So you’ve heard people say you can’t generate consistent deals with SEO? Tell that to Jack of Jack Buys Houses in Orlando, FL… he closes 3-5 deals a month in Florida almost exclusively through his search engine optimization efforts. See how…
Are those results typical? They’re not… but Jack worked his butt off and continually hounded us on our weekly coaching calls (we say that lovingly because we love it when customers do that!) for months with questions and advice that helped him crack his Carrot website from page 2, to page 1… to the top spot in his market.
We had a chance to sit down with Jack recently and have a conversation with him about…
How he got started in real estate investing
How he closed his first deals and why he dove into wholesaling in his market when others were heading the other direction
What makes his online marketing strategy so effective for him in his market
Hear Jack’s Story + Learn How He Incrementally Grew His Google Rankings To Turn 3-5 Deals A Month
This case study is a full-length deep dive into Jack’s story and how he’s built a very successful wholesaling and investing company over the past 2-5 years and his exact strategies on how he cuts through the clutter online in a sea of other competitors trying to find active cash buyers in his market too. Click play and dive in!
Start – 4 mins talks about how he went from a Target executive to doing short sales and now 4-5 wholesale deals a month
3:40 – What he learned from Warren Buffet that helped him leave his day job in 2009
8:25 – Why he dove into short sales first + his business strategy that helped him crush it (personally did over 350 short sales)
12:20 – How he took the leap into rehabbing and wholesaling in 2012 and why most wholesalers are doing it wrong
12:45 – Currently do approx 5 wholesale deals a month (over 100 deals so far!)
17:15 – What 1 DEAD SIMPLE thing gives him an edge on deals (that most wholesalers drop the ball at)
21:00 – Started marketing w/ direct mail first, didn’t get solid results then decided to get a website up. Found Carrot and “Just did what you guys said to do and the rest is history. I haven’t done direct mail in a year. Every one of my leads come from Carrot”.
“I found you guys, and I’ll be honest w/ you. All I did was this Trevor. I just did what you guys said to do. Because everything is pretty much done. You just pull it out of the box. A few things you have to do on the backend. I just did what you told me to do. And the rest was history. I’ll be honest w/ you… I haven’t done direct mail on over a year. All of my leads come from Carrot. I don’t do bandit signs, I don’t do direct mail, I don’t do postcards, I just do Carrot (closes 4-5 deals a month)”
24:10 – How he generates his leads online (and more importantly, what he doesn’t do and why)
28:30 – Trevor walks Jack through a couple ways to ramp up his leads even further in his market in a big way (“PPC Stacking”, City Specific Landing Pages, and swiping more Google real estate, and retargeting)
35:20 – Jacks biggest surprise working w/ Carrot was the results. He assumed he’d get a certain amount of leads but he didn’t think he could build his business and do the deals they’ve done just through Carrot.
“My biggest surprise is that I didn’t think that I could build my business and do the deals we’ve done just through carrot and not do anything else. But that’s been the biggest surprise. The amount of results our sites get. Our selling site gets hundreds of visitors a month and we sell a lot properties” – Jack
37:15 – His “Big Why”… why he does what he does
40:00 – What 2 powerful pieces of advice Jack would to give someone just getting into real estate
42:40 – Our average wholesale profit right now is $13,700 per deal and we do 4-5 deals per month.
43:15 – Jacks advice to wholesalers about using InvestorCarrot for your own business.
43:36 –“The decision to use investor carrot is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made to be honest with you.. and I’m not just saying this because you’re a good guy. it’s the truth. it’s the best thing that I’ve done. you have to use carrot. there’s nothing else like it.”
Here Are Some Related SEO Resources Here On Our Website
Looking to ramp up your SEO for your real estate flipping / wholesaling / agent business too? Well we know a thing or two about that :-). Just dive into some of the free resources here on this website today!
