Category: Real Estate Investing Lead Generation

YouTube Real Estate Marketing Tricks: Video Optimization To Get Leads
YouTube Real Estate Marketing doesn’t have to be tough, but if you want it to generate leads, you’d better optimize… we’ll show you how.

Want to get great results from your YouTube real estate marketing? Read these tips to find out how to get leads with videos!

Why use YouTube for real estate marketing?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a YouTube real estate video is worth millions.

People can actually see you. They can hear you.

A video gives people a chance to build trust with you.

That trust is at the core of conversion strategy. Trust is what makes marketing work. People must have a certain amount of trust in order to make a purchase or fill out a form to get more info.

They have to believe in you.

That’s what makes video so great – it’s your chance to reach people, to connect with them, to inspire them to take action… to sell a house, to buy an investment… whatever you’ve got to offer, video can help you connect in a way that no other medium can do.

Think of it this way… a great sales video can keep selling for years, while you’re kicking back with your feet up.

So without further ado, here are the keys to getting great results from video marketing:

#1 – Do your keyword research.

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to research your keywords.

You must make sure that you’re optimizing for keywords that are actually being searched in your market.

People search on YouTube differently than they do in regular Google search. They often use different terms and slightly different phrases. So don’t assume that the keyword research you did months ago when you were thinking about optimizing your site is going to be enough for a good video marketing campaign.

Unfortunately, Google shut off the tool that told us directly what was being searched on YouTube… best we can see now is what they provide in their Display AdWords Planner – you’ll need a free Google account to use the tool.

Here’s what the Display Tool looks like:

When you’re using Display Planner, make sure to target only your local market to see your *local* search traffic… you probably don’t want or need leads from areas across the world. :) Want some suggestions of terms? Keep reading.

#2 – Use no more than 2 keywords per video

For search marketing purposes, it’s way better to make a lot of small videos on YouTube targeting many keywords than to make one long one.

Think about it… people are searching a specific term, so you want your video to be directly related to that specific term. Sure, you can optimize a generic video a bunch of times with a lot of terms… but that technique won’t get good results.

Here are a few places where keywords might help:
- Title
- Tags
- Description
- Channel name
- Playlist titles
- Playlist description
- Comment field
- YouTube hashtags
- Social media posts that link to YouTube
- Website
- Annotations
- Captions
- Content or script
- Thumbnails
- Graphics in video
- Channel art
- Channel icon
- Custom Bitly links
Remember, Google is very smart. They work incredibly hard to make sure that good results climb to the top of their searches… so if you concentrate on making really high-quality content and optimizing it, you’ll get great results from it.

Don’t try to do too much with one video… make a plan to create new videos often.

#3 – Focus on making a great YouTube Real Estate Channel

Yeah, I know… you wanna just make one video, then call it quits.

But seriously, don’t bother. Trying to make one video will make you nuts. You can’t say everything you need to say in 90 seconds unless you’re super focused on just one or two keywords.

Either prepare to make video marketing a big part of your business, or don’t do it at all.

If you’re gonna do video marketing on YouTube, you’ll want to set up a really great YouTube channel.

That’s the goal… the top of the mountain you’ll want to climb. High credibility, high trust, high views… high revenue. :)

Videos that are on a great channel go to the top of the rankings.

Don’t stress about creating a great channel – it’s not something that will happen overnight. It’s the same offline and online – your focus should be on building high-quality, educational content that helps people in your local market.

That’s a long-term activity for major wealth-building, not a short-term, get-rich-quick trick.

So organize yourself in the way that makes the most sense for your working style.

Can you make one video per week? In a year you’ll have 52 videos… that’s a good amount for a channel.

Need help making your videos?

Organize it as a project instead… plan to make 20-30 videos at once. It takes less time and money than you’d think.

You can totally do it yourself, or hire some help.

You’ll need 3 people to help you:
- A copywriter to help you script out your videos to make great content
- A videographer to help you film and edit your videos
- A search marketer to help you optimize your videos
That last piece is so important… there are so many examples of great quality videos that get no views, simply because they weren’t set up right from the beginning.

But like everything else, just optimizing on the video alone might not be enough to get it to the top of the search.

#4 – Surround Your Videos With Great Content

Here’s where you can really put your Carrot sites to use: embed your videos!

You might not want to put a video right on the top of your home page… we’ve found that those can lower your conversion rates. It’s important not to stuff videos any old spot… but to put them in the right places.

Put them into blog posts or pages that are optimized for the same keyword, and that will help Google (and the other search engines) realize the value of your video and serve it up to the right audience.

You can also send out videos as a part of a well-written press release, too – that will help increase your exposure and connect up your video with your keywords on many sites.

Just like a page, a video needs credibility coming from the outside… the more related places where your video appears, the better. It’s a great practice to embed your video on an optimized Carrot page, then focus on getting high-quality back links directly to that page… that will help increase your site’s ranking and reputation as well as your video at the same time.

#5 – Learn All You Can About Video Marketing

We’re gonna have a special guest for tomorrow’s Live MasterMind Call… and we’re gonna talk a bunch about video marketing, why real estate investors have been too shy to use it well, and what a huge set of opportunities there are gonna be coming up for investors who do the work of setting up a really great video marketing system for themselves.

So make sure you sign up and register here!

If you’re not already a member, sign up now to join Carrot… you’ll be glad you did.

Let us know if that helps… we’d love to answer any questions you’ve got. Happy Marketing! :)
September 23, 2014
Real Estate Investors, Content isn’t Everything… Here’s What Matters Most
Don’t treat your online marketing as just “content”… think of it like making your pitch on Shark Tank, again and again and again.

Even though I love content marketing, I really hate the word “content”.

It’s dumb. Makes it seem like just filler.

Crank up another blog post, stuff it in the queue, and onto the next one.

Here’s what matters most in business (and life) WAY more than just “content”: value.

