Editor’s Note: Dennis Fassett is a former corporate finance executive turned real estate investing “Cash Flow Mercenary.” Dennis specializes in single-family and multi-family cash flow properties and thoroughly enjoys assisting his fellow investors with their own strategies, including how to buy your first apartment building.
As an ongoing contributor to Mogul’s “Market News Updates,” Mr. Fassett provides us with his own unique, lively, and thought-provoking commentary on the timely industry news and events of today that are impacting our industry. And be sure to check out his other super-helpful Market News Updates. For now, enjoy...
From Dennis Fassett, Cash Flow Mercenary...
In my last couple of posts, I focused on marketing. First the transformation from real estate investor to marketer. And then the top 2 things to key in on to become a good marketer.
This week, I want to talk to you about 2 more things to put into practice while you’re ramping up your marketing.
1. Refine, Improve and Optimize
Last time I recommended that you focus on 1 technique for a number of weeks until you know if it works or if it doesn’t. And to make that decision based on data not emotion.
I want to add a new wrinkle to that – and suggest that while you’re marketing, and before you get traction, that you consider refining, improving and optimizing your marketing.
If you’re doing direct mail, this would take the shape of refining or improving your marketing pieces if you’re not getting a response.
This means making changes to your copy or formatting. It doesn’t mean starting all over with a new piece.
I know that when I create a new piece and start mailing, I often think of improvements I can make to the copy/message to more accurately target my prospect. So I implement those immediately.
Likewise, let’s say you’re doing Facebook ads... if you’re not getting a response to your ads, you may want to adjust your message.
That doesn’t mean changing your existing ads, however, because you haven’t gotten traction yet so you don’t know what works. In this case, you’d simply copy your existing ad, make the adjustments, and then test it while the first ad was turned off.
The general idea is to make small improvements to your message as you try to triangulate on what will work and start generating leads.
At some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, you’ll determine what works.
When that happens, it’s time to optimize. This means putting all of your eggs in that basket to generate leads.
The cool thing is, once you start getting calls, you can then ask your prospects why they called you.
This is some of the most valuable market intelligence and feedback that you can possibly get, because it comes straight from a prospect. I’ve made some very profitable changes to my marketing based solely on this type of feedback.
So don’t be shy. When you have a chatty prospect, ask!
2. Expand Your Marketing Effort
So once you’ve gone through the steps of identifying your target prospect, gotten into their head to figure out what they’d respond to and created marketing pieces and campaigns that have traction, that’s the time to start looking for additional marketing channels to attack.
Think about it…
What better time to expand your marketing efforts than when you have a channel that’s already producing results?
If you’ve done the initial steps properly, then this should just be a rinse and repeat type exercise. Take the same process you just used and keep turning the crank.
The goal when you’re just starting out should be to have 3 or 4 different ways to generate seller leads.
Taking a methodical approach to it also gives you the benefit of being able to plan your growth and bring on a VA, lead manager, acquisition manager and others as you have the volume to support them.
Exactly the opposite of what I did!
Before long you’ll have the scale that everyone dreams about – and you’ll be putting a lot of money in your pocket along the way.
I’m Listening…
Tell us about your direct mail marketing in the comments below.
Dennis Fassett
earned a BS in Economics and followed that up with an MBA in finance. After working and corporate finance and banking for several years, he started buying single family houses, and quickly built a very nice portfolio of cash flowing rentals. When the credit markets started to dry up and he couldn’t get any additional single family mortgages he shifted his focus to apartment buildings. He now has over $3 million in rental real estate. He manages most of it his self and still has a day job. Dennis has even created his own Private Equity fund to buy apartment buildings.