We call them “doses of awesomeness” in our company whenever someone does awesome things and reports back to us. So let’s throw Jack some awesomeness below to congratulate him on his successes! Pop a comment below in the comments section on your SEO questions (or what your goal is) and some encouragement for Jack on his goals!
So, you already know your website needs to be “mobile optimized”… right? In fact, 64% of our motivated house sellers, cash buyers, and rent to own tenant leads were from mobile devices last month. But what the heck does that mean and why is your “mobile optimized” website likely losing you tens of thousands of dollars per year in lost leads and lost deals without you even knowing it?
If you have the choice of a higher-performing website vs. one that loses leads… which would you choose?
You may be asking the question…
Does A Higher Conversion Rate On Your Cell Phone Visitors Really Matter?
Even if your mobile website for real estate investors is not responsive, it may still not be geared to convert visitors into qualified leads at a high rate. That’s a whole different ballgame.
You’re investing a lot of time, energy and money with PPC, Facebook, and SEO. You want to get qualified leads to your websites without any technical deficiencies. No mobile deficiencies.
Your Website On Mobile Is Perhaps More Important Than Your Desktop. Here’s Why…
Through Quarter 1 and Quarter 2, 2020, our Carrot members pulled in over 142,136 buyers, sellers, and tenant leads all through mobile devices (cell phones and tablets).
That number doesn’t include any leads that came through on desktop computers or any phone call leads (which according to our surveys is as much as 2x more than the online opt-in leads).
A full 64% of our member’s leads came from mobile devices last month. That’s a lot.
This is why internally we started making it a point to make it an everyday practice to spend as much time using our cell phones on our customer’s sites so we can continually improve the mobile experience and conversion rate.
Here’s an interesting stat for you…
The visitor to lead conversion rate on our Carrot websites is a full 3 percentage points higher on mobile devices than on desktop computers.
Why?
Because most real estate investor websites look really bad on mobile and aren’t set up to perform well on mobile… so a web searcher bounced off of those sites… back to Google… finds a Carrot site (which is streamlined to generate leads on mobile devices) and engages in the Carrot site… becoming a lead.
We feel right now anyone with a really well-optimized mobile responsive website design has a big edge on those who don’t.
As we’ve really shifted a lot of our focus over to mobile (we believe in getting ahead of the curve vs. following it) we’ve seen some really interesting patterns in the way people use their different devices to find information online.
Here’s a graph below that shows when people are using different devices during the day.
Basically, people are using mobile devices the vast majority of the time in non-work hours. And these tend to be the times that more leads come in on mobile devices by far.
In fact, digging into our own data… we found the same exact trend in fact.
Percent Of Leads By Time Of The Day From Mobile And Tablet
Notice how the mobile leads on our system correlates in a big way with the mobile usage patterns… but also see the importance that mobile plays when people are at home.
It’s a big deal.
So We Know That Mobile ISN’T The Future, It’s The Dominant Force Already…
Below we’ll dive into how your real estate investing website or agent website should be designed to maximize your chance at converting your visitors into qualified leads.
In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say… if you don’t nail the mobile experience and focus a lot of energy into it… in 12-24 months your website will be left in the dust (it’s already happening).
Will you catch up or be left behind?
If you lose just 1 deal a year because of lost leads from a suboptimal mobile experience and you average 10k in profits, is that money you’d rather figure out how to keep?
If you’re driving traffic to your website right now, and not implementing proper mobile techniques, then you most likely have a leaky bucket. Phantom expenses stacking up and taking money out of your bank account.
If you don’t stay ahead of the curve searching in mobile, you’ll end up getting trampled by your competitors. Attract mobile customers and turn them to lead. Save yourself at least one deal a year. That’s way worth it for the time it takes to get mobile optimized.
Here are some tips to help you better optimize your website for those mobile visitors.