You Have to Add Value

Otherwise, what’s the point? Why should someone work with you if you don’t add value?

Value is at the heart of every real estate transaction. Value is more than just money.
- It’s speed – how fast can you buy or sell?
- It’s service – will you take care of them?
- It’s integrity – will you give them a fair deal?
- It’s experience – can you remove stress and make it fun?
All these things help create the value that you bring to your transaction.

Are you describing them in your marketing?

Are you using your blog as a place to tell the stories of how you’ve helped sell a house fast in your area?

Telling those stories is a great way to add content that builds up your keyword ranking, but more importantly, it builds up your reputation. You’re creating your reputation as you conduct your business… and it’s up to you to tell the story.

You have to explain the value you bring to people. It’s not easy. In fact, it’s incredibly hard to articulate your value without sounding cheesy.

You want to tell the stories that make your audience the hero. We’re here to help real estate investors generate leads, but we take it much further than that.

We Want People to Tell Their Stories Better

We know that good storytelling skills matter a ton in the real estate business, not just for inbound lead generation, but for negotiation, team building, sales and relationship development.

If you can relate to people, no matter who they are in life, you can reach them through the right story… and if you want to do business with someone, your story must show the value you bring.

Your website is the perfect place to tell that story and share your value.

When you launch a Carrot website, it’s got a ton of great content already written into it… it’s got most of the most commonly searched keywords that people use, and our software automatically personalizes those pages with your market area.

But there’s one thing that needs to be added: Your STORY

Add in your testimonials – you should add in as many testimonials as you can because those provide important social proof.

Ideally, testimonials convey the value you bring – so a quote from a seller saying “You helped me sell my house in just 5 days and kept all your promises, I can’t thank you enough” is perfect.

If you don’t have the perfect quote, ask permission from folks who know you to use quotes like “A great person to do business with, highly recommended” – anything that will show that you add value.

Are you struggling to know how to add value?

When You Truly Know Your Audience, You Know What They Need

Remember, not every motivated seller is the same. Not everyone wants to sell their house fast – some need a smooth transition into a different living situation or just an urgent need for cash.

Not every real estate investor is the same, either.

That’s why it’s so important never to assume that your audience understands your business.

Use your blog as a platform to show off the value you provide to others.

That’s the secret to powerful inbound marketing: show your value, again and again.

Carrot members: join us this Wednesday for a great Live Coaching Call… register here.

If you’re not already using the Carrot System, check out the demo here… or just sign up now.
September 8, 2014
The #1 Skill Your Real Estate Marketing Should Include Right Now
Your real estate marketing plan should be based on a powerful story – like the ones told by Windell Campbell, a great teacher, and puppeteer. Our trainings can help you learn how. Don’t worry, you don’t need to like kids or puppets… we do, but it’s not a requirement. ;) You’ve just gotta be willing to learn with us.

Does your real estate marketing tell a story, or are you just advertising?

After all, stories are the most powerful tool of communication, in business and in life.

Humans communicate best through stories. How good are your storytelling skills?

Besides reading this post, what are you doing to develop those skills?

If you’re like most of our members, you’re constantly learning and developing your skills. Most of our members joined because they knew we’d give ’em a website that converted way higher than the typical real estate investor website, but they didn’t really understand our highest value: teaching skills.

Storytelling is one of the most powerful skills you can possess.

You already know that marketing is an insanely valuable skill. Marketing brings leads, and leads bring revenue. That’s obvious.

But here’s the thing that most people don’t get about marketing: it’s all about telling a great story.

STOP! Before going further, take some time to listen to how Max Maxwell Leverages Online Real Estate Marketing and Inspirational Storytelling to Close 1 in 4 Leads

Behind every great brand is a powerful story that most consumers never see. Companies like Nike, Apple, and Coca-Cola didn’t become household names because of their relentless pursuit of quality or their fantastic products – although those factors were certainly critical to their success.

Companies become known for their stories. A great brand story is behind every powerful piece of marketing you’ve ever seen. Every great ad, every flawless logo, every iconic image was all carefully planned to contribute to the way that consumers view that brand.

A powerful story actually creates the company’s identity, building up like thin coats of plaster, brushed on slowly, layer by layer to form a wall.

Think about how many times you’ve heard of Nike, Apple, or Coca-Cola – way too many to count, right?

Every time you heard that company’s name mentioned, it contributed to the story in your mind about that company.

Your brand’s story can be that powerful.

Sure, I know – you don’t have Coca-Cola’s marketing budget. But a powerful story travels, and it takes on a life of its own. A truly powerful story is one that can transform the lives of the people who hear it.

But think about it…
- Doesn’t it transform someone’s life to get rid of a property that has been plaguing them with problems?
- What’s it like for someone to finally get the burden of a pending foreclosure off of their back?
- What’s it like for someone to finally get through probate?
It’s a huge relief. It’s a life-changing experience. It is transformative.

Tell that story. Make your story connect people with your business.

Sure, we’ve done a lot of the hard work for you. When you launch one of our sites for Motivated Sellers, Cash Buyers and Private Lenders, or Rent to Own Tenants, you’re fully loaded with a ton of key components that help you tell visitors to your site a great story about your business.

But if you want to tell a truly powerful story, you’ve gotta get personal.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself when preparing to tell your most powerful story:
- What are the toughest problems facing people who are looking for help from my business?
- How can my business change people’s lives?
- How can my business impact my communities?
- Why am I the exact right person to help?
- What experience do I have that allows me to relate to the person I’m trying to reach?
Those are really tough questions, no doubt. We’ve wrestled with them ourselves while building this business.

There’s a whole lot of benefit to be had in crafting a true story-based content marketing strategy around your Carrot site.

We’re here to help you learn how to tell your best story. We have powerful tools and trainings that help you hone your skills and grow your business… like our weekly Live Coaching Call.

