Category: Real Estate Marketing

Real Estate Marketing Online: How to Rule With SEO In Competitive Markets [Whiteboard]

Transcript

Are you operating in a really competitive market like a Houston or a Dallas or just a large market where there’s a lot of competition? Well, a lot of our clients are and every single week we do coaching calls on every Tuesday at 11 o’clock Pacific time for our care customers who are in content pro membership or above.

And one of the main questions we get on a really consistent basis is, “Man, I’m in a crazy, competitive market. There’s a lot of other investors, investing there, and there’s a lot of other care clients there. Can I crack through it and how do I do it?

The first answer is, “100% yes, you can.” That sounds like a political stump that I just did there, yes you can, yes you can do it, we have clients every single day who are going out there implementing the plan we lay out on these whiteboard strategy sketches, on our coaching calls in our training’s and in, through support and they follow these methods I’m going to show you to get that result. So I want you to know that it can be done, but you gotta follow this to a T and don’t come complaining to me if it doesn’t work if you don’t do these.

Online Real Estate Marketing in Competitive Markets

OK, so here we go. So if you’re in a competitive market I’m gonna be kind of walking you through, how do you get in that search result for search engine optimization but also just in search in general, to get those consistent stream of leads coming in to fuel your business because when you’re in a large market like that you really can go deep in that market like we’ve talked about in other whiteboard strategy sketches you can go deep, and you can focus just in that market for the first year and get 30-40-50-60 leads a month if you really hit it hard, okay? And that can fuel your entire business 2-4-5-6-10 deals a month if you do it right.

OK? So we want to get you here first of all, and we want to get you there through paid and through SEO in the competitive market. It’s going to be really hard to get really consistent, and a lot of momentum with just SEO okay? PPC is great, but you can stack on SEO to really add momentum over that year and this is kind of what we want to do.

We’ve done a whiteboard Strategy Sketch on this exact topic before go check out youtube, go to YouTube.com and then go look up InvestorCarrot, find our channel, the first thing you need to do is subscribe to our channel the second thing you need to do is go search our channel for a video I think it’s called the 90-day marketing plan or something like that where we layout in a lot more detail what you should do in the first 90 days in any market to have leads coming in and to set yourself in a really, really solid foundation, okay? But we’re gonna give an abbreviated version of that today.

So you’ve got here, and you’ve got twelve months out there and if you’re in a large market the first thing you need to do is we need to know that it’s going to take time, and we need to have a lot of patience, okay? Because with SEO, search engine optimization large market, it’s probably going to take you between 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 plus months to really get that momentum to get that ranking that’s going to get those leads to start trickling in and then start coming in more.

I was talking to one of our clients yesterday, Martin, out of Phoenix, Arizona and he’s flipping a lot of houses, okay? Ten plus houses a month and when we were talking, you know a year ago he joined Carrot a little over a year ago he was in a very competitive market, he wanted to get some more organic traffic coming in, he was turning on PPC as well, but we’re like, you know what? I think that there’s going to be a great chance for you to crack into this market from a website that had never ranked in the top three pages of the main seller search phrases to what it is today getting really consistent leads, and he’s in top one-two-three rankings in google for the most competitive search phrases in Phoenix, how did he do that? The first thing, like I said, locked, and then it’s gonna take time, and he knew it, and he knew that he was going to have to be patient okay?

Choosing Your Top Keywords

The second thing, is we need to go out there and choose the top keywords, so what are those top keywords that are likely going to give us 70% or more of that traffic? For house sellers it’s likely your cash for homes, sell my house fast, insert city, we buy houses, insert city, there are a few others, just go to carrot.com/seo-bible, and you can check it out, we have a full report there that goes through all of the top motivated house seller keyword phrases for SEO, and you can check it out. If you’re doing pay per click go to carrot.com/ppc-keywords and oncarrot.com/seo-bible, and you can find both those reports where we give you all of the keywords based on our research, so we solved that one for you.

Alright but the first thing that we always like to do in a market, in a really competitive market is we’ve got to get leads coming in right now okay? If we don’t have leads coming in right now and it’s gonna take us 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 months to start to get the real traffic to get traction and get deals in that market it becomes really, really discouraging, you know none of us want to be discouraged on our journey to grow our business or start our business so get pay per click going right away, okay?

PPC Marketing

In that first month to two months and it you don’t know how to do PPC we have a lot of resources on our blog you can check it out at oncarrot.com forward slash blog, or we have guides and resources and checklists on how to do it and we also talk about it all the time in our coaching calls if you are a carrot customer, and our three lead per day training okay also during that same time period during the first month to three months, in a competitive market the biggest thing we need to focus on is, how do you stand out from your competitors, how is it that your clients are going to chose you versus the 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 25, 30 other investors that are also vying for their business?

The people that sent them that direct-mail piece, the people that have the bandit signs up in their neighborhood the people that are in the same rankings, the same paid search results that you’re competing for. Even if you get there, even if you get right here, and you don’t take care of the credibility piece then you’re not gonna win the game, the other people are going to win the game okay? So focus on that as a core strategy, what is your credibility score?

Building Credibility

We have a CarrotCast episode, which is our weekly podcast, just go to CarrotCast.com, and you can go directly to the CarrotCast to find our episode on credibility score. You can even go to Google and Google Investor Carrot credibility score or CarrotCast credibility score, you’re going to find that episode where we walk you through everything you need to do to ramp up your credibility whether you’re an experienced investor or brand new and set yourself apart. Also, we did a CarrotCast episode on USP, unique selling proposition, which in a competitive market that is a requirement, you’ve gotta have a unique selling proposition why people should choose to work with you versus someone else. Tackle those in the first three months.

Get your PPC up and going, get leads coming in in the first several weeks get your first deal in the first month or two, and then during that time you’re setting up your SEO foundation the first one, two, three, four, five, six, seven months in a competitive market you’re likely going to get no leads so prepare for that mentally, okay?

Consistency Wins the Game

But after you start implementing that plan consistently over those months you’re gonna see a bump, and you’re gonna see another bump, and you’re gonna see another bump and around that 10 to 12,10 to 14 month time period if you’re implementing SEO well you’re gonna start to see those results coming possibly even quicker, okay? We have some clients in our concierge traffic service, which is a high-end service that we do internally for clients that are closing a lot of deals that are in really competitive markets that we were able to crack through the top five in the first five to six months and now we’re working on getting through that top three, but they’re already getting SEO leads in the first five to six months, that doesn’t always happen, but it can happen okay?

So, make sure you’ve got that locked down in your mindset now if we’re going to go through on the SEO side of things in a competitive market here’s what we need to do, we need to go after the top keywords that are going to give you 70% of the traffic, go to those resources I mentioned before to find those keywords on PPC and SEO, okay then what we’re going to do next is expand locations immediately in that first one to three months at location-specific landing pages, We’ve done other whiteboard videos on this topic, and we teach in detail in our training if you’re a carrot customer in our blog we have a lot of free resources as well.

So launch about ten location-specific landing pages and what those are, if you’re in Dallas, but there’s Ft. Worth and there’s a lot of other cities around Dallas that are suburbs or surrounding cities that you would also buy house in, launch pages on your Carrot site or another site that are specific to that location for your primary keywords, okay? For your primary keywords. And get at least ten of those up because those are going to be easier to rank for thank that primary large market of Dallas or Portland that big market and those rankings are going to happen faster so as you’re working on your SEO those are going to climb faster, your primary markets gonna climb a little bit slower, and they’re gonna rise together.

Build Citations

Next, do your citations, okay? Go to our blog, carrot.com/blog we talk about citations. If you’re a Carrot customer we can do your citations for you in our marketplace so check out our marketplace but this sets the foundation for credibility for your website in that local market right here, optimize for your company name plus the word reviews ‘cuz if you’re doing pay per click, or you’re getting traffic, or you’re doing direct mail we need to make sure that you rank well for your company name when people are trying to research you to see if you’re legit, and you never want to lose any deals because someone googles that and then don’t find any good things about you okay?

So optimize your about page for company, company plus your reviews then go get a Better Business Bureau Profile pay that three – four-hundred bucks, whatever it is, and then drive your clients over there to do reviews and optimize it as well for this and that going to help you close more deals.