1. Get Your Real Estate Investor Website Google “Mobile Friendly” + Responsive
Google’s stance on mobile is to create a responsive website. It’s likely that responsive sites get an edge in searches from a mobile device. Google also started penalizing sites in mobile search that aren’t mobile-friendly.
What do you need to do to make sure your website mobile friendly?
Basically Google is looking for things that make it easy for your web visitor to read and engage with your website. Things like…
Font sizes big enough to see on a mobile device
Tap targets that are big enough for your fingers to use
Making the website just the width of the mobile screen so you don’t have to pinch pan and zoom (responsive)
… and more
Here is what Google recommends your font sizes to be for your mobile responsive version of your website.
You’ll See Something Like This If You Pass The Test!
What You See If Your Website Doesn’t Pass The Mobile Friendly Test
Once you get your site “Google mobile friendly”… don’t stop there like most of your competitors are.
Now we need to make sure your website is also set up to convert mobile visitors into leads at a high rate as well (which 9 out of 10 investors aren’t doing).
Next, Consider Moving To A Mobile Website For Real Estate Investors vs. A “Mobile” Website
If you have “mobile” website (usually indicated by your URL being “m.[yoururlhere].com”… consider switching over to a mobile responsive design instead (which Google prefers).
A responsive website is basically where you don’t take people to a separate URL if they visit with a cell phone (like mentioned above) but your website adjusts to look great on any screen size or device. Like this.
Here’s a real-world comparison of a website that isn’t mobile responsive and one that is.
See How This Carrot Site Reshapes Based On The Device It’s Being Viewed On
You can test your own web page for responsiveness. Just grab the side of your browser and move it to the side. A responsive page will adjust and shrink down. If the page is not mobile responsive, the shrink will hide parts of the page and force the visitor to pinch, pan, and zoom around. Which will most likely cause them to exit the page.
Want to see what your site looks like on mobile? GO TO the InvestorCarrot built mobile tester. Just type in your URL and press enter. It’s that simple!
If your website is not responsive, you’re probably a year and a half behind the curve.
Here’s A Short Video Showing The Difference Between a Mobile Responsive Investor Site And One That’s Not
2. Design For The Touch, Not The Click
Most web guys, do it yourselfers, and low-end website builders design their websites for the click on desktop computers.
But we have to remember that we usually use our THUMBS on our cell phones to “tap” parts of the screen rather than clicking.
It’s really easy to tap the wrong thing with your thumb on a cell phone screen… so we need to really design our pages with that in mind.
How do we design for the “touch”?
Look Where It’s Easy And Hard To Engage With… And Design Accordingly
The higher up the screen the harder it is to tap with our thumbs.
Not saying people won’t do it… I know I do… but whenever we can put the parts on our website we want people to engage in right below where their thumb already is… we make it easier for them and performance goes up.
We took that concept and overlayed a “tap map” over the top of some websites.
Check them out.
Notice The Important “tap” Elements On This Carrot Site In The Green Zone
That site above makes it really easy for the person to tap the form fields (they’re HUGE) and the orange opt-in button (it’s the full width of the screen and large).
On the flipside…
Notice The Very Small Form And It’s Trapped In The Red “tap” Zone
Also… it’s not just your calls to action and forms that you need to design for the “tap” to make it easier for people to engage with using their thumbs.
Look at this website below at how small the text is (not Google mobile friendly per tip #1 above) just to navigate the website. Tons of small links all crammed next to each other are a sure bet to sending your mobile visitors on a wild goose chase.
So what do you want to make sure you’re doing on your website for your mobile visitors?
Make your form fields large and the width of the screen
Make your opt-in buttons large, clear to read, and the width of the screen
Add space between your form fields so people don’t accidentally tap the wrong one
Don’t cram a bunch of links close together. Give them space and the thumb room to roam
Keep important “tap” elements out of the upper left of the screen if possible
Alrighty? Always remember we’re working with thumbs here… so design for the thumb.