We weave in all kinds of powerful tricks, tips, and techniques into an interactive, lively discussion with some of the top real estate minds in the country.

Some of the top real estate investors in the country are Carrot members, too – they show up on those calls each week because they’re here with us to learn and improve – just like you.

Storytelling is the most important skill that you can learn with us. It’s one of those skills that is considered to be a “mastery” skill – like leadership, music, or golf. You never really “master” those skills – you just keep improving, practicing, and developing them.

Sports legends like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan (when he was still pro) never stopped working to improve their top skill. If you’re dead set on success in real estate, you need to tell great stories.

After all, every negotiation is kinda like a story, isn’t it?

Think about it… you’re trying to convince the person on the other side of the table to tip things in your favor, aren’t you?

You want to get the best possible price when you’re buying or selling, right?

That’s the story you’ve gotta know how to tell.

But that’s a little later in the process.

When someone is first visiting your website, they are trying to find reasons not to trust you.

You have to give them reasons to believe that you know what you’re doing, and that you can help them with their problem.

If they don’t see that you can solve their problem, they won’t turn into a lead. They’ll leave the page, and call your competitor.

Even if they are trying to solve the wrong problem, they have to see the solution they believe will work.

That’s the secret to our high conversion rates, folks… they establish credibility, and they build trust.

They tell a powerful story.

But if you want the best results out of your business, the skill you have to improve is your storytelling.

Use your Carrot real estate website as a platform to tell your most powerful story.

We’re here to help.

Join up on Wednesday for our weekly Live Coaching Call.

Or if you’re not already a member, get on board – join us now.
September 2, 2014
SEO for Real Estate Marketing | 5 Times When You Should NOT Use It
Trying to decide if SEO is a good strategy for marketing your real estate business? This post will help you.

SEO for real estate marketing can be a great source for lead generation, but there are some situations where it’s a terrible waste of time and money.

5 Times When You Should NOT Use SEO for Real Estate Marketing

Here’s when NOT to use SEO for Real Estate Marketing…

1. When you’re starting a brand new business

There’s just too much high-priority work to be done, and you should NOT be focusing on search engine optimization.

When you’re new to the business or setting up a brand new website, you should focus on driving traffic to the site via methods like Craigslist, PPC, direct mail, bandit signs, flyers… anything that can reach folks right now to bring you a lead today.

2. When you need leads fast

It takes many months for a new site to rank high on Google, so don’t expect leads from local search to pay your bills anytime soon. If you’re trying to rank high for an ultra-competitive term, it can take lots of time, money and effort before you see a big pay off.

SEO is always a long-term investment. The return on investment can be huge, but it’s never a fast source of leads. The fastest and cheapest source of leads that we’ve found so far is Craigslist.

Right now, our members are getting insanely great results from the Craigslist training that we recently launched… so if you’re already a Carrot Member wanting fast leads, access that Craigslist training here (and if you’re not already a member, sign up here).

3. When you don’t have the budget

Good SEO efforts require time from people who know their stuff. It’s complicated work.

If you’ve got the time and the passion to become an expert on SEO, we are happy to help you learn.

We’ve helped lots of folks learn how to generate leads from SEO with our real estate training, but you’ve gotta be willing to put in the time and energy to learn those new skills.

SEO services can be relatively cheap – starting at $5,000 per year – just one deal can pay for the whole year. We know lots of SEO companies out there charge way more than that, and they don’t deliver results.

But don’t hire an SEO service if you’re not financially ready yet…. do a few deals from other sources, and add SEO to your long-term marketing strategies when you’re ready.

4. When you can spend the money better elsewhere

Don’t do SEO because it seems cool, sexy or everyone else is doing it. Those aren’t good reasons.

SEO should be a key part of your business strategy, but it’s not critical to your success.

In fact, if your market is under 200,000 people, SEO might not be able to produce much ROI for you. If the search traffic isn’t there, you won’t get any leads.

Doing SEO for a term that’s not getting any searches is like fishing on a dry creek – if you’re having fun, great… just don’t expect to catch anything.

You know it already, but I’ll say it again: There are lots of ways to get traffic to your site.
- Sometimes a few hundred dollars worth of cheap signs can get quite a few leads into your business.
- Sometimes a few Craigslist ads are enough to bring in the next deal.
- Sometimes a good AdWords account is enough to bring in a consistent flow of leads.
- Sometimes all it takes is a flyer hanging up at the local laundromat. After all, if folks can’t afford to fix their washer and dryer, they might be thinking about selling their property.
5. When you’re just not ready

Don’t stress about SEO.

It’s not going anywhere. In fact, I’ve read that real estate related searches are increasing at 15X per year.

Chances are good that it will be a good strategy for you in the future, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for where you’re at today.

Carrot Members: Remember to join us for your weekly Coaching Calls… we’re looking forward to answering any questions you’ve got about real estate investing, lead generation, building traffic, inbound marketing, or any other topic that’s hurting you!

Also, watch past Coaching Calls… there are many calls that are SEO related.

We’re looking forward to helping you get unstuck so you can move forward in the way that’s best for your business, your market.
June 30, 2014
How to Create Custom Real Estate Reports for Lead Generation
InvestorCarrot websites include some pretty cool Free Reports that will help you generate leads, plus you can create unlimited reports of your own to offer, too! Click the picture to sign up for Carrot right now, or keep reading to find out more about how to get great results from your Report Opt-Ins.

Real estate marketing: should it be based on data or stories?

The answer: Both.

Reports are a great example. A good report is full of credible data, but it also tells a story. A great report builds credibility that helps you get better results in your future negotiations.

So how do you use data to tell a great story that helps you improve your credibility?

Just keep reading. ;)

This post will tell you about the awesome Free Reports that are included with our sites to help you generate leads and conversions, plus I’ll let you know a few awesome tricks and tips to get even better results in your local market.

