Dramatically Improve Your REI Marketing...

Marketing is a scary thing. You can pour tons of money into marketing and not really see any results. To see a decent return on your investment, you really have to know exactly where to deploy your marketing dollars.

How do you know?

Good marketers have devised all sorts of methods. Here are a few:

See what is working for your competition – what do they do often?
Track results of your efforts – set up metrics
Conduct split tests – change one or two things between two ads and see which ‘pulls’ better when each is mailed to a separate list

There is a lot of work to be done if you want to market right. Chances are a lot of your first attempts are going to be busts until you figure out what works. That is why you want to be as efficient as possible with your marketing dollars.

Technology as an Efficiency Multiplier

One of the biggest reasons we turn to computing in our real estate investing business is because it makes us more efficient. Marketing is a perfect example of that.

callfire We have found a service that can really help real estate investors become more efficient – it’s called Call Fire.

Call Fire has lots of different ways to help your marketing. Take a look at all these (each subtitle is also a helpful link).

Voice Broadcast: Using this feature of Call Fire, you can send messages, alerts, reminders or notifications to your customers automatically. Here are some ways real estate investors can use the service:

Send information on a house you just put under contract to your Buyer’s List
Automatically remind tenants to pay their rent if they are becoming delinquent
Call all landlords in your area to see if they are tired/done and want to sell
Remind a buyer or seller the day of the closing that they need to sign and send back the purchase agreement or other responsibilities to get the deal done
Follow up with potential motivated sellers to coax them into selling

The nice thing is that when the calls are made, there can be a message to ‘Press 1’ for further action. So if someone on your buyer’s list is interested in a property you have, they can Press 1 to schedule a showing. Pressing ‘1’ can also direct them to a live assistant if that is something you want.

NOTE: Be careful with this when sending unsolicited calls to lots of prospects. The FTC has pretty strict Telemarketing rules. We here are Real Estate Mogul are much better investors than we are lawyers. Make sure you check out your call marketing campaigns with an attorney before you start calling. But once you do, upload your spreadsheet of numbers and your message. Call Fire does the rest.

Text Messaging: As you would imagine, the text messaging feature of Call Fire is very similar to the Voice Broadcast, but done over text. This feature would be very handy to alert buyers on your list that you have a house for sale, to send notifications to your renters or to remind people about closings.

Call Tracking: Quick – what form of advertising works best to find motivated sellers in your area?

Direct Mail
Bandit Signs
Websites
Others

Truth is, nobody really knows until they do some testing. That is what is so great about Call Tracking. Call Fire can give you a ton of different phone numbers to put on your ad campaigns. Then as the calls come in, Call Fire automatically tracks which calls came in as a result of which ads.

With these metrics, you can then tell which type of advertising is the most effective, and concentrate your advertising dollars in that area.

Don’t forget to keep on testing new ideas. A hot type of advertising can grow stale quickly as the market in your area changes. If you have one form of advertising, or one type of ad in a certain medium, test new ones against the champ – to see if there is a better way.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR): What is IVR you ask? You know when you call the power company to set up the utilities for your new investment property? You get that phone tree of ‘Press 1 for Billing, Press 2 for technical issues, etc..’ That is IVR.

Sounds annoying right? We think so too. But the technology would not be so widespread if it didn’t work. Using computer technology, companies have been able to dramatically lower their costs and still provide service to their customers.

With Call Fire’s IVR, you could set up a survey with buyers on your list, or new buyers joining your list. Call Fire would automatically be able to track what types of properties your buyers want. Then you can target that type of property in your advertising.

Cloud Call Center: Using old-fashioned methods for calling potential motivated sellers, buyers and other leads (lawyers, mortgage brokers, agents, etc.) is challenging. The person making those calls has to put up with endless ringing, answering machines and busy signals...ugh.

efficient The Cloud Call Center can really put your telemarketing and cold-calling efforts into overdrive. By using Call Fire’s technology, you can upload your spreadsheet of numbers to call, and Call Fire does the dialing for you. If the software reaches a number that is not a live person answering, it automatically ends the call.

You or your assistant (whoever is making the calls) will never have to listen to the rings and non-answers. If Call Fire gets an answering machine or voicemail, it can leave a message automatically. The person making the calls just has to handle the calls where a real person picks up.

Again we would like to remind you about FCC restrictions on cold calling, but there are ways you can market without being illegal.

Software and API Documentation: Have a website? Want it to have the same kind of functionality that Call Fire gives you? Call Fire provides that support. They can help program your website, for instance, to send text messages to all your renters or you buyer’s list, automatically.

Just contact them with your innovative new idea and they will help you bring it to life.

But I’m Not a Huge Corporation?

All of these ad campaigns sound like they would be used for a nationwide product roll out. But Call Fire can really be used in even the smallest ad campaigns. In fact, they really try to help small businesses more than the larger conglomerates.

You can see their pricing on this page. Just as with all facets of your marketing, you will probably want to try it on a small scale prior to running it in a large campaign. They have plans that go down to as little as:

5¢ a minute for voice of per text
No monthly basic fee
$3/month for each phone number
$25/month for help with keywords on your website

Call Fire can really help boost your marketing campaigns and track the results you need to focus on success.

We’re All Ears…

Have you had success with Call Fire. Tell us about it in the comments section below.

Market, Market, Market – You really are not a real estate investor. You are a marketer. You just chose real estate as your marketing niche. Your business is nothing without leads – go get them!

Try Lots of Marketing – From networking to bandit signs, try lots of different types. Many people have found that small tweaks in the marketing can produce dramatic improvements.

Track Your Marketing – Figure out what works best and pour your energy (and dollars) into it. Don’t waste your time or money with marketing that doesn’t produce results.

Always Keep Improving – Never be satisfied with your marketing. Even if one idea is working, keep looking for ways to do even better.