3. Make It Easy For People To Engage With You (both opt-in and phone)
The main reason you have a website for your real estate investing business is to attract and convert prospects into leads.
So we want to make it as easy as possible for people to engage with you on your website.
If you’re making people hunt for your phone number or making them scroll down the page too far, you have likely lost them to that funny cat video in that other tab on their cell phone.
Here are some simple tips to help people engage with your website better on their mobile devices.
Make sure the phone number is at the top of the page on mobile.
Don’t make it hard for the visitor to find and click to call your number. Visitors should immediately see the “call us” hyperlink. Don’t put your phone number in an image. Cell phones can’t recognize that the number is in an image, so it won’t be a clickable link. Make it really, really easy for your mobile visitors to call you. With Carrot websites, this is already built-in.
Make It Crazy Easy For Them To Contact You… And Put It At The Top Of Your Site
“Calls are the natural conversion path from smartphones and the single most effective vehicle for driving engagement and revenue across marketing channels. Inbound callers are almost always the best lead: studies show that phone calls can convert to revenue 10 times more frequently than web leads, and that calls are the lead type most preferred by sales managers” (BIA/Kelsey, 2015)
Where Do I Easily Contact You? Hmmm… Let Me Search… Ahhhhhh! I’m Out
If a mobile visitor lands on those sites above, they’re making it really hard to engage with you. So they back out of the page and find the next one down the Google rankings.
4. Get To The Call To Action Quickly
Just because you have WordPress doesn’t mean your website is going to perform.
You might have a mobile responsive that was quickly created, trying to save money, but that website might be under-performing. How many lost deals does it take?
Do yourself a favor and add a call-to-action and phone number to the top, and take the picture out – it’s wasting valuable space.
Don’t force the visitor to scroll down the page and risk losing to the competitor.
Let’s take a look at it done right.
With this InvestorCarrot site (this is a sample website of one of our designs coming out) you can see how quickly we get into the call to action. Phone number right up top and we immediately get into the very simple and quick form. No scrolling to get there. But if they’re not ready to opt-in… they can always scroll down to learn more and engage in the site further down the page.
Getting To The CTA Quickly
Getting To The CTA Slowly (making the visitor hunt and scroll)
And here’s a website selling investment properties that really makes the visitor hunt for a clear call to action…
The more efficiently we can get the mobile visitor to your call to action the better. Don’t make them hunt and click through a few links to get to the spot where you can best help them.
5. Don’t Use Too Many Form Fields
We’ve run many tests on the number of form fields and how it impacts the number and quality of leads you generate through your real estate investing websites.
And we’ve found that between 3-4 form fields are the ideal number for motivated sellers, cash buyers, tenants, etc. Then we pass the lead through to our “Step 2” page next to further qualify them (which works insanely well as we published on this blog post). Having fewer form fields has also been tested tons of times and verified by others as well.
But this is important especially on mobile devices. The more form fields on a cell phone the more likely you are to say “I’m not gonna fill that out!”.
See this example below… which would you be more likely to spend the time to fill out on your cell phone?
Long vs. Short Opt In Form
It’s easy to see Image A has too many form fields. Resulting in potential lead loss and a phantom expense. Image B (an InvestorCarrot site) keeps it simple with only 2 required fields.
A lot of the time the biggest thing real estate investors can do to make their website perform better on mobile is just making it easier for people to use their contact forms.
This one below we found on a motivated seller website is making it almost impossible for a house seller to engage on the form on their cell phone (possibly losing this investor 20-30% of his lead generation potential).
Ouch! 29 Form Fields :-(
Here’s a way that we borrowed from the big sites like Trulia and Zillow to reduce the number of form fields we ask on motivated house seller websites and make it easier for someone to give us their full address on a cell phone (this feature was just released last week).
Autofill Address Fields On Motivated Seller Sites… Like This
(we grab the data directly from Google’s address database. It’s a feature built into every Carrot website that you can turn on if you want)
A new built-in feature to our InvestorCarrot sites.