First off, here’s what’s included in our sites:

Motivated Seller Free Reports In Your System
- Selling To A Real Estate Investor (already inside of our motivated seller websites)
- 5 Ways To Stop or Avoid Foreclosure (already inside of our motivated seller websites)
Free Investor Reports In Your System
- Passive Income Investing Report (already inside of our main company and cash buyer websites)
- Private Lending Report (already inside of our main company and cash buyer websites)
If you’re already an InvestorCarrot Member, you can:

Brand and Customize Your Free Reports

If you want to edit / brand these free reports you can click here to gain access to the Microsoft Word document versions of these reports.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: These reports are the property of Carrot and are only for the use of active / paying InvestorCarrot members. As long as you’re an active InvestorCarrot member you can use these all you want! If you’re not an active InvestorCarrot member and would like to use our free reports, see our pricing and plans and sign up for a plan that’s right for you. All Copyright violators will be pursued.

Once you brand them…
1. “Save As PDF” to save them as a pdf
2. Upload them to your website(s) via the Media tab in your website dashboard
3. Update the download link on the download page on your website to point to this new PDF file
4. Save, and you’re done!
If you need help just hit us up on support or LIVE chat! We’re here for ya!

If you’re looking for an innovative way to stand out in your market, you should:

Create High-Value Free Reports for Your Market

You don’t even have to write these reports yourself.

Most of the time you can find a decent blogger in your local marketplace who is willing to work for cheap… plus, they might even be a good partner to help you drive traffic and build your lists. You never know til you look, right?

But what kind of Free Reports should you create?

I’ll let you know a few ideas for content that will help you reach your target audience.

Start with the end in mind. Who are you trying to reach?

1. Motivated Sellers.

What types of situations can you help solve?

There are countless examples of reports out there on what folks facing foreclosure, divorce, probate can do… so create one that’s specific to your market!

Localize it… check out the rules and regs in your market. Interview a couple of brokers, attorneys, title company reps, folks from local non-profits… shoot, interview anyone who might be able to add a few great local tips and resources for folks with distressed properties and make sure to cite ’em as a source. It will help boost your credibility (and grow your referral network) to include other local experts as sources in your report.

What does someone in your area need to know about the difficulties of selling in your market? Show sellers what you do for them in a transaction. If you can eliminate their hassles, you’ll earn their business.

Make sure your report has a compelling title, like “What _______ Area Sellers MUST Know Before Selling Property in 2014” that reflects the value you’re offering within that report.

If your report has a lot of great value within it, you’ll just have to list out the contents on a Lead Page and you’ll get great conversions from it. Just focus on creating high value with information that Motivated Sellers in your market should know, and you’ll end up with a great Free Report that will generate good leads for your business when you market it (more on that in a second).

2. Real Estate Buyers, Investors, and Lenders.

Can you provide deep insight and analysis for folks in your market who are investing in real estate?

(Or can you hire a good writer and analyst?)

If you can compile local market data, broken down by property type, from a few sources and show the different rates of return that local investors and real estate owners have been able to earn, chances are good you’re well on the way to delivering a very valuable report for your local real estate market.

Investors love data – and a Free Report is a great way to judge a potential partner for future business. After all, opting into a form is a pretty low-risk proposition… so if you can deliver even a decent basic overview of the past 5 years within your market, and perhaps some quotes from local media, brokers, and other sources of information… you’ll have high-quality content to offer.

And that’s the big goal here, folks… it’s all about high-quality content.

Our sites deliver some great Free Reports that you can customize and brand with your information, plus easy-to-implement Lead Pages to accompany each report. That’s included with every plan we offer.

But the best part – you can create unlimited amounts of Free Reports and Lead Pages on each site.

So get out there and start writing!

Or get ready to hire someone who can help you deliver a great Local Market Report.

Use Great Data and Tell Powerful Stories

If you can use data and stories to show folks how you’ll solve their real estate problems, you will win.

In this week’s Coaching Call, I’m going to let you show you exactly how easy this is to do… plus, I’ll show you some easy and free sources of data on your local market that you can use to start building an awesome, totally unique Free Report for your market…. and you’ll get a ton of great ideas that you can start implementing for your business right away.

I’ll even tell you how to turn your reports into Press Releases that get picked up by the local media… I’ve done it before for clients, and it’s the same techniques that have gotten me and my clients interviewed on the radio, by newspaper reporters, and filmed on television.

There is simply no better advertisement for your business than getting covered by the local media… the best part is that it’s totally free!

Much like our weekly Coaching calls… they’re free for our Members, at least.

So sign up for that call right now – I’m looking forward to telling you all about how to add some serious value to your business (and bottom line).

And if you’re not already a member… sign up now!
June 9, 2014
Video Marketing For Real Estate Investor Websites: Good Idea or Bad?
Video marketing can generate huge traffic and great conversions, or… it can suck the life right out of your message.

Welcome to another edition of the Carrot Test Kitchen… where we break down our recipes and show you how to create insanely great lead generation sites for your real estate business.

Today’s post will tell you how to set up a great, low-cost video marketing campaign that (if it’s done right) can really help move your business forward.

Fortunately, it’s really easy to add video to your InvestorCarrot site… and to get some great benefits from Google’s traffic at the same time.

In this post I’ll show you how to add video to your InvestorCarrot sites, plus give you a great example of a video to watch right now… and tell you what *not* to do.

First, why does video marketing matter to real estate investors?

Video marketing is particularly important for real estate investors, because when you use it properly, it can really help to grow your business.

Think of your video like an automated salesperson for your business… once you record that video, it can be played again and again to anyone who is looking for your services, day or night, on weekends and holidays… without the bother of an interrupting phone call, while eliminating the hassle of having to say the same thing again and again.

A great video is more than just a commercial for your business – it builds trust for a great beginning to your relationship with a new client.

A great YouTube marketing video sets the stage for negotiations by showing off your credibility and describing how you do business.

