be so hard. There's all this paperwork I’ve got. I have to find the tax thing and maybe I'm embarrassed, and the house is disgusting and it's just a whole to-do. So, no matter how much I need to sell it, even if I'm driven to opt in and become a lead, I don't want to go through with it. Most people are very, very good at just rationalizing problems away and sweeping things under the rug and not dealing with it, and just kind of saying, I'll deal with it tomorrow. I'll deal with it tomorrow. I'll deal with it tomorrow, until before you know it, you're six months down the line. This is just human nature. It's just human nature.
The casual friendly follow up, which, by the way, is purely just a reminder to them that they said they were going to sell is a very powerful follow-up process and, I mean, the marginal cost of doing this is nothing. [18:08.0]
You pay for the email software, you put them in there, email them once a month. It costs you zero. If only one person, if only one person that you would have let drift away over the course of a year turns into a deal six months down the line, seven months down the line, eight months down the line, there you go, million percent ROI.
I will tell you that having talked to many, many real estate investors, many very successful real estate investors when they kind of become my clients, one of the things that I notice is that anywhere from 40 to 60 percent of their deals close six months after that lead opted in. Think about that, six months after the opt-in. So, they generated the lead, six months go by or more with nothing, and then they close, because it was then, that six month period, that was when they were ready. [19:04.5]
If we're being honest, it doesn't matter how good you are at sales. It doesn't matter how good you are at negotiation. It doesn't matter how good you are in investing. If someone isn't ready, you can't make them. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.
So, casual, friendly follow up once a month via email, Hey, did you sell your house yet? Question mark. That is a very powerful tool that I guarantee you will add at least one deal to your bottom line sometime in the future if you do it consistently.
That is going to do it for this episode of REI Marketing Nerds. As always, thank you for being here. I really, really appreciate it. You can get this episode and all our past episodes at REIMarketingNerds.com.
Hey, listen, if you are not a part of the REI Marketing Nerds Facebook group, I really want you in there because I'm posting the stuff in there every day. I'm going live. I'm doing trainings, post resources, all sorts of stuff, and there's a bunch of amazing real estate investors in there asking questions, sharing tips, sharing tricks. [20:11.7]
There is no shopping of deals. There's no like, Hey, blah, blah, blah. It is just pure content and value all the time. It's the best Facebook group on the internet for real estate investors interested in online marketing. So, if you go on Facebook and you type in “REI Marketing Nerds,” you will find that. Go ahead and request to join. We would love to have you.
As always, this is Daniel Barrett from AdWords Nerds and REIMarketingNerds.com signing off. Talk to you next week.
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