Make it easy to opt-in!
Visualize a form that looks like this screenshot. It takes 14 different items to get an offer from this company. Huh! Can you imagine your sellers filling out that many fields? Nope, they’ll say no thank you and move on to search for a different buyer.
A 2-3 form field is ideal for the first form. Then, pass the visitor to longer step-2 form AFTER the initial 2-3 questions, to further qualify the lead.
Also, make your call to action button LARGE and very clear. Don’t make the searcher struggle to tap it.
6. Sandwich Your Call To Action Areas… One On Top And One On Bottom
Visualize you’re on a web page to reading information, you get to the bottom of the page on your phone and all it does is put you into the footer links. Optimize your page by adding a phone number and a second form to the bottom of the page.
Don’t make the visitor have to scroll back to the top of their screen to opt-in or call you.
Always keep a call to action very close to their browsing path (mobile users have a short attention span so don’t make them work for it.)
7. Don’t Rely On Video To Be The Primary Call-To-Action
A common misconception is that video makes your website perform better.
In the real estate investor industry that isn’t necessarily true. Video is amazing on mobile, but not always when you’re trying to convert a visitor into a lead.
When you launch a video on mobile, it opens up into a full-screen view, and some mobile devices still don’t play certain video players well. Put video further down the page, not at the main call to action area.
What happens when you tap a video on your cell phone?
Up pops the video into a full-screen player and takes them away from their web browsing app
There is no “tap to call” function inside a video if you put your phone number in there but not on your site
Once the video is done most people forget to turn off the “related videos”... and you may be displaying your competitor’s videos. At Carrot all YouTube videos you add to your Carrot site we automatically strip out the related videos for you
To get back to your website they have to exit the YouTube app, go back to the browsing app, and re-engage back in your website
Every step we take our visitors away from our site the more easily they can be distracted and not give you a call or opt-in as a lead.
This applies to cash buyers, motivated sellers, tenants… you name it.
What happens if they don’t watch the video? They don’t get the call to action and when the video is done it goes to the YouTube app. The searcher will have to go back to your site to convert. They’ll most likely leave. Not saying don’t use video, just make sure it’s down the page and use that valuable top page real estate for your hook.
Always Do A Final Run Through With Your Own Thumbs On Your Site
A final piece of advice is to start using your cell phone to look at your website and navigate it as much as possible.
Get your thumbs on your site and see how it works. You just may find some things that aren’t as simple or smooth as they could be.
As we walked through… mobile is crazy important these days.
And getting more important every day.
Don’t fall behind the mobile curve.
Ideally, take advantage of the different forms of content. For example, if you find that your visitors don’t engage, make sure you put your phone number at the top of the page. Don’t hide it in the content or in an image. Switch to 2 or 3 field opt-in forms, quickly get to your call-to-action, and don’t use videos for the main call-to-action areas.
You can implement all of these yourself or simplify your life and let Carrot start leveraging technology to grow your business.
If you’re not a Carrot member yet… see how we’ll take 100% of all of the mobile worries off of your lap forever.We focus on keeping you ahead of the mobile performance curve so you can focus more on what you are great at.
Check out our “mobile” feature page to see how we have built-in everything (and more) on this page to your Carrot websites automatically.
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.
During the month of February, InvestorCarrot members generated 14,178 leads across all of their sites.
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, buildcredibility, delivervalue, 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.
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.
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.
Don’t you wish you could listen in while a 6 figure per month wholesaler talks to a motivated seller? Many real estate wholesalers focus so much on “getting the lead” that they forget that a huge leverage point in closing more deals in the first 3 minutes on the phone with a motivated seller.
Bryan Harris, the CEO of Homes For 10k, a 6-figure per month investor and Carrot member from Memphis Tennessee hopped on and walked us through 6 of his most important questions he asks during the initial motivated seller prospect call.