Social Signals

Next are social signals. Get five, ten, fifteen people to google plus your homepage and Facebook like it over the first two months, backlinks if you’re going to do your own SEO just grab for three to five backlinks a month it’s not a big deal, and we teach how to do this in blog posts, we teach how to do this in our coaching calls, and our three lead per day training, if you’re a member, has it very, very detailed okay?

If you’re not a client we don’t sell that to the open public yet but we will if you’re watching this video after I publish this video just go to carrot.com/3lpd, don’t do it right now because nothing exists but if you’re doing this for several months, go to carrot.com/3lpd, you can check it out.

PPC to Guide SEO

Last, use PPC, use your pay per click data to guide you on your SEO that’s one of the biggest mistakes people make in competitive markets, is they use their pay per click and their SEO in silos, what we always like to do is launch your PPC campaigns, find out the ones that are converting into leads and turning into deals the most and then go after those keywords in your SEO so use PPC to guide you.

I’m gonna wrap this up, fast follow-up is huge in that market, if you’re in a competitive market you need to be calling your leads back within minutes or answer them live. We’ve talked to many clients that as soon as they switch to answering their calls live from pay per click and SEO they started closing more deals okay? It’s a big deal.

Answer them live and if you’re a Carrot customer turn on your text message notifications where you get a text message notification within seconds of a lead coming in, you’ll have a phone number there you can tap the phone number, call them up fast follow-up’s gonna help you cut through in that market. And then last, have an abundance mindset okay? One thing we always love to do is, there’s enough for everyone. There’s enough to go around for everyone; leads, deals, success, abundance, share that with people in your market, don’t try to hold all of your secrets in, the more you share, honestly the more comes back to you. So have that abundance mindset.

Real Estate Marketing in Competitive Markets

Alright, you’re in the competitive market, use that as a blessing, it’s a great thing for you, don’t say, “oh my gosh I’m in this crazy competitive market it’s going to be hard.” It will be work, but there are amazing, amazing things for you on the other side of it. When you have the patience and time locked in your brain you have the plan and you’re working with the right team. Alright? Go after it, tackle it, check out our other episodes of Carrotcast go to carrotcast.com and our other carrot whiteboard strategies sketches on our youtube channel just subscribe right here, here wherever the heck it is. Subscribe to our channel and you get updates as soon as they come out.

Learn more on the Carrot YouTube channel and start growing your business by leveraging the web as a real estate professional!

September 7, 2017
How To Build Local Real Estate Citations For Agents & Investors
Local real estate citations are an important local SEO ranking factor and an integral piece for your real estate marketing framework.

Along with other factors such as backlinks, local citations are one of the leading ranking factors for search engines to decide on the relevance of your website for local search results.

Basically, a real estate business that is consistently mentioned on other trusted and relevant websites achieve higher rankings in search results than a business that is never mentioned.

Obviously, ranking high for search results means that more potential leads will find your real estate website, which will have a positive impact on both on and offline traffic, branding, and conversions.

Use the following local real estate citations tips and add them to your Local SEO Tips for Your Real Estate Marketing playbook.

Doing this ONE SIMPLE THING may help push you over the edge and could very well be one of the most effective SEO things you do this spring.

Get an advantage with your Carrot site and learn how to drive quality traffic to your site.

What Are Local Real Estate Citations?

First, don’t confuse citations with links.

Remember, citations are just mentions of your name, address, and phone number. Google will increase your business’s relevance and strength within your specific city or region.

Yes, some of your business listings within the citation sites include a link to your website, but very few contribute to any Page Rank or “link juice”. Basically, you are claiming your digital footprint with Citations.

Moz explains local citations as:

Citations are defined as mentions of your business name and address on other webpages—even if there is no link to your website. An example of a citation might be an online yellow pages directory where your business is listed, but not linked to. Citations can also be found on local chamber of commerce pages, or on a local business association page that includes your business information, even if they are not linking at all to your website.

Citations are a key component of the ranking algorithms in Google and Bing. Other factors being equal, businesses with a greater number of citations will probably rank higher than businesses with fewer citations.

Citations from well-established and well-indexed portals (i.e., Superpages.com) help increase the degree of certainty the search engines have about your business’s contact information and categorization. To paraphrase former Arizona Cardinals’ coach Dennis Green, citations help search engines confirm that businesses “are who we thought they were!”

Google is always looking for websites that are real. Citations are one way to show Google that you’re a legit and real company.

Why Are Local Real Estate Citations So Important For SEO?

So, why are building citations for local SEO so important?

One reason is the vastly growing mobile search factor. According to a study done by Search Engine Land, 78% of local searches on mobile and 61% of local searches on laptops resulted in offline transactions.

Mobile devices (not counting tablets) account for over 56% of our member leads. There will continue to be a steady rise in consumer and company adoption of mobile devices.

It’s not a question anymore if mobile is important for real estate. It’s here and you MUST pay attention to it.

Another reason: Citations Correlate with Search Rankings

Local citations improve your search rankings through ongoing creation of relevant and consistent NAP information (name, address, phone number) across hundreds of websites, also known as citation sources.

The more consistent, relevant and localized your citations are, the more likely your business will be at ranking for people searching for your services and products in your area. Citations are basically another source of credibility that both Google & Bing consider when your business NAP is consistent across the web.

Image Source: BonsaiMedia

What Is NAP And Why It Is Important

The number one most important thing: Make sure your NAP is 100% correct every time.

DON’T GET IT WRONG

Overall, the biggest contributor is the citation. There is link value within your listings that help strengthen the association of your website with your NAP information.

So, what is NAP?

NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. It is a crucial piece for any business who is striving to rank well in the local organic search results.

Search engines like Google take your information into account when determining which companies to show for local, geo-targeted, searches.

Again, it’s extremely important that you make sure your NAP is 100% correct. That takes into account, both your NAP on your website as well as any other sites that you have your information on throughout the internet.

It’s a consensus that local SEO experts believe Google, Bing, and all of the other search engines link your NAP information across websites that contain this information as a validation that you are a real and legit business.

The more localized citations you can build up with consistent NAP information, the better your chances are of ranking higher.

You should enter your NAP information into a directory with a strong reputation. This is especially true with real estate specific directories and/or your local directories.

What Happens If Your NAP Isn’t Consistent?

Infographic Source: Digital Information World

Before You Dive Into Building Your Local Real Estate Citations

Prepare yourself by using this little cheat sheet of the most commonly asked for pieces of information.
- Your Name
- Company Name – The company’s exact name
- Email Address – Your email that will be connected to your business
- Address – The company’s exact address
- City – The company’s exact city name
- State- The state the company resides
- Zip – The zip code of the company
- Phone Number – The local phone number of the exact business location
- Company Website Landing Page – The landing page for the business
Set up a dedicated email address

Don’t use your main email address or your personal one.
These business directory websites usually make money by trying to sell advertising services.
So you may start to get a lot of “junk” email and some solicitation phone calls. The calls will tail off within a month or two, but the emails can really fill up an inbox.
Use the email address to confirm submissions, then let it capture the sales emails so it doesn’t clog your normal inbox.

Top Real Estate Citation Sites

Here are some of the top real estate citation sources. Please note that some of these services require a paid membership.

Yellowpages.com
BBB.org
Yelp
YouTube
SuperPages
City-Data
Citysearch
Yellowbook.com
Yahoo Local
Angie’s List
Facebook
MerchantCircle
Dex Knows
HomeAdvisor (formally ServiceMagic)
Manta
Bing Places
FourSquare
LinkedIn
Hotfrog
InsiderPages
Your Local Chamber of Commerce

Local Citation Sites For Real Estate Agents

Zillow.com
Commercialsearch.realtor.com
Trulia.com
Loopnet.com
Luxuryrealestate.com
Connect.homes.com
Rentals.com
Reals.com
How Long Does It Take To See Results?

If you decide to take on citations yourself, it takes about 3-6 hours for the building process.

To get started, go to each citation website and submit your listing.

It varies on how long it’ll take per submission, but plan on 10-15 minutes each. You’ll be required to confirm each submission in the dedicated email account you setup.

Some listing go live fast, others may take weeks, others months. But the majority of them should be live within 2-5 weeks.

In general, SEO Rankings take:

Zero Competition Market: 2-3 Months (if there’s zero competition there’s usually not much opportunity)

Small Competition Market: 6-9 Months

Medium Competition Market: 1 Year

High Competition Market: 2+ years

Typically if you’ve done them right and you’ve completed 40+ on quality sites… you can see a ranking improvement within 2-3 months. That is assuming all other elements on your site are optimized for real estate SEO.