A truly great marketing video helps the viewer to trust you, like you, and want to do business with you.

On the flip side, a bad video can really turn people off.

If you’re showing your potential clients a cheesy video that’s heavily scripted with obvious sales language, loaded with stock photography and drowning in clip art, what are they supposed to think about you and your business?

To put it another way…

If you never show someone your own voice and use your own face, how are they supposed to trust you?

See, here’s where real estate investment is very different from a household product that’s advertised on the television.

If you’re selling something like shampoo or root beer, you don’t have to convince the consumer that you’re trustworthy or credible… just that the shampoo will bring you that silky, luxurious hair you’ve been wanting, or that this root beer will deliver more delicious flavor than any root beer they’ve ever had.

When you’re selling products, trust can really help… but it’s not essential.

But when you’re trying to convince someone to let you buy their property or sell them an investment, trust is utterly critical. It’s everything. Without trust, you don’t have a deal.

And yet I see so many real estate investment companies using these terrible little $5 videos they bought online, probably late at night after a few drinks… and now they’re probably wondering why no one is watching and why their business isn’t growing.

Would you want a $5 salesperson to represent your business?

In most big companies, the top salesperson is the second-highest-paid in the company… right after the CEO.

Sales is the life blood of businesses. Without sales, there is no revenue, and without revenue, your company will die.

Exactly why would you trust a $5 sales video with the life blood of your business?

Don’t get me wrong… I don’t think you need to spend a ton of money on making a video in order for it to be effective.

In fact, we’ve found that most real estate customers are turned off by flashy marketing loaded with gimmicks. They really are just looking for a credible, trustworthy person to help them take care of business.

You really don’t need to do more than just talk into a webcam to make a decent sales video.

These few things will help you to make a great video marketing piece:
- High quality audio (i.e. a great microphone)
- High quality video (i.e. a decent camera)
- Good lighting
- Nice setting
- Clean editing
You can find someone in most cities who already has the equipment and pay them for a few hours of help… generally under $500 can get you a handful of pretty good short videos.

If you’ve got the budget you should definitely be hiring great people to make your videos even better.

Want to see an example of a decent low-cost marketing video?

Check this out:

They’ve got almost 10,000 views on that video, wow!

Their other video has a more reasonable view count – 352.

What I like about this couple is that they’re showing off themselves – sure, they’ve dressed up to film the video and put on their best smiles, but it’s genuine and authentic.

Side note – I checked out their site, and there are a lot of reasons their site won’t get very many conversions… it’s got good credibility, but it makes it hard for folks to sign up for the offer… those folks need to Watch the InvestorCarrot Demo and make the switch! Any of our affiliates know these folks and want to sign them up? :~)

But they did the smart thing of actually using the description on YouTube to pull traffic over to their site by using links and a lot of the most commonly used search terms. Since Google owns YouTube, the videos will show up at the top of the search (even if their site isn’t ranked that high), so this can be a great way to get traffic to your site

Plus, it looks like they got a few of their friends to comment and share the video (which helps to boost credibility/

Those are all really great video marketing practices!

Now let me show you how easy it is to add a video to your InvestorCarrot site from YouTube.

First, get the video up on YouTube and copy the link to the video.

In another window, open up the post or page where you want to embed the video.

Then click the snazzy little “Embed Video” button.

This nifty little window will pop up, and just paste the YouTube (or Vimeo) link into the form.

That’s it! How simple was that?

If you’ve got any questions: A full tutorial is available for Carrot Members here.

And if you’re not already a Carrot Member, check out the reasons you should be! Watch our Demo Video right now!
April 21, 2014
How Real Estate Investors Can Dominate Local Search to get 58.2% of Motivated Seller Traffic

Want to dominate your local market?

We’re getting ready to launch our Market Domination Plan, so in today’s post we want to share a few of the strategies already being used by top investors around the country to get the majority of Motivated Seller leads in their local markets to them (instead of their competitors).

Of course, these strategies can be used to get leads for Cash Buyers, Private Lenders, Rent-to-Own Tenants, or other target audiences, but Motivated Sellers are the hardest – at least right now.

As you probably know, inventory is a big challenge around the country. Most investors I talk to are having a pretty easy time growing their lists… as long as they have inventory. The ones who don’t have properties to sell are struggling to catch up.

Why is it so tough to get inventory?

In most markets, it’s not too hard to sell a property. There are tons of investors and retail buyers competing for a limited amount of homes.

Pure and simple: in lots of US markets, demand is high and supply is low.

But don’t get me wrong – there is still an incredible amount of opportunity out there. It’s just getting tougher every day to capture it in some of the biggest markets.

That’s why we came up with the Market Domination Plan – to help those investors who are already succeeding and are ready for growth.

Market domination starts with capturing organic search traffic.

Like it shows in the chart below, 91.5% of search traffic comes from page 1.

SEO for real estate investors is really important for your business! We can help you out. If you’re looking to move up in your rankings, we can help – just click the image above to find out more about our SEO service.

Now, keep in mind that the data is from thousands of websites, not just real estate ones… we’ve found there’s actually some great traffic that comes in off of positions 2 and 3, not just #1 – but really, when we’re taking on SEO clients our goal is to get within the top 5 positions for our targeted keywords.

We only start with 3 keywords, because it doesn’t make sense to over-optimize a site for too many keywords – plus it just takes too long to see results when you’re diluting your efforts all over the place.

“We have 2 new ones under contract probably 5 waiting in seller signatures. Doing ppc under our carrot site and your SEO do we should continue to get more and more leads.” Guillermo Coronado

Most investors don’t achieve any big share of the market because they’re diluting their efforts all over the place… great marketing really requires not only a strategic plan, but a great deal of focus and commitment to implement the plan.

Most folks give up on a method before it even has a chance to work… or they fail to do the right research before they start implementing. Either mistake can crush the ROI right out of a great campaign.

