If you want to truly succeed as a real estate investor, you need to disregard the majority of the marketing advice being promoted by the “I can teach you to walk on water overnight” guru real estate investor crowd. If you really want to reach the real estate investing Promised Land, you’re going to have to quit worshiping at the altar of the guru investors. They’re very good at marketing themselves and their overpriced, ineffective real estate investing courses, but if you want to really launch your career into the stratosphere you’re going to have to find a better way.
I’m not saying the gurus completely miss the boat; they’re just going about it the wrong way. For instance, some of the guru investors have correctly identified direct mail as a way to reach motivated sellers. Unfortunately, in their quest to profit off of their naïve students, many of them have cut corners and broken a cardinal rule of marketing: Stand out from the crowd.
Imagine for a moment that you’re a distressed homeowner. You’re stuck with a mortgage you can’t afford or you own a home that needs repairs you can’t make. You walk to your mailbox to retrieve your mail and mixed in with a stack of bills, late notices, high rate credit card offers and solicitations from cash advance companies are two small postcards. Here’s what the first one says:
“Behind on your mortgage payment?
We can help!
Call 1-800-555-5555”
Not very inspiring, is it? How likely would you be to give that postcard more than a passing glance before pitching it in the trash? Now look at the second postcard.
“Is your banker offering to swing by your place with his pickup truck this weekend to help you move? If late payments or other problems have you between a rock and a hard place, we can help. And we can do it now. Call 1-800-555-5555 to find out how we can throw you a life jacket and save you from drowning. ”
If both of these postcards are fighting for your attention, which one is more likely to grab your attention? That’s right – the second one. Now for the million dollar question: Do you know why the second postcard would be more effective? In short, it’s more interesting, original, and compelling. Thousands of real estate investors are wasting their hard-earned money on marketing strategies that just don’t work. The concept of a postcard is effective, but the message is broken and needs to be replaced with something fresh, compelling, and attention grabbing.
I’m not suggesting that you should necessarily use the exact message that is on this postcard. What I’m saying is that you need to develop your own original message that will cut through the clutter and capture the attention of your prospect. If the message on your postcard is identical to the message on every other postcard that shows up in their mailbox it’s going to be ignored. You’ll be wasting your time and your money.
The same holds true when mailing letters to distressed homeowners. The average real estate investor seems to think that if John Q. Homeowner can’t make his payments and is facing foreclosure, that the instant your letter shows up in his mailbox, he’s going to drop to his knees, raise his hands in the air, and thank God for sending you his way.
Newsflash: That’s simply not going to happen. The average homeowner facing this situation typically handles it the way they do when they begin seeing signs that their marriage is headed south. They pretend there’s nothing wrong while they silently worry. Doing nothing is easier than taking action, and as long as they do nothing there’s a chance that things could miraculously turn around at the last second.
Your letter has to hit him (or her) between the eyes and grab their attention. It can’t be a generic one OF a million letters. Your piece also can’t be all about you, your experience, or how great you (think) you are. What it has to do is get their attention by making an emotional connection and showing them in no uncertain terms that there’s a benefit to them in calling you. In short, your letter is essentially a sales letter, but you can’t make them feel as if they’re being sold.
Can you do this? Can you effectively cut through the clutter and in the span of one or two pages demonstrate your expertise and your willingness to help them while making it worth their while? If you can, you’re ahead of all the other form-letters that fill their mailbox.
If you can’t, you need to find a way.
Either learn how to write an effective letter or postcard or hire someone who can. Your future as a real estate investor is riding on your ability to make a connection and demonstrate the benefits to them of working with you to solve their problems.
Get creative in the way you use direct mail in real estate investing. Otherwise you’ll be just as creatively challenged as the guru real estate investor you’ve been listening to. The only difference will that he or she will have all your money – and you’ll be no closer to closing a real estate deal. Don’t let that happen. Take control of your life and your future or you’ll be the best failed real estate investor at your next REIA meeting.
That would be a tragedy.