Make Your Own Website Your Best Citation

Make it really easy for Google to identify your website with your citation profile. Most likely the best citation you can start with is your own contact page.

Be sure to have your company name, address, and phone number on there.

Bonus Tip: Add the embed of your Google Places map to help Google further tie your website to that company name and location.

Grab the Google Map “Embed Map” code and paste in into the HTML section of your website. And, this will take about 60 seconds to do it!

Real Estate Citations Frequently Asked Questions

Question #1: How fast will SEO be impacted?

Two to three months is about the time SEO could start showing an impact. Although it might not be dramatic at first. As stated above, there is a chance that highly competitive markets will take longer. Many, many months, if not years.

Question #2: Should I trickle citations out slowly or do them all at once?

Nope – you can do them all at once if you want. There is no evidence that speed of citation claiming will harm your SEO. It is not like backlink building where you can do it wrong.

Question #3: What if I use a tracking phone number for online marketing?

Overall… be sure to use the same phone number for citations that is soon your Contact Page of your website.

You can still have a tracking number in your calls to action and at the top of the site, but it’s suggested that your main company phone number is on the Contact page – therefore matching citations.

Question #4: Should I use a keyword as my business name?

Ideally… NO.

You’ll see some people ranking well with their Yelp or Facebook pages because they used a keyword as their company name.

Unless that is your company name or domain name, don’t do that.

Go with your actual company name or “Doing Business As” (DBA) name.

Question #5: What if I haven’t filed a business name yet?

If you’re serious about this business…

…you need to make that mental commitment of making it real and filing your business with your state.

If you can’t commit to that, it will be difficult to commit to the hard work it will take to succeed as a real estate entrepreneur.

So go out there and file your company name and get that done!

Verifying Your Citations For Real Estate And NAP

Not sure if you correctly submitted your citations? There are online tools that can help you find your listing all of your NAP citations.

Companies such as Whitespark feature easy to use citation finder tools.

Usually, you’ll need to enter some location data into the citation finder tool and you will get back a list of citations pertaining to the entered business and location.

Once you get the data back check the consistency of your NAP.

If there are citation websites that don’t have your correct business name, address and/or phone number then you should start reaching out to these sites or getting site access to update your citation.

Your goal is consistency.

Spelling mistakes or minor inconsistencies in your business name can have an impact on your local search rankings.

If your location is listed as Blvd on one website and as Road on another website, correcting this can have a huge impact.

Local Real Estate Citations Building Can Be a Pain, So Here’s How We Make It Easy…

In simple words, citations are important for your website’s rankings, especially in local SEO. If you want to boost your website’s rankings, focus on citations and don’t worry about the backlinks.

You will have plenty of other places to get backlinks from. Focus on citations from reputable websites with good page rank and domain authority.

Citation building is one of the simplest SEO practices for real estate agents ad investors.

How to do it if you don’t want to do the work: Checkout the Carrot marketplace. We have a real estate citations service that can do it for you.

If you’re a Carrot member (very soon we’ll be offering non-member 3LPD services), we have a whole section on citation building in our 3 Lead Per Day Training (you can buy it here) so we thought we’d share it with you as a great SEO resource to jumpstart your year. You can access the entire 3 Lead Per Day Training and all 50+ detailed videos and checklists for only $99.
August 31, 2017
The 5 Most Common Facebook Marketing Objections From Real Estate Investors

50. That’s the average number of minutes we spend on Facebook every day.

It sounds crazy at first, but when you consider that Apple reported the average iPhone user unlocks their phone over 80 times a day, maybe it’s not that surprising. We love our mobile devices, and we definitely love Facebook.

So we spend a lot of time on Facebook, but does that matter for Real Estate? Can all those hours spent on Facebook really translate into leads and deals?

I’ve spent countless hours working with investors from all across the country and have assembled five of the most common misconceptions about Facebook marketing for Real Estate Investors.

Here’s what they are and why they’re misguided.

Objection #1: “Facebook Marketing for Real Estate Investors Is Too Expensive.”

Imagine you found a vending machine, and every time you put 100 dollars in that vending machine, it gave you $500 back. How many times would you put in $100? Forever, right? You’d do it forever (or hire someone to do it for you) because you know there is a positive return.

What if the vending machine started charging $300 in return for $500? Would you still keep feeding it money? Probably. If the price kept increasing, at some point, you might stop — at the very latest, you’d stop at $500 because now you are breaking even.

Marketing is your vending machine. The deals produced from marketing are the output, just like the example above.

Do you know, for your business, the maximum you can pay per lead and still remain profitable? If you don’t, figure that out today! Investor Carrot has a fantastic calculator you can use.

“Expensive” is a relative term. You need to know your business in order to set appropriate expectations. If your ideal cost per lead is $200 and it takes 10 leads to close a deal, you might have to spend $2,000+ on marketing to get a deal. Too many people start a campaign and give up too early because they did not know their numbers and fail to clearly define success metrics.

Truth: Expense is relative to return. Know your numbers so you can make smart decisions based on data.

Objection #2: “I Didn’t See Leads Right Away. I Guess It Doesn’t Work.”

In a perfect world, every marketing channel would provide immediate results. That’s the dream, but unfortunately, not the reality.
Most campaigns take a time to build momentum. This is certainly true for Facebook. Several factors contribute to success such as budget, market size, existing traffic on your site (retargeting), market timing, and quality of ad content.

Your first month will be your slowest month. If you have a few extra marketing dollars and want to give Facebook a try, make sure you really assess how committed you are. It’s possible, those few extra dollars are better spent on an existing channel such as PPC or direct mail. I suggest a commitment of at least 90 days – even better is 4 – 6 months – to fully realize the benefits of Facebook.

Truth: Be committed. You need at least 90 days to build good momentum.

Objection #3: “I Am Going To Clog My Friends’ Newsfeed With Ads.”

Some people want to clearly differentiate their personal and professional social media lives.

I’ve seen several incredibly successful investors openly sharing on their personal page, but if you fall into the “let’s keep it separate” category, there is good news – with Facebook Business Pages and powerful targeting options, you can run successful ad campaigns while keeping your personal feed clear for cat memes and cute pics of your friends’ kids.

Truth: Your personal and business Facebook presence can be as connected or separate as you want.

Objection #4: “I Need A Bunch Of Likes On My Facebook Page.”

At one point, this was true.

Several years ago, Facebook provided powerful organic (non-paid) reach to the fans of your Business Page. When The Color Run had over 4 million Facebook fans, we could post and get tens, even hundreds of thousands of people engaging on the post. It was thrilling to refresh the page and see the comment count jump exponentially. Then, almost overnight, Facebook announced they were changing their algorithm.

The era of pay to play on Facebook began. The same type of post at The Color Run now created only a couple hundred engagements. We had spent thousands of dollars (and hours) creatively building our fan base, and now we could barely even reach a fraction of our potential. It was a hard pill to swallow, but in the digital world, the only constant is change.

We adapted, and continued to see incredible success from our Facebook campaigns.

Long story short, even if you had a bunch of likes on your page, you would still have to pay to reach them.

Truth: Facebook Page Fans are now just one of many audiences you can target. Do not let building a fan base stop you from getting started.

Objection #5: “It’s hard to find motivated sellers on Facebook.”

Okay, this one is sometimes true. It can be hard. But here’s the good news — it’s hard for your competitors too, which means they likely aren’t doing it. That equates to untapped opportunity.

Of course, not everyone on Facebook is a motivated seller, but it’s very likely that the motivated sellers in your area are on Facebook.
You might be thinking, “yeah, but my typical deal is with someone in an older demographic.” They’re on Facebook too. In fact, 33% of all Facebook users are over the age of 45, and 17% are older than 55. That’s almost 1 in 5 people over the age of 55. And these people are clicking on ads. In some of my recent client campaigns, on average, 57% of leads came from people 55 and older.

Truth: Using strategic targeting, such as custom and lookalike audiences, you can carefully target your ideal demographic.

The Worst Myth Of All: “Facebook Isn’t Worth My Time.”.

Finding motivated sellers on Facebook is a highly specific targeting challenge to be sure, but it’s that very fact that makes Facebook such an exciting avenue for your REI business.

If it were incredibly simple, everyone would be doing it. Because it takes some finesse, Facebook remains a largely untapped resource to the most dedicated investors.