But let’s assume that you’ve already ranked your site high on all the major terms… is that enough to crush out the competition?

Nope, sorry…. you’ve got to occupy the prime real estate from more than just one site if you’re going to dominate that market – and shut out other investors from grabbing the leads.

Here’s what that looks like:

Cyndy is generating hundreds of leads with her Carrot sites… click that image to go see Trevor’s deep-dive Case Study to learn what she’s doing to dominate her market

As you can see from that image above, on one of Cyndy’s search terms in her market, she’s ranked in 4 out of the 5 top slots.

Two of those are YouTube videos she’s made and ranked, and another one is a Facebook page.

Plus she’s also operating 8 other websites that are ranking well in her market.

(Sidenote: Cyndy’s converting those over to InvestorCarrot now, because she tests everything… and she found out that her InvestorCarrot site was converting much better than all the other sites she’d spent a ton of time on…. if you don’t have an InvestorCarrot site yet, you can launch a new site in just a few minutes <– go see for yourself right now).

How did this successful real estate investor swarm her market?

Cyndy was smart and she implemented a ton of great strategies to capture online traffic from lots of sources, including Google, YouTube, Facebook and more.

We tell you all you need to know to get great results in our powerful real estate lead generation training program, and in our new Craigslist training program we’ve included great info (along with ads and much more) about the Market Swarm Strategy that Cyndy designed and has been using so well to get results in her market.

Cyndy also uses other methods, like direct mail and signs… as a smart investor, she’s working on nurturing her leads from a lot of different directions, and doing a lot of great marketing.

Great real estate marketing like this takes a lot of time, energy and commitment.

I really admire Cyndy for taking such a strategic approach – and her willingness to share with other investors to help them learn!

How Real Estate Investors Can Dominate Local Search in 3 Steps

Step 1:

Get signed up for InvestorCarrot, launch a Motivated Seller site, learn all about SEO, and rank high.

Step 2:

Drive traffic to your site by posting good content on YouTube, Facebook, Craigslist and other sites.

Step 3:

Create awesome stories and reports to get media attention along with great links.

(Sorry folks, I didn’t say it was gonna be easy… just that it was gonna be 3 steps to Market Domination).

In all seriousness, it’s a ton of work to implement a great content marketing strategy.

But the payoff is huge.

I’ve been doing a ton of research into the search traffic, competition, and PPC costs around the country on behalf of our clients… plus I’ve created a really cool report comparing the top 150+ metro regions around the country.

In fact, I created a unique way to measure each market called the CarrotScore… and I’ve also found the Top 20 Most Overlooked Markets (according to huge amounts of Google’s data that I extracted and crunched across 170 spreadsheets – this report took me weeks of hard work).

I can tell you firsthand that most of the major markets in the US are extremely competitive… people are investing loads of money to get the leads that are coming in from local search.

Some of our clients (like Cyndy) are totally into doing all the hard work to create this stuff from scratch, and we love it… being able to offer up her strategies and Craigslist program has already helped a bunch of our customers generate lots of leads:

“We put up 3 or 4 Craigslist ads right after we got the first part of the P2P program, and we’ve been slammed! We’ve gotten so many leads this week – 15 rent-to-own, 36 new buyers, and a bunch of motivated sellers too!” – Michael Mackay

But some of the best real estate coaches out there will tell you that you shouldn’t be doing so much of your own marketing work… that you need to be focusing on honing your negotiation and acquisition skills, not spending your time implementing your SEO.

We’d love to help you dominate your market… so get started with our SEO program now!

If you’re a Carrot member, join us for our weekly webinar – we’re gonna dive in deep to the Market Domination Strategy, and I’ll show you a special sneak peek at the in-depth research I’ve been doing.

March 16, 2014
Why The “2-Step Opt-In Process” Increases Conversions and Lead Quality By Up To 46% On Real Estate Investor Websites

Welcome to another edition of the Carrot Test Kitchen… where we break down our recipes and show you how to create insanely great lead generation sites for your real estate business.

Our sites get insanely high conversion rates… you just have to customize them to your business and your local market, then send traffic to them! (Don’t worry, we’ll show you how – it’s easier than you think. :)

(Of course, this stuff is baked right into our sites, and our prices are so low that it’s impossible to do it cheaper yourself… if you’re not already a member, head over and check out our demo right now).

Today we’re gonna show ya the exact trick that improved conversions by 46% right when we started implementing it years ago.

It’s so simple that once you learn it, you get it… in fact, I bet you’ve seen versions of it used before. While we didn’t invent it, we’re perfecting it for real estate investors.

It’s called the 2 Step Opt-In Process, and I’ll tell you how it works and what you need to know to make money from it.

The first step of the opt-in process happens on the Lead Page – there are many lead pages built into every InvestorCarrot website, and you can create unlimited additional Lead Pages. It’s super cool.

Step 1: Research Shows A Form With 4 Or Fewer Opt-In Fields Increases Opt-Ins On The Front End

Below is an example of a lead page on a Cash Buyer site on the InvestorCarrot system. It’s a great landing page for advertisements on Craiglist, Backpage, Zillow, Google, Adroll or many other sites and converts consistently high across our member’s sites too. :

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: All of the content on our websites are 100% Copyright protected and owned by our company. Only active paying InvestorCarrot members can use the content on our websites. If we find people copying our content off of our customer’s websites or from our images on this page, we will pursue violators for copyright infringement.

As you can see, there are only a few quick questions to answer – name, email, phone and type of investor.

Lots of testing has shown that 3-4 form fields are ideal for conversions – any more or less actually drops the rate of performance. This graph from HubSpot’s research on over 70,000 forms shows why 3 is the magic number for conversions:

Want to Increase Your Leads? Make your first opt in form have 4 or fewer fields. – Source for Graph: HubSpot

We’ve tested the number of things our forms ask for on the first opt in box for both buyers and sellers… and once you start to get past 3-4 on your first form… your conversion rates go way down.

