As we wrap up another month in 2016 we are ready to bring you InvestorCarrot’s lead data for February. Despite being the shortest month of the year, the lead volume was right on pace with December and January.
InvestorCarrot members generated 14,178 online opt in leads last month (this doesn’t include the tens of thousands of phone call leads). Which is very close to the 14,212 leads that were generated in January. Consistent lead flow is a great asset for a business. If you are driving traffic on a consistent basis it can make your marketing dollars stretch when you know which channel are your most profitable.
Thanks to everyone who took our 2016 survey last month! The survey gave us great insight and data
We ran a survey in February to get a little more information about how many deals members were closing from their leads, and to get some feedback on how we can make improve Carrot even more in 2016 (we have exciting news on the horizon).
The general consensus among our team after conducting this survey was…we need to do these more often.
We got a ton of great feedback from our members and got a lot of great questions from the form.
We read through every single submission, suggestion, and question. After talking with our team, we wanted to put together some answers and share some of the data we gathered from the survey.
Our hopes in sharing these results, is it answers a question you have, shows you where you are at in comparison to other Carrot members, and gets you excited about some of the changes we have in store for Carrot.
So let’s get started with some data and insights we found from the survey.
1. 74% of our members primary investing strategy is either Wholesaling or Fix & Flip
This isn’t a huge surprise to us, but we were curious if members were using their Carrot websites for investing strategies that were new and creative. We did find a few note buyers and commercial real estate investors.
The breakdown wholesaling came in at 43% and fix and flip was 31%.
2. 34% of our members have closed between 1-5 deals in the past 12 months
We are always curious about how many deals our members are closing from the leads they generate on their website. Tracking that data would be difficult and is often left to us reaching out to customers and hearing about their success. With this survey we were pleasantly surprised when a lot of members shared with us how many deals they have closed.
Closing 1-5 deals is a huge success and we are proud as heck that our members are turning leads into revenue. Nearly 29% of Carrot member said they have yet to close a deal from their Carrot websites. We are constantly working on ways we can improve Carrot to help bring this number down.
9% of Carrot members said they closed over 20 deals in the last 12 months.
These members tend to be leveraging a lot of different marketing strategies and are driving a large amount of traffic. If you’d like to learn about ramping up your marketing budget and leads, consider investing in an SEO firm or a PPC campaign. Talk with us today about how we can help.
3. We asked about what content you wanted us to write…the answer was overwhelmingly SEO
We were curious what types of blog posts, training’s, and featured content our members and prospects wanted to read from us. Within our company, we all had our hunches, but we asked, and you answered. The highest ranked topics were SEO, Pay Per Click, and Content Marketing.
This data excited us because those happen to be what we are great at and have a lot of data on. To better help our members with SEO we will be retooling some of our content to give more in-depth SEO advice, better PPC information, and make content marketing even better for you in 2016.
4. The most common frustrations, plus their answers
Probably the most important question we asked in the survey was “What is your current biggest frustration?”
We heard a lot of great feedback and were able to quickly resolve some of the frustrations with a simple tutorial or website tweak.
Here are a few of the top frustration Carrot members are having.
Frustration #1: Standing out in a crowded market
One of the recurring questions/concerns we saw on the survey were members saying they are seeing more and more Carrot members pop up in their market.
First of all, we view this as a huge benefit. You have the same tools and resources that others do and seeing other Carrot members appear means something is working. Even Starbucks has multiple storefronts operating on the same block. So how do you stand out in a crowd? The answer is easy. Brand yourself with your unique selling proposition, build credibility, deliver value, and make your site look different.
Carrot can help with the last one. We are constantly testing website elements and will have new features that allow you to make changes to your site.
We wrote about 6 ways to stand out in your market. Read about it here.
Frustration #2: Getting leads to return phone calls
This one is tricky. You can only help people who want to be helped (or so the saying goes).
But you have to put yourself in the leads shoes. There is a good chance the leads are submitting their information on a few websites. They do this to get an idea if other investors will offer more than what you can offer.
The key to getting a lead on the phone is calling them as soon as they submit a form on your site. You MUST do this because they are in the state of mind where they WANT to hear an offer, and calling them back shows you are quick, professional, and have your business running efficiently. If you don’t have SMS text notifications turned on your Carrot forms, read more about them here.
Frustration #3: Having someone write unique content
We understand that writing 100% unique content takes time. Someone on our team is writing every single day and you know what, we know it’s hard and not everything you write turns into profits.
If you are too busy to write content, but want to hire a professional copywriter that understands real estate investing, hang tight…
We are actively working on a solution that will allow you to purchase content for your Carrot site within our marketplace.
Some members are unaware, but if you are a Content Pro member you have access to our content packs. These are pre-written, SEO optimized blog posts. Each month our team writes 12 new articles that our software spins them to be localized for your area to give you a jumpstart. In literally 3 minutes you can schedule your blog content for an entire month. Learn more here.
Content marketing takes time. In fact, if you are expecting to see results from content marketing immediately, you should shift your traffic strategy something that delivers results faster (like PPC or YouTube marketing).
At the very least it can take a couple weeks (if not more) for Google to crawl your site and index the new content. So putting out 100% custom content is only half the battle. You need to find ways to get that content in front of people who are asking questions. This is where conversation marketing comes into the mix. If you have never heard of conversation marketing, drop what you are doing and go here to learn all about it.
Plus, we’re rolling out a full copywriting service in our marketplace in March where you can have our “hired gun” copywriters write custom content for your website for you! Be on the lookout.
Frustration #4: Not knowing what to do to get the highest ROI
This really is the million dollar question. If we knew the answer to this, trust us, you would know.
The thing is… it can be different for every investor depending on lots of variables.
We love sharing data with our members to help them succeed. The honest answer to this question is it depends. Do you have time to learn and implement marketing strategies? If no, then hire someone. Do you have a marketing budget to pay for someone to manage a pay per click account or your SEO? If not, you will either need to learn or close a deal to then bankroll your growth.
You might not think you have time to learn SEO or other marketing strategies, but at the very least you should understand their basic concepts. If you are looking to hire someone you should make sure to ask all the right questions and have a good idea of what they will be doing on your website.
If you are interested in learning more about SEO, Pay Per Click, YouTube, Backlinks, and a lot of other marketing strategies then consider our 3 Leads Per Day training. This training is the single best resource for real estate investors looking to market online TODAY.
To learn more about our 3 Leads Per Day Training, go here.
Be on the lookout for great new training and massive software upgrades in 2016 based on the feedback.
Keep sending in your feedback and go out there and crush it. And when you need help… just reach out to us! We’re always here for you.
We heard a lot of great feedback like we mentioned. We took all of it to heart and will be incorporating it into the new features, training’s, and tools we roll out this year. We sent some personalized emails to members answering the questions we could quickly help them fix on their site.
If we didn’t answer a big question you have about Carrot, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We welcome all feedback and would love to discuss how we can make Carrot better for your business in 2016.