August 10, 2017
3 Steps To Creating Real Estate Content For Marketing (In Less Than An Hour)
Creating real estate content is time-consuming. Creating content that turns into leads and converts prospects, even more so.

Content marketing ends up feeling like a game that only the giants of online business play, one that properly kills those without the time or budget to compete. Even when you create content, you wonder if it was effective.

But the truth is that content creation need not end in lackluster — looking back on time spent creating content, wondering if it was worth it. In fact, there’s a way to create content that takes very little time and almost guarantees a return.

We call it on-the-job content and all you need is a camera.

Here Are 3 Steps to Creating Real Estate Content in Under an Hour

1. Choose A Topic

Just Sold A House

When you finish signing the papers for selling a house, take a video of the accomplishment. Explain the process you used to sell the house quickly, how the house seller got a fair price, and why you could do the same for anyone watching. To provide proof that you really sold the house, take a walk around the property as you talk about it so viewers see it in the background.

Although this example doesn’t show the full potential of this topic, it gets the idea across.

Since website traffic is 7.8 times higher for content marketing leaders, we’re going to show you how to reap the benefits of content marketing without spending extra time or money to create it.

Open House

Prospects once had to get in their car, start the ignition, and drive to an open house. But now, with technology, you can create a way for them to walk through the house without them ever getting off their couch.

During an open house, simply show the house and talk about what makes it amazing as you record.

Here’s an example from a live Facebook open house.

What To Look For When…

Start your video with the title, “What to look for when…” and fill in the blank. What to look for when buying a house in [your city]. What to look for when selling a house in [your city]. Think about what makes your location unique and create a live video for that.

Simply walk around the appropriate location while you talk (the house you’re selling or the area you’re talking about) and discuss what every buyer/seller needs to look for when…

Client Relations

Testimonials are powerful, and so too are live videos of you and your client discussing what you’ve accomplished together. Once a deal is signed and your client is happy, ask them if they’d be okay with hopping on a quick live video to talk through what was just accomplished.

If other prospects see this, they’ll be comfortable working with you because of your current client’s enthusiasm.

This is similar to the “Just Sold A House” topic idea, but broader. Record these at any moment that your client is pleased with your service.

Before And After

Do you renovate houses? Before you start renovating, take a video emphasizing the current disastrous state of the house. Then take incremental videos of the house renovation process. Once the house is finished, take a final video showing the beautiful difference.

People love to be included in a story. Frame these videos as one cohesive journey and once people are watching, they often can’t help but see how the story ends.

It’s difficult to find an example of this kind of content because so few people are doing it. There are plenty of before-and-after renovation videos, but there is almost no one taking short live videos of the renovation process, documenting the adventure. This means you can feel free to dream up your own way of doing it.

2. Record

Live videos are the heart of on-the-job content. Since they are live, they don’t take any extra time to produce, just however long you decide to record.

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all currently allow for live video recording. Which platform you choose is ultimately up to you, but there are a few key differences to take note of.

Facebook — Facebook live videos will notify friends when you start recording and saves the video for later viewing, meaning your audience doesn’t have to be online when you go live to see your video. They can watch it whenever they like.

Instagram — Instagram’s live videos will also notify friends when you click record, but the videos won’t be saved for later viewing. If your audience doesn’t see it while you’re live, they won’t have a chance to see it later.

Twitter — Similar to Facebook, Twitter will save your live video for later viewing and as long as followers have the correct notifications enabled, they will be messaged when you start recording.

Use whichever platform you’re most comfortable with and whichever you think will provide the best return.

Note: If you’re uncomfortable with live video, just do the same thing with traditional videos. There’s no reason that these can’t be just as effective and presented in the same personable and real-time way as live video. Do what makes you comfortable.

3. Market

The last part piece of the puzzle is to market your content. Content is only as effective as your marketing strategy. Luckily, since the hard part is done — creating the content — all you have to do is spend a little bit of time marketing the videos to your audience.

Here are three places you should market your video.
- Social Media
- Website
- Email List
When it comes to on-the-job content, Social Media will probably be your first marketing touch point.

Before posting to your website, though, send the video you recorded to rev.com and they’ll transcribe your video for $1 per minute. Post the transcription to your website under the video, titling it as “transcription,” much like we do on our strategy sketch videos.

You might think, “But what’s the point of the transcription?” Here’s the key: Google can’t rank your website based on video content. But it can rank your website based on the text. Including the transcription gives your content the ability to rank in Google without you having ever written a word.

As for your email list, write a quick review of the video, what you talk about, and why your audience should care, similar to our CarrotCast announcement emails.

Set your mindset to under 100 words. Then simply link to the video you produced or embed it directly in the email — depending on your content goals and the email service you’re using.

Once your video is out to your audience, you’ll start reaping the benefits of content marketing without spending much more than an hour creating and marketing it.

Save These 3 Real Estate Content Creation Steps

Use these three steps religiously to produce and market content that impacts your audience — despite the short amount of time needed to create it. When you do, you’ll find that the end of the story isn’t so bad after all.

Whether you are just starting in the real estate industry or you are looking to scale your business, having a plan of attack is vital.
July 13, 2017
Tips for Creating a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for Real Estate

Transcript

Why Big Companies Are Big

Think of the companies that you admire. Think of the companies that you work with all the time. Oftentimes, the ones that you really admire and you keep on buying from over and over again — think Amazon or Apple or name the local one that you really appreciate — each and every time, they all have something called a unique selling proposition (USP).

USP: Their unique advantage that they serve in the market. It’s something that no one else can claim but them.

One thing that a lot of real estate investors and agents don’t do is they don’t come up with their own version of their USP real estate pitch.

They put out the exact same message that every single person in their market is putting out. If you’re a real estate agent, “Hey, we can sell your house. We can show you homes.”

Everyone Is Saying The Same Thing

What are you doing to separate yourself from the 400 other agents in your market?

If you’re a house buyer or house flipper, what are you doing to show the sellers or buyers or tenants that you guys are different?

The thing is you go to nine out of 10 real estate investor websites are going to be showing the exact same message.

They’re going to be saying, “Hey, we can buy houses. We can buy them fast.” You know, “Fast cash closing.” Those types of things.

If you’re saying the same thing, how is it that someone is going to choose to work with you versus working with someone else?

That’s what we’re going to be talking about today on this Whiteboard Strategy Sketch is a unique selling proposition.

Especially in the cluttered market right now. The market’s going up, which means a lot of investors want to pile in and start flipping houses or wholesaling. A lot of real estate agent prospects are piling in there, wanting to sell houses, because it’s easy today. How do you stand apart?

The Solution: Having A Unique Selling Proposition For Your Real Estate Business

The people who are doing that are the ones winning the market. The people who are not doing that are going to close some deals probably, just by the sheer mathematics of getting leads, but the ones who are actually coming with a unique selling proposition are going to be here through the market cycle.

They’re going to be here in the next cycle. They’re going to be here in a year, in two years, in five years. All right, so a unique selling proposition is the key.

What’s Your Unique Advantage?

The first thing is, what’s your unique advantage? What is it that you have that no one else can claim? This goes directly into the next one. No one can claim the same thing. Okay, so this is something where it could be your experience.

It could be a unique process that you have in your business. It could be the credibility that you have based on the experience that you have. What is it that no one in your market can claim the same?

As an example, we’re working with a local real estate brokerage here. They are the number one, the largest, privately-held brokerage in Douglas County which is sweet. No one can claim the same thing.

That’s one of their unique selling propositions. They probably have several others. One of the other unique selling propositions, they’re amazing at commercial real estate.

No one can claim the same, that they have two CCIM-accredited brokers that are specialized in commercial. That’s something that’s an advantage to them.

If you don’t pull that out and put it in your marketing, put it on your website, then you’re not using your unique process, your unique selling advantage, as an advantage.

A Few Examples

Another one, your unique selling proposition creates a massive advantage in the market. With Carrot, let’s kind of bring it home to us.

We don’t just put out websites or software, okay? If we did that, we would be one of the many others who do that, but we have a unique selling proposition. Our unique selling proposition is you get better results when you work with us.

You get a higher ROI with your ad spend. You get a higher ROI with your marketing. Okay, we’re going to help you with our software and our training and our support to get a better result, so you have less of what we call phantom expenses: fewer things where you get a lower ROI because of underperformance.