You’ll see lots of real estate investor websites that are killing their conversions by asking for way too much information on the first chance.

Like this one…

Too Many Fields Kills Conversion: This particular form we found on a random real estate investor motivated seller website has 13 fields. How many does yours have?

Can you imagine being a motivated seller who really needs to sell… but just isn’t ready to give up all of your info quite yet on this first form… yet almost every field on that form is required for you to get to the next step?

However, when a motivated seller does submit this form… you know that they’re VERY QUALIFIED.

Long forms are terrible for conversion… but increase the quality of your leads.

So we melded the two into…

Step 2: The Best Of Both Worlds – High Conversions AND Qualified Leads

A short-form upfront to increase lead conversion… and a long-form on the second step to increase your lead quality.

To get the highest conversion and the most qualified leads (the ultimate goal), the key in the 2-step opt-in process is a short and sweet “Step 1” form… that leads to a longer more qualifying “Step 2” form.

Once the buyer (or seller) completes the first form… the shorter form, he or she will see a more detailed Buyer Profile to fill out before seeing the properties. This Buyer Profile Form further qualifies the buyers. The same goes on our motivated seller websites… we have a short form upfront that gets the lead… then a longer form on the back that qualifies the lead further:

Hidden Elements: There are many “under the radar” strategies being used on this form that you probably don’t even notice that further qualify the lead and increase conversions. For instance, notice that we’ve strategically made some fields “required” and some not required. Why? We reveal this kind of deep strategy to our InvestorCarrot members on our weekly LIVE coaching calls with our CEO Trevor. Not a member? Join :-)

COPYRIGHT NOTE: Again, please be creative and write your own content. The content above is owned and written by InvestorCarrot… and only available for use by our active paying members. We actively monitor the internet to find people infringing on our copyright and pursue action. We have to do this to protect our active members and the investment they and we have made. If you’d like to leverage our system, our content, see our pricing and plans and come aboard, we’d love to have ya!

Do People Actually Fill Out A Form This Long You Ask?

We get pushback from many InvestorCarrot members who want to change this step 2 form because they think it asks for too much info and the buyers and sellers won’t fill it out.

Our answer to that is this… we’ve tested it… and it works.

Here’s real-life data to prove the way we’ve set up OUR Step 2 forms (every word and every line on our forms and the other words on the page that the forms sit on… which isn’t shown above… are crafted and tested to increase conversions… and your leads).

93% Of Cash Buyers Filled Out The “Step 2” Form

93% of Buyers Filled Out The Step 2 Form: In this screenshot on an Carrot members cash buyer website 93% of every cash buyer who filled out the first form went on to also fill out the 2nd longer form. It’s no accident… the way we craft our 2 step opt-in process plain works.

99% Of Motivated Sellers Filled Out The “Step 2” Form

99% Of Motivated Sellers Filled It Out: It works even better with motivated sellers.

Again, it’s not just the fact of having 2 steps that’ll optimize your conversions and quality of your leads… it’s what you ask for on your forms and how you frame that “Step 2” form on your page that makes it work.

If you’re an InvestorCarrot member, rest assured… this is already built right into all of your websites (your seller websites, cash buyer, rent to own, apartment rental, main company, etc.).

Years ago, we found that the 2-Step Opt-In Process improved conversions by 46%… with dramatically improved lead quality.

We’ve been using 2-Step Opt-Ins on all of our sites ever since.

If you’re trying to build a real estate investing website from scratch to capture seller and buyer leads for your real estate investment business, you’re probably missing a few other key aspects of the formula that allows us to get insanely high lead capture rates for our members.

Want to just leverage our research and our platform and save time and money?

Join InvestorCarrot below… all of our websites come pre-built with the “2 Step Opt-In Process”.

Want to see what else Carrot’s sites can do? Watch the demo now!

Are you a paying Carrot Member wanting to improve your marketing results?

Join our Live Coaching Call <– click<<<<<<

Each week we answer specific questions from our members to help them solve their toughest marketing challenges.

Space is limited, so sign up now! It’s free for Carrot members.

If you’re not already a Carrot Member, joining is easy <—– Click that now to get started!

March 9, 2014
[Real Estate Heat Map Results] Where Are Sellers Clicking On Your Real Estate Website

This article is the first in our Carrot Test Kitchen series – it’s a series of posts that help you to dissect the secret recipes we use to generate thousands of leads for real estate agents and investors across thousands of websites around the USA.

Ever heard of “real estate heat maps”? We’ll show you how motivated sellers interact with your website and how to make your website more effective…

Are you putting lots of effort into building a high-converting real estate website to pull in buyers, sellers or investors… but not getting the results you want?

There are two main problems that we often see on real estate sites:

1)   The site is getting no visitors, and

2)   The site’s visitors aren’t submitting their information.

The first problem is usually solved with SEO content when:

1)   The site doesn’t have good content,

2)   The content is not optimized to reach the search terms that people in the local market are actually using, or

3)   The site’s competitors are ranking higher in a search.

There are quite a lot of other tricks to boost traffic to your site, and we’ll be talking about that again real soon…. But today, I want to help you out with the second main problem we see:

What are people doing on your real estate website?

It’s critical that the design of your site is set up to actually convert visitors to leads.

Although it’s utterly crucial, conversions are often overlooked when average people are putting together their websites. Too often they hire designers who are obsessed with aesthetics… rather than results.

Those folks need to quit calling themselves marketing experts… because they’re artists. Most art doesn’t sell. It hangs there, looking pretty… but it’s not selling your business.

Are you trying to create art, or are you trying to get real estate leads?

Listen, I get in this argument with designers a lot… so please don’t send me a bunch of angry emails about how design matters… I know it matters. It’s just that it doesn’t matter if it’s pretty… it matters if it works. Like with my accountant – I don’t care if my accountant is pretty, I care about what happens if I get audited.