But first, Bryan wanted to stress the importance of perhaps the single most important (yet simple) thing that most investors just flat fail at that is costing them deal after deal without them even knowing it.
Did You Know, You’re…
Talking with Bryan and several other real estate wholesalers and flippers who do $100k/mo in different markets around the country they always say they’re amazed at how few of their “competitors” call back the leads they get quickly.
As InsideSales study said…
‘It’s like taking all of that money you spend on marketing and setting it on fire.”
The bottom line there is a lot of competition, so call back your leads as soon as you get them in.
There’s no such thing as too fast. Online leads can be a very impatient bunch. Competition can be Fierce. Leadshave many other investors to contact, so they expect a very fast response to their inquiries. Ideally, you will respond to them with a phone call within a few minutes. Always be prepared to respond. Have your questions ready to go.
You can be the best negotiator in the world… but if you’re not following Bryan’s advice above on calling back your web leads immediately… you’re competition could be grabbing deals out from under you before you even get the chance to call the seller.
Quick Tip: Have your web leads instantly sent to your phone with a text message!
This feature alone could possibly save you from losing a deal or more every year and pay for your Carrot membership for years and years and years.
Not A Carrot Member Yet? Take a demo to see why the top investors are all switching to Carrot!
6 Simple High-Impact Questions to Ask Motivated House Seller Leads When You Call
So, you got a lead that came in over the web, GREAT! You already know that you NEED to call them back immediately and that every minute that passes your chances at turning it into a deal goes down.
Now, let’s dive into what Bryan Harris, a 6 figure per month wholesaler in Memphis says on the phone when he talks with motivated house sellers.
Now let’s turn it over to Bryan!
Brendan: Bryan, it’s all, you man!
Bryan: Awesome, I’ll just go ahead and dive in!
Ok, so when I call back a motivated house seller I like to start the phone call very much like I’d start a call with a friend of mine. You don’t want to go straight to the numbers and the deal.
I’ll dive into my basic structure for talking to motivated sellers in this post. I’m not really going to give a “motivated seller phone script” mainly because I feel that when you use scripts things don’t come off as authentic and real.
So I’d be doing a disservice to you if I told you to “grab my script and just use this”.
I know you’re probably thinking, “Really? That’s one of the 6 questions?”. But it’s an important one. I ask this because I’ve found that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care.
This question is about the RAPPORT building, that is a must when talking to sellers.
You have to remember that there are hundreds of thousands of people doing exactly what you do, WHAT SEPARATES YOU FROM THE REST OF THE OTHER PEOPLE THAT WANT TO BUY THEIR HOUSE?
People tend to do business with people that they like and a simple THOUGHT FELT QUESTION like “How is your day?” can separate you from the pack.
One particular deal that comes to mind is the one that we recently obtained.
A $170,000 property for $22,000 here in Memphis.
That’s not a typo.
The seller told me she was bombarded by wholesalers. I asked her what stood out about me and our company and she said, she was about to lose her house to foreclosure and it seemed like I was the one who “cared” the most.
Needless to say. $120,000 profit later CARING IS SHARING…lol.
Question #2: “What’s your reason for selling?”
Knowing the motivation of your sellers is, of course, a big deal.
I ask this question to determine motivation. If the motivation isn’t there, when you present your low offer, you have no purpose to reference.
Motivation factor: The dire need for money to pay for college tuition that costs $5500 this semester.
As an example a conversation may go something like this:
Mr. Seller, I know you were asking for $29,000 and you may have others that have promised you more, but I can have $7,500 cash in your hand in 7 days and with that cash you can PAY FOR YOUR TUITION AND have $2,000 left for spending money
And school starts in 3 weeks. I can close by mid next week so that you can MEET YOUR REGISTRATION DEADLINE.
Too many investors discount the value they bring to the table with sellers and buyers and talk themselves out of a great deal. Find the true motivation and biggest pain point that the house seller has, and help them reach that goal as easily as possible. It could be a huge win-win for everyone.