That’s one of our unique selling propositions out of many.

What is the one advantage that you have? One company that you guys have probably heard of, it’s a national company. It’s actually a Silicon Valley-funded company called Opendoor.

Many of you guys have heard of Opendoor. They’re in Phoenix. They’re in LA now, in Las Vegas I think too. If you go to their website, and people are wondering, “Why is Opendoor doing so well?” They’re doing a lot of direct mail. They’re doing a lot of online marketing. What is it about them that’s doing so well? If you go to their website, number one, they’re insanely, insanely transparent about their offer process.

There are no questions on exactly how they come about a price to offer the seller. That’s a unique advantage because all of their competitors are hiding the way that they come up with their offer.

If you’re one of the people who is just saying, “Oh, I’ll offer you money. I’ll offer to buy your house,” but you’re not uncovering the process in how you do that so they know that it’s a fair process, then you’re at a unique disadvantage to a company like Opendoor. They’ve got that unique advantage.

Another thing on their website if you check it out, they’ve been a part of over 4,000 transactions.

No one can claim the exact same number because that’s unique to them.

Put that on your website. If you’re an experienced investor and you’ve done 20 transactions or hundreds or whatever it is, use that unique advantage to your own benefit. Put on there, “Hey, helped hundreds of local home buyers, helped hundreds of local home sellers,” that’s unique to you specifically, or use the exact number, even better.

Maybe you have an insanely high rating on Zillow. You’re the number one agent on Zillow. No one else can claim that but you.

Maybe you are the number one commercial or you’re the number one North Umpqua River, that’s a river that we have here, one of the rivers here in Roseburg, you’re the number one river real estate agent in the entire area. Claim that if you can claim it.

Then challenge your other competitors to come over the top of you and claim that space.

It’s Hard To Win Without A USP

What is your unique selling proposition? If you don’t have one, the likelihood of you crushing it in this market and being here through the market cycle is probably pretty low.

If you’re a new investor, you might be going,

“Oh my gosh, I don’t have a unique selling proposition. Does that mean I should quit my business right now?”

The answer is no. There is something unique about you that you need to put out there. If you don’t have something, you really do need to work on it. You should also look at your business model. Don’t just copy the business model from your coach.

Find a way that you can make it better. What in your process can you do that’s different? What in your process can you do, in your offering process that you can do that’s different or better?

Express Homebuyers out of Baltimore, okay, they have done over 2,500 real estate transactions buying and selling homes themselves. One of their unique selling propositions is they’re going to get you an offer within like seven minutes, I think it’s something like. Don’t quote me on that, but it’s something like that. All their advertising hones in on this one USP: get an offer within seven minutes. That’s their claim to fame.

What is yours? Find your unique selling proposition.

Put it into all of your marketing so you have something that’s clearly, clearly different than your competition.

How serious are you to build your business? You have to have a unique selling proposition.

Otherwise, no one’s going to think you’re unique, and you’re a commodity, so go out there and do it today!

For more resources and real estate marketing materials, click on the link!

July 6, 2017
Direct Mail Strategy For Real Estate Investors [A Case Study With Our Clients]

Almost 2 months ago, we released our most successful direct mail blog post to date: “10 Tips for Sending Real Estate Direct Mail (with Examples).”

Given our reader’s interest in sending direct mail, we thought it would be appropriate to write a piece about what direct mail strategies are working for real estate investors.

And then we thought to ourselves, “Hey, we know a lot of real estate investors” (also known as all of our AMAZING clients).

So, we asked them what strategies they use when sending direct mail. This is a compilation of their techniques, results, and advice. Here’s what they’re doing.

Direct Mail Strategy For Real Estate Investors – A Case Study With Our Carrot Members

Frequency

Brad Chandler

Brad Chandler, real estate investor at Express HomeBuyers, sends direct mail to prospects once per month. To manage high volume, he splits their mailing list into groups and sends a batch of mail to one group each week.

This is a postcard that Brad sends to his list.

Front:

Express Homebuyers Direct Mail Postcard: Front

Back:

Express Homebuyers Postcard: Back

Daniel DiGiacomo

Daniel DiGiacomo, owner, and investor at Baltimore Wholesale Property, sends 10,000 pieces of direct mail every month. Additionally, he sends between 1,000 and 1,500 yellow letters each month. On the yellow letters, he has them designed to look as though they’re written by hand.

These are some pieces that Daniel sends regularly.

Baltimore Wholesale Property We Buy Houses Direct Mail Example #1

Baltimore Wholesale Property We Buy Houses Direct Mail Example #2

Baltimore Wholesale Property Direct Mail Letter Example #1

Baltimore Wholesale Property Direct Mail Letter Example #2

Response Rate

Emphasizing that direct mail is a numbers game, Brad said,

“Sending out a couple hundred postcards probably won’t get you a deal. We typically see response rates of 0.5%-1.5%. Our leads convert at around 3%.”

Those percentages aren’t uncommon in the direct mail world, with the average across all industries sitting at 4.25% for postcards.

Daniel has somehow surpassed the average response rate with his direct mail campaign. He see’s a 7%-10% response rate on his postcards and a 20% response rate on his yellow letters. Appropriately, Daniel claims that his success comes from choosing his mailing list wisely.

Build a Quality List

“List quality is the most important part of direct mail,”

says Daniel,

“I like to target absentee, out of state owners that are likely older (55 and up).”

As for Brad’s list, his data suggests that the best performers are homeowners with 70% and higher equity, out-of-state homeowners, and probate.

Also worthy of note, Brad says,

“Response rates will be highest when you first mail a list. There will be a lot of people asking to be removed from mailings. As you continue to mail the list, response rates will decrease but you will get high quality leads.”

Quality Leads

Edward Beck

As a tip, real estate investor Edward Beck, from Quick Sell Buyers explains why quality leads are more important than quantity of leads.

He says,

“The main difference I have from all the others is that my stuff is honest and not smoke and mirrors.”

He believes that honesty matters to prospects today, because, in the marketing world, they see so little of it.

“I’m not leading the seller to believe I’m going to pay full price or that they would get a better deal not having a middle man (agent). I believe this is the biggest shortcoming with other mail pieces.”

Indicating that dishonest marketing techniques bring in low-quality leads, he continues,

“Yes they will have a higher response rate but when they make an offer the sellers are in a different frame of mind… The market is flooded with [dishonesty] and I believe [prospects] can smell it.”

Test & Iterate

As with all marketing, testing is key. When it comes to direct mail, you can test the copy, the images, and the style of the postcard.

For A/B testing, Brad explains that sticking with a single postcard makes it a whole lot easier to test accurately.

“We think it is smarter to stick with one postcard. The reason is that sticking to one postcard makes it easier to A/B test new ideas.”

But it’s not just testing that counts. It’s the application of the test’s findings that really makes the difference. On this, Brad says,

“We continuously iterate our copy and design to improve the conversion rate of the winning postcard.”

Supplemental Marketing

Don’t forget to follow up your direct mail campaigns with Facebook Ads, phone calls, and whatever outreach is appropriate.

Having several marketing touch points is critical with direct mail. As Brad explains,

“When you target prospects through direct mail, you also want to target them on other marketing channels. To do this, make sure you get emails and phone numbers with your lists. Have VA’s call the prospects right after the mail is delivered. Also, upload your lists onto Facebook as custom audiences spend some money running Facebook ads to your mail lists.”

What Do You Do?

Hearing what other real estate marketers are doing with their direct mail campaign is helpful. So don’t let the conversation stop here. Brad, Daniel, and Edward made generous and transparent contributions to this piece.

Do you agree with them? Disagree?

What does your direct mail strategy look like and what kind of results are you getting?

Let us know in the comments. :-)

June 29, 2017
How to Attract a Motivated House Seller Like a Mind Reader [Original Data]
What if you could read the mind of the motivated seller? Meaning, what if you could send the right message to the right person at the right time?

Unfortunately, the internet provides a threat to match its opportunity. While powerful, the internet’s power can easily be strangled by its formidable size. Quickly, it becomes a source of crowded destruction instead of open possibility.

The real estate market is increasingly competitive because it’s increasingly cluttered, making the dream of reading the house seller’s mind, at the least, difficult, and at the worst, debilitating.

But here at Carrot, we hate letting dreams die.

Every year, our clients pull in over 400,000 online leads, giving us a very special position to speak to what’s happening in the real estate market.