When you’re setting up your real estate site, it’s not how it looks… it’s how it works.

That’s the really cool thing about real estate heat maps – one of the many tools that we use at Carrot to test out our theories of web design… because we don’t even trust ourselves – we want to know that our system is built on proven data about what works before we commit your hard-earned cash – and more importantly before you shift the marketing of your business to our system. We know your business is super important to you… just like ours is to us.

So what’s a real estate heat map anyway, and how can you use it to generate more leads online???

Back to the point, thanks… in this context, a heat map is a generated picture of where visitors to the website move their mouse and where they click on the page.

Below I’m gonna put a few examples of a heat map that we generated for a user’s site, and give you a few key points on what works so well on this design.

Brittany sent us a quick email after watching one of our webinars, asking for help getting more leads… we were able to double her conversion rate with just a couple of simple changes that I’ll get to soon.

Check out these heat maps (the site is greyed out, with little points of light showing where people have lingered with their mouse or clicked – the “hotter” the click spot, the more often it’s clicked).

What did you notice on that heatmap?

See all of the bright spots? The Orange and Yellow spots are where a lot of people click… indicating things that the motivated sellers felt were really important.

…94% of clicks happen on the top of the page…

First off, 94% of clicks happen on the top of the page. The vast majority of web visitors to any given site don’t bother to scroll down – in fact, they make the decision to stay or go on to another site within 2.3 seconds.

Side note: That statistic is valid across websites in general – on our investment sites, we tend to get about 8 seconds per page on average – 4 times more engagement than average, but still a lightning-fast choice to stay or go. You only have microseconds to reach your target audience – just another reason that your content and design matter so much.

There are a few great lessons to learn right away from this click map….

1)   People are clicking in many spots. The clicks aren’t just happening in one spot… visitors to this real estate website are clicking through to find information that answers their questions. The site is designed to appeal to a specific audience (sellers), so it’s validating to know that different visitors to the site are finding what they’re looking for on the site – and then submitting their information.

2)   Titles matter a lot. Check out the title of the top menus – these titles are designed to appeal directly to people who need to sell. “We buy houses in Baltimore”, “Get A Cash Offer”, “Sell My House Fast” and a contact form right on the front page that asks people to put in their address, phone, and email first thing.

3)   Customers want to know about the company before they submit their info. Check out how red the spot over the testimonials is – not only are people clicking a lot on that page, but they’re thumbing through the testimonial mini-display on the bottom right of the page. Testimonials are a huge way to create credibility for your business… more on that in a minute.

Where is your credibility on your own real estate website?

It’s a really common problem that hurts a ton of great real estate agents and investors… when people get to the site they need to have a compelling reason to give over their personal information. Think about it… real estate is the largest investment most people ever make in their lives. There’s no piece of real estate more intimate than someone’s home.

And yet…

So many real estate sites don’t build trust or credibility.

In fact, there are 3 key factors that I wanna mention that are critical to successfully designing a site that converts – and I’ll tell you how we’ve used them to design the Carrot sites like this example that are generating great leads.

Credibility, Content, and Contact

Check out this graphic – I’ve broken down the links on the page into numbers, so you can see the percentage of page visitors that clicked on each link or form.

Even more great lessons here…

As you can see, 33% of the clicks are for Credibility, 24% is on the Content (which is written to develop trust and credibility while reducing the fear and anxiety that most people who need to sell now are feeling), and 43% of the clicks on the home page are actually converting – they’re contacting members using the forms.

Now, keep in mind that the percentages are recording just clicks on the home page – a lot of other conversions happen on the lead pages that we’ve optimized for the local market. That means that people are most often giving their info over to get a free report or another valuable tool… 43% of the clicks on the home page isn’t always the main source of leads. It just depends on how the site is being promoted, and where the majority of traffic is directed.

I really want to emphasize that the mix of those 3 factors is critical to a successful lead generation site.

Content pulls people through search engine traffic, but it has to create Credibility once people arrive… or they just won’t Contact you.

BONUS: 1 Minute Tweak That Doubled The Conversion Rate To Leads

One more thing… I promised that I’d tell you the simple fix that we did on this page that doubled conversions… it’s so crazy simple that we were totally surprised that it worked so well.

We increased the size of the bar that says “Click to Continue” on the opt-in form and changed the color to Orange.

Yup, that’s it.

When this Carrot member got in touch, her site was converting well… but she’d made the size of the Continue button pretty small and black… so we ran a split test – half of the visitors to the site saw the small button, and the other half saw the larger button (we also changed the color to yellow).

In just one month of running the test, visitors to the large-button site submitted their info twice as much as those who saw the small button. Wow!

Even after doing this stuff for years, it’s crazy to see what a big difference such a small change can make.

That’s why we’re constantly testing different sites. We love to learn the nitty-gritty details that make all the difference… we don’t rely upon assumptions, and we certainly don’t make our websites to be pretty – although we do think they look nice. Most important – we design them to be effective.

For marketing folks who love data, real estate heat maps are a fantastic tool.

This Is All Built Into Your Carrot Websites Already!

The beauty with everything we walked through in this post is that everything is already baked right into your Carrot websites. We’re constantly running tests with our members and making tweaks to improve how well our system works for you.

We get paid up to $6,000/mo by large companies to do this same kind of work for them… but you get this as part of your Carrot membership for no extra cost. Why? Simply because we believe in results over anything else and are continually improving our system to help you get better results.

Keep An Eye Out For More Articles Like This!

We’ll be posting lots more info on the tips, tricks, and techniques we use to improve SEO, conversions, and get great results for Carrot customers… so if you’re not already getting our emails, make sure you sign up now! And if you want a website that truly generates leads for your business, go check out our different member plans to join Carrot and leverage our marketing knowledge and testing to generate more leads for your own real estate investing company.

Not An Carrot Member? Take A Tour Of Our System >>

January 20, 2014