Even though the market is more crowded than ever before, by accepting this density and optimizing your customer experience for the motivated seller, that crowded room becomes a pleasant dinner party. And you’re the host.

So, how do you cater and attract a motivated house seller?

Well, you need to know what the motivated seller thinks, wants, and does. Lucky for you, we crunched some numbers, ran some tests, and stepped into their mind… using a significant and varying sample size, specific to all seller websites we host.

And we want to share what we learned.

So, before we finish wiping off brain matter, here’s how the motivated seller makes the decision on who they’re going to work with when selling their house… based on our years of research and understanding the “decision lifecyle” of the average motivated house seller.

Let’s Get Inside The Mind Of A Motivated House Seller On Their Path To Choosing A Company That Can Solve Their House Problem

Step 1: Problem Aware

The house seller knows they have a problem… but aren’t sure how to best solve it. This is where you come in…

At this stage the motivated house seller is thinking…

“I need to get this house sold, like soon.”

This is the birth of the motivated seller.

Maybe they received a job in a new state, a family has fallen sick, foreclosure, inherited a house, going through a divorce, or just simply have a house that needs lots of repairs that they don’t want to deal with. Regardless of the reason, life circumstances spiked their curiosity in the selling process and they start exploring the possibility.

First and foremost, the seller wants to know how much they can likely sell their house for. They’ll likely visit Zillow, update their house information, and then check out their Zestimate.

Image via Zillow

But, while Zillow offers convenience, John Wake’s guess work, on Real Estate Decoded, estimates that Zestimate’s typical error is plus or minus 14,000 dollars.

And whether the motivated seller has run their own tests or not, their trust for this system is limited. It offers a curiosity-sating foundation, but not a real-time solution.

Which is good. Because you are the real-time solution they are looking for.

That takes us to the seller’s second dig: they contact someone who can answer their questions in greater depth.

Likely, this is someone the motivated seller’s acquainted with, whether it be a friend, a Facebook ad, or a Twitter feed. Whatever the case, they are looking to make phone calls and get answers.

It’s your job to (1) get them to call you, and (2) provide those answers.

Here’s how.

1. Get In Front Of Them Where They Search… Google

House sellers will hit Google to search things like “how to sell my house fast” or “selling a house in divorce in dallas” to find basic info about their options.

If you’re ranked high in Google with SEO or PPC and you deliver great content on your site that clearly shows them that you have a service that can solve their problem… you’ve just met them exactly where they are in the decision cycle.

2. Direct Mail

At this point, your prospect is also now receptive to marketing messages that look like they’ll solve their problem.

You dig through the mail. After tossing the credit card offers and ripping up the bills you’ll just pay online later, you come across a handwritten letter. Whoa! That’s unusual, you think. You quickly check your mental calendar to see if today is your birthday. Maybe your aunt has sent a card with $5 inside. Nope. What’s going on?

Maybe the letter is from the local movie theater, maybe it’s from a church, or maybe it’s from a local real estate investor.

Maybe it’s from you.

The point is that everyone gets a lot of mail, but if you make your letter stand out from the rest, people will feel that much more a part of your tribe.

Direct mail isn’t dead. In fact, since it is slower than nearly every other medium of communication, that snail-like pace has romanticized its effect. Like candlelight and bathtubs, the receiver feels like they’ve been transported back to better, more personal, times, and because of that, it has an intimate feel… if it’s done right.
12-point Direct Mail Checklist for Real Estate Investors and Agents

A checklist to ensure consistently remarkable mailers that generate leads, grow your business revenue and make your campaigns more sustainable.
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3. Social Media Presence

Don’t break the bank for Facebook advertisements. But do maintain a social media presence — post on your account regularly — as a preemptive strike to the motivated seller’s subconscious.

When trying to decide who to contact with all of their questions, the seller thinks, “Hey, I remember seeing real estate investor, Joe the Pro’s [this is you], posts on Facebook. He seems like he knows what he’s doing. I’ll contact him!”

In fact, second, only to Direct traffic, Social Media wins when it comes to acquiring new sessions on your website.

Some ads that just let them know your service exists will be perfect for this phase. Like…

or…

Play with the endgame in mind. The more people who notice you on Social Media, the more people who’ll contact you when they decide to sell their house — which we all will at some point.

Marketing Tips For This Phase:
- Do more broad marketing as targeted as possible
- Focus on just letting them know you have a service that can solve their biggest needs (speed, convenience, no fees, no agents, etc.)
- Bonus: Have your ads drag them to the next phase (Solution Aware and Vetting / Verifying) w/ testimonials in your ads
Step 2: Solution Aware

They know their basic options, agents vs. investors… they just need to research more to see what’s best for them.

At this phase the house seller is likely thinking…

Ok, cool… it looks like there’s options… but how are agents different vs. investors and which is best for me?

At this point, the motivated seller Google’s phrases such as, “Sell my house fast [insert their location],” “Agent vs. Investor,” or “Professional home buyers.” They’ve decided to sell their house, now they’re deciding the best way to go about it.

It’s critical that you get noticed.

Why?

Because our data shows that motivated sellers aren’t wasting any time. They make a decision on who to work with faster than you can paint a bedroom: 0-days fast.

You need to be prepared for this. When the motivated seller decides who to work with, if you’re not able to answer their questions, someone else is, and they’ll choose that someone else.

Here’s how to raise your hand first.
The One Mindset Difference Between Top-performing Real Estate Investors and Everyone Else

Learn the dead-simple difference between those who build thriving businesses and those who never fulfill their dreams or goals.
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4. Content Structure That Pulls The Prospect To The Next Phase Effortlessly

Most websites and marketing don’t think through the order that their prospect thinks when making a decision. They don’t take into account what info the house seller needs to have before the next piece of info will be useful to them.

Take a look at this Carrot site as an example… from a client who has been a part of over 3,000 transactions.

This Content Flows The Way Sellers Make Decisions: Does Yours?

Notice the order of the navigation on the site. First we meet the seller at “problem aware” (hey, we can buy your house!), then educates them on the solution, then builds credibility and guides to the call to action. Bam.

Does your marketing skip phases and leave your prospect hanging with questions?

Or does your site only focus on making sure they know you can buy a house but not on pulling them through the next phases proactively?

5. Blogging

The sheer amount of blogs on the internet is debilitating. It seems like everyone and their pet blogs.

But, as you know, since everyone else is doing it, it’s hard to get noticed if you’re not.

The good news, though, is that even with the massive amount of online content, the motivated seller isn’t threatened. They still view blogs and spend an average duration of 1:05 looking.

Due to the increased visibility it creates, your blog is a great way to answer the motivated seller’s questions as they type them into Google, increasing traffic, forcing you to learn your stuff, and building relationships with the people who want to help you make money.

If you want to take up blogging — which you should — check out our post on how to do that, with actionable examples.

6. Local Content

No need to work in a massive school of fish. Your real estate business is local to a few spots. Optimize your website content and rankings by using locally appropriate titles and blogging subjects that will cater directly to people in the area.

When the motivated seller searches, “Sell my house quick in Roseburg, Oregon,” you’ll be at the top. Because other real estate investors aren’t including “Roseburg, Oregon” in their content.

Unless, of course, they also work in Roseburg…

But it’s a whole lot easier to compete with a few local real estate investors than it is the whole nation. Since you’re not selling or buying properties in every state, don’t create content that competes nationwide. Create content that competes locally and you’ll be more visible to the people who matter.

7. Ads That Compare + Educate On The Options + Process

In this phase, you can’t keep on sending people ads and direct mail that just tells them that you can buy their house. They already know. So here’s where you need to retarget your prospects w/ ads that educate and compare… while at the same time adding credibility to pull them to the next phase.

Like…

… and one of our own (one of the highest performing ads we have, it drives to a blog post of ours)

Marketing Tips For This Phase:
- Start to retarget your prospects on Facebook with a mix of ads that educate and compare. Comparing your USP to theirs is critical
- Build your website and your marketing so it flows the way your prospects decide
- Bonus: Again, if you can have a testimonial do the heavy work for you, educating your prospect for you… it automatically pulls the prospect past the next phase… building credibility for you in the process
Step 3: Vetting and Verifying

The seller recognizes their problem, they know the basics of the options… but who should they work with?

In this phase the seller knows they have a problem that they want to be solved fast, they basically know the options and how they work… but now their main question is…

Which company should I work with? Which is the most credible?

They’re asking if they want to work with you. Your job is to convince them that they do.

How?

The homepage is where the motivated seller often lands, and not just lands, but commits… or at least turns into a lead.

If they’re not ready to become a lead… they then explore the website to find answers to their questions or verify suspicions.

What Pages Do Most Most Leads Come From? [our data]

Notice that of the 16,000 seller leads in this data set over a period of time for Carrot clients, 5,000 of those leads weren’t ready to opt in on the home page. They searched for more info instead…

Since the homepage is playing such a significant role in determining your leads and, thus, your conversions, here’s a few things to think about when trying to attract motivated sellers.
- Create a high converting house seller home page
- Build an amazing About Us page to build the story of who you are and that you’re real people. It’s critical.
- Don’t just cater for those ready to opt in right now, include robust content that builds your expertise, credibility, and makes it easy for them to contact you
But how can you best build credibility and get an edge on your competition since your prospect already knows that you both can provide essentially the same service?

Let’s start here…

8. Easy Contact Options + Great About Page

The ease with which you create this page is not equal to the breadth of its importance.

Overall of the seller websites we host, the “contact us” page sports compelling numbers.

For an even faster transition from homepage to lead, provide the option to bypass the “Contact Us” page with a “Call Us: XXX-XXX-XXXX” CTA.

Notice The Interaction With The Easy Opt-In Form And Phone Number

As you can tell, a Christmas tree would have trouble competing with that red-hot dot. Consider putting your phone number on the homepage to reduce the number of clicks needed to go from viewer to lead. Fewer clicks mean more conversions.

During this beginning phase, the seller has a lot of questions. Your “Contact Us” page, or “Call Us” corner, gives them the opportunity to get in touch with you and inquire. You’ll be positioned like a pro and, more importantly, make a valuable connection.

Also, as the seller does their research… they’ll hit your about page.

Our research shows that often times the About Page is always one of the top 3 most visited pages on a real estate website no matter the type of site.

A Heat Map Of A Carrot Clients Site: Our Company Is Hot

This is very common… actually we see this on almost every test we’ve ran over the past 4 years… and that’s a lot of tests. The Our Company page is where your prospects go to see who you are.

A Heat Map Of Our Site (previous version) Shows The Same

Yep, we use data for our own business just like we do to help you get better results in your business as a Carrot client :-)

Get faces on your About Page like Carrot clients CR Homes of Maryland.

9. Build Your Credibility

In this phase, credibility is key.

We’ve seen time and time again where a house buyer with a lower offer has won the deal simply because they did a better job building credibility with the seller. In fact, in a CarrotCast interview I did with top investor Martin B. out of Phoenix, he talks about examples of how they overcome and win even when there are multiple offers higher than theirs.

Show them ads that build your credibility… seller testimonials are great for this.

On this website, our heatmap shows that testimonials are playing a critical role.

Notice the red spot over the “testimonials” link. Time and time again we see heavy engagement on testimonials on sites across our system.

Like…

Notice how this investor filmed a video of their client and put up a well formatted testimonial on their site. Turn this into a Facebook ad and you’re golden.

The best testimonials are short and shining.

Or use direct mail to build your credibility like the example we used in this CarrotCast episode on Credibility…

And make sure to use credibility badges where you can to add that 3rd party validation to your credibility profile.

And last, make sure to control your brand conversation online when people are verifying and vetting your brand through Google searches. Like…

Your Sellers Are Actively Searching For Reviews + Your Reputation… What Do They See?

Hopefully you’re controlling the conversation around your brand so your sellers don’t bail at the last moment in this phase. Control it like this…

Notice How Their BBB Profile, Facebook, And Carrot Site Control The Brand Convo

The biggest missing factor in your ads, your direct mail, and your online marketing strategy is credibility. Credibility trumps any marketing tactic out there.

If you’re offering the same service as the next guy, it’s going to come down to credibility and your offer. That’s it.

10. Clarity

Stumbling upon a cluttered website is an immediate no-go for the motivated seller. Where clarity communicates professionalism and ease of use, clutter communicates a lack thereof.

But what is clutter?

Clutter might translate into the too-much-stuff-on-one-page category, but not necessarily. Consider the apparent “clutter” of a top online store, Amazon.

What Is Clutter? It’s Not Clutter If It Get’s You What You Need…

Amazon is the world’s most optimized ecommerce website. It’s also one of the most “cluttered” according to people. Clutter is only cluttered if it doesn’t help the prospect find what they want.

Image via Amazon

As you can tell, there’s a lot going on. And this goings-on could easily be classified as clutter.

And yet, they’re winning.

Don’t think of clutter as having too much on a single web page, think of clutter as having too much that distracts from your CTA. Amazon wants you to get lost in the shopping experience, and thus it shows you a plethora of items you may or may not be interested in, much like browsing at the mall.

But you’re not trying to sell products ranging from laundry detergent to Harry Potter collectibles.

Your product is an easy and fast process for the house seller.

To sell that, you don’t want a lot of action items.

As a bad example, consider this website… for whom the brand name has been blocked out.

This website is a disaster. Most importantly, It has painfully positioned CTA’s…

With this many Call’s To Action, you can be sure that none deliver. This is clutter. Clutter means that when someone visits your website, they’re not sure what you offer, or where you want them to click.

In contrast, clean and clear as a windexed window, check out this example.

Full Of The RIGHT Information But Not Devoid Of The Info
Your Prospect Needs To Advance To The Next Phase

Image via SpeedyHomeBuyersMD

This homepage immediately communicates what it offers, whether or not I — the motivated seller — am in the right place, and what I should do if I am (fill out the information).

A website this clean will perform better simply because it communicates better. Get harsh on your own website and, if needed, ask for an opinion from a friend — a friend who’ll be honest.

11. Focus On Mobile

The reality is that over half of your traffic is coming from mobile devices.

We Always Display The % Of Mobile Leads On The Bottom Of Our Site

Mobile isn’t the future… it’s here today.

But that’s okay… so long as your website is flexible and optimized to look great on any device.

If it isn’t, though, it might end up looking something like this.

Not User-Friendly On Mobile, Is Yours? (non-Carrot site)

Half the text is covered and navigating becomes a challenge rather than a pleasure. On the other hand, check out this flexible Carrot website.

Clear, Clean, And Great On Mobile (A Carrot Site)

All Carrot websites are mobile-friendly because we understand the importance of it.

Grab your phone and test your own website.

Because having a mobile-friendly website is as important for visitors as having toilet paper for house-guests. It’s just expected.

Marketing Tips For This Phase:
- After someone opts into your site, retarget them on Facebook with testimonial ads
- Build a physical credibility packet and mail that to your prospects overnight, email it to them, and take it to your in-person meetings
- Add at least 5-10 great testimonials formatted correctly to your site
- Build reviews on 3rd party sites like the BBB, your Facebook page, and Google local.
Step 4: Making The Decision

Here, they’re ready to decide. Are you making it easy?

At this phase the motivated house seller is likely thinking…

Ok, lets get them to give me an offer… then I’ll pick the best fit.

Are you making it easy and are you reinforcing their decision to work with you EVEN AFTER THEY CALL YOU OR OPT IN?

The motivated seller has taken the first step, but still, they could abandon.

However, it is too early for you to give up.

There are two primary tools in your arsenal to make them comfortable, and they both focus on transparency: honesty about what you offer, what the seller should expect, how a price is decided, and who you are.

The two tools are (1) the How It Works page and (2) the About Us page.

12. A “How It Works” Page

The “how it works” page is clicked wildly, so don’t hesitate to make this a priority.

See This Part Of A Recent Heat Map On A Carrot Site

The “How It Works” page is very active… your sellers in the “Solution Aware” and “Verifying” phases are really looking for clarity on your process. How you make your offers, what the process looks like, etc.

But, be careful that you don’t over explain. The seller has questions, but they aren’t in regard to the nitty gritty of your job. Their questions are in regard to how you will benefit them and what they need to do to make it happen.

It can be hard to anticipate all of these questions, so here’s a list of the ones you must answer.
- How long until you contact me?
- What happens when you contact me?
- How is a price decided?
- After we agree on a price, when do I get my money?
In fact, this is beautifully done on FLA Home Solutions.

They make it easy to understand, quick to read, and, most importantly, only answer the questions that the motivated seller is asking.

13. A Strong Hero Section

Like every great story, someone needs to save the day… or rather, something. And that something should be your product.

Your hero should sit at the top of the homepage and quickly tell the visitor that (1) they’re in the right place and (2) you’re here to solve their problems.

As you can tell on the below heatmap, the hero is viewed as often as the bat-signal is flicked.

Don’t get creative at the cost of clarity. Your hero should be similar to the above. Something regarding selling fast, since you’re marketing to the motivated seller, and location, because the motivated seller is searching for someone in their area.

Once the seller is convinced that you’re the hero they’re looking for, it’s time to swoop in and actually save the day.

14. A Clear CTA (Call To Action)

Everyone loves this part of the story. This is where the motivated seller takes the first leap, which is usually providing you with contact information.

This is your first CTA, and arguably, the most important.

If the motivated seller doesn’t give you permission to contact them, they aren’t serious about working with you.

Since your business goes nowhere without this first step, it’s important to make it simple, directly after the hero, and, ultimately, the focus of your homepage.
Consider how your eyes flow first to the hero of this snapshot, and then seamlessly to the CTA.

Also, consider this example, differing in setup, but equally effective in conversion.

Whatever the hero to CTA transition on your website, make sure it’s obvious and smooth. Since the motivated seller is in a hurry, your homepage should be too.

Heck, even put clear calls to action in your Facebooks ads at this phase, like…

15. Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up

Often times they’re just not ready to make a decision yet.

So make sure you’re putting your leads into an email, text, and possibly direct mail followup system.

We see clients pulling deals out 6+ months later after the lead initially came in.
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Schedule The “8 Word Email” To Go Out In 6 Months

Don’t over complicate your follow up with a big pitch. Just ask them if they still need to sell. Your only goal is to engage them in a conversation.

Marketing Tips For This Phase:
- Create a simple email sequence that goes out 6+ months. At month 4-6 hit them w/ the “8-word email”
- Have Facebook ads that ask… “Still need to sell your house?”… then drive them to a testimonial on your site
- Make it easy for people to get in touch with you… phone, text, opt-in online
Step 5: Turn Clients Into Testimonials Then Repeat The Above

At this point, you’ve got a client and closed deal! But the work doesn’t stop…

Right here your client is happy with the service, and this is the best time for you to ask for a testimonial or referral.

Adjust Your Marketing + Messaging To Pull Clients Through The Decision Lifecycle

Whew! That was a lot.

But this is the difference between the A Players in real estate marketing and the B or C players.

Most investors make all of their marketing focus on just one or two of the phases… and leave it open for their competitors to better connect with the prospect when the prospect needs it most.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

So… go out and find where you can better cater your marketing toward the phase of the decision lifecyle your motivated house sellers are in.

Here’s a recap…

And what to do about it…
1. SEO and PPC for problem aware people looking for solutions
2. Canvas direct mail to those likely to be problem aware
3. Engage on social (broad ads)
4. Structure content to pull people to the next phase
5. Blog (show your expertise)
6. Local content
7. Ads that compare + educate
8. Great about page and clear contact info
9. Build your credibility
10. Clearly, relay the message of how you can help them
11. Focus on mobile
12. Great How It Works page
13. Strong hero section on your website
14. Clear call to action
15. Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up
Don’t hesitate. Don’t procrastinate.

Go crush it like the mind-reading real estate guru you are.
May 25, 2017
EP 47: Flipping Vacant Land: How Gary Horton Pivoted His Wholesaling Business In A Tough Market To Be On Track To Flip 100 Pieces Of Bare Land

Listen to the CarrotCast Podcast and Subscribe Below!

When you’re confident with whatever it is, you expect the result. You’re not hoping for it – you expect it. So you can say “hey, here’s what we’re going to do and you can just lead.” I think when you’re starting out, your confidence is more like you’re not sure what to do, and I think that is picked up on.
Gary Horton

While most of the real estate market is flooding into flipping houses or wholesaling houses… savvy investors are looking at the gaps in the market where there is an outsized opportunity vs. competition level.

When Carrot client Gary Horton hit a wall wholesaling real estate in San Diego he tested out flipping vacant land… and hasn’t looked back since.

Now Gary buys and sells land all over the West Coast, from his house (or office), does 8-9 flips per month, and barely has any competition.

In this episode, Gary lays out his entire business model from start to finish. His marketing, how he targets sellers, how he sells his properties, his margins, how he does online marketing to drive consistent land deals… EVERYTHING.

Listen to our other episodes at www.CarrotCast.com.

Listen to the Podcast

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Dive in and listen to Gary’s story and get inspired to go down the path less traveled.

3:20 – Gary’s backstory — Who he is and working a career that he didn’t love.
6:00 – Building confidence and credibility to leave his job and close his first deal.
9:30 – Why he decided to pivot from the truly motivated house seller market to flipping vacant land.
12:45 – Knowing your strengths and weaknesses can save you a lot of pain and time. Walking through the Kolbe Index test.
15:50 – The nuts and bolts of land flipping.
20:30 – Cracking the land flipping code — making the move and dealing with the responsibility that came with it.
23:15 – Gary’s land-buying business model: Buying Baltic Avenue instead of Park Place.

27:55 – What types of situations are the sellers going through to sell their land so cheap? And the strategy behind his direct mail campaigns.
32:05 – The leads from his Carrot website have been very good. Find out how that has helped him open the door for more investment opportunities.
34:35 – How searchers are finding his website: SEO and AdWords on a $1 per day budget.
38:25 – Find out his online stats, such as how he’s been able to profit over $40,000 and only spend $322 on AdWords.

Gary’s Analytics

Launch A Land Buying Site With Carrot Today!

42:50 – Building up a seller financing land business that is consistent, predictable, and low-risk.
45:20 – His rule of thumb of pulling a list and what to look for when finding a sweet land buying niche.
48:50 – Diving in deeper into what one of those land buying niche opportunities looks like: From dream communities to land buyers paradise.
52:05 – Land SELLERS: How to market your land listings.
1:01:30 – What are some of Gary’s goals he’s pushing?
1:10:30 – Why he chose Carrot and what it meant to his business.

May 16, 2017
EP 43: A Real Estate SEO Master Breaks Down How He Closes 2-3 Real Estate Deals a Month From SEO in a Competitive Market w/ Dave Brown
Listen to the CarrotCast Podcast and Subscribe Below!

I knew from my background that once I did the work, it would keep returning a benefit to me over and over again. Today, I’m reaping the rewards.
David Brown

“You can’t do any deals with SEO”.

We hear that quite often from people who don’t want to put in the work and focus.

But for those who use a solid proven system and implement a plan with consistency… they see results.

Dave Brown fuels almost his whole 30-40 deal per year business with his approach to Real Estate SEO and in this podcast, he breaks down exactly how he started, what he did on SEO in the first days, what he does today, some tips… and his story as a real estate investor.

If you’re curious about pulling in deals with search engine optimization listen to Dave Brown’s story and how he does it.

Listen to our other episodes at CarrotCast.com.

Listen to the Podcast

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In This CarrotCast Episode, We Cover…

2:20 – Find out what David has learned over his 2 decades in the real estate industry.
5:00 – How to build a business around your lifestyle and why David gave up his real estate agent license and never wants to get it back.
7:50 – Creating a business around leverage. The context of what David’s business structure and the organization looks like and why.
16:00 – David’s mindset around growth – doing more with less.
18:15 – What business systems he uses… CRM, Phone Tracking, Online Marketing.
20:05 – Unpacking his Real Estate SEO strategies — Why his website content has been so effective in cutting through the clutter. Keys:
1. Making basic customizations
2. Two months of creating location-specific page content
3. Building credibility
4. Link building
23:30 – David’s secret sauce he dashes on his location-specific pages — Taking it to another level!
28:10 – Why creating pages that target specific keywords have helped him command his market in search results rankings.
31:25 – How to increase your website traffic, in theory. We focus on some SEO math.
34:25 – SEO tactics you can employ to your website.
35:50 – David shares his off-page SEO strategy.

39:00 – Sharing heartwarming stories in a much needed time… Check out David’s other passion… americansnippets.com. A website and podcast about American stories that need to be shared.
41:10 – Top rules for your website… customized, clean, and credible.

Also… be sure to check out our Case Study with David… Getting More Motivated House Seller Leads Online – David Brown Case Study
April 18, 2017