Finding the motivation allows you to take their minds off the low offer you have presented, and focus on being the SOLUTION to their problem.
Question #3: “What is your name, number, and email?”
Did you notice this isn’t the first thing I asked for on the call?
A lot of people dive right in and ask for the contact info but what I’ve found is people can see it as threatening and putting the cart before the horse a bit. By this time I of course already have their phone number, but I’ll also confirm if this is their BEST phone number.
The importance of this information is because the FORTUNE IS IN THE FOLLOW UP.
TIP: EVERY SELLER NO MATTER WHAT GETS AN EMAILED CONTRACT OFFER FROM ME. EVERY SINGLE SELLER, EVEN IF THEY REJECTED MY OFFER.
And for the next year, they will receive an automated email and text from me monthly.
Most people do business with you on the 5th through the 12th contact. So by you following up with leads, you OUT PERFORM 98% of your competition.
Use automated systems such as AWeber or MailChimp for drip systems or do follow up emails for later dates. Or, Callfire for text deliveries. Find a way to automate your follow up and your life will be much easier.
InvestorCarrot integrates with Aweber and Mailchimp directly and makes it easy to get my leads into Callfire too.
Question #4: “Are you the decision-maker?”
This is a really important question.
The last thing you want is to get down to it and the person you’re talking too can’t really make the decision on selling their house alone.
I like to always double-check to make sure there isn’t anyone else on the title that need to sign in order to sell the property. If there are, find a time to discuss their options with all of the decision-makers present.
This helps you avoid the “let me talk it over with my (fill in the blank)”
Knowing if you are speaking with the decision-maker is very important information needed upfront.
Question #5: “Are there any mortgages, back taxes, liens etc.?”
In addition to just the obvious reasons, this keeps down surprises… this question is a really great one to continue to build rapport.
You may have made an offer based on the house being free and clear and not knowing there was a mortgage attached, you get to the closing table and find out there is an outstanding lien and the seller says, you didn’t ask that question.
Always find out all of the details on the house so you don’t have any last-minute surprises when it comes time to close on the property.
You’ll thank me later for this one.
Question #6: “How did you hear about us?”
This question is so so simple but very powerful.
How many sellers have you asked this question recently?
Not only does this question help them dig through their brain bank to remember what stood out about us… which helps validate their original decision to reach out to us… but this helps me spend my marketing dollars where I am getting the most bang for my bucks.
Knowing where my leads come from is crucial information for any business.
The vast majority of my deals come from my Carrot websites and PPC marketing
If this question is not asked, you will need to review your business weekly. The majority of your leads may be coming from one specific source and the only way to effectively know is to ask this question.
Now Get Busy + What Do You Ask Sellers When You Call Them?
First, if you have some other things you talk to motivated house sellers about when you’re on the phone with them… let us know in the questions panel below!
Bryan! Thanks for dropping in here and passing along some simple but awesome advice for the newer real estate wholesalers and flippers out there looking for a script and questions to ask for motivated house sellers! We appreciate it and look forward to bringing you back and diving into even more advanced stuff next time!
But for some inspiration, here is a Facebook post that Bryan recently posted that should get you fired up to achieve at a high level and to focus on what you do best and align with the people and systems that can help you succeed.
So, given today’s challenging real estate market, you want to treat lead inquiries like diamonds.
When you call your sellers…
Build rapport at the start
Find out their motivation for selling
Get their full contact info for followup
Dig out any hidden details about the property / mortgage before they bite you
Find out how they found you
I’m sure there are many more questions you could ask, but these 6 should get you started.
Download This Simple “6 Seller Questions”
Checklist For Your Next Call
[Free Download] 6 Initial Questions to Ask Motivated Seller Leads Checklist.
Keep it near you for an easy reminder of the initial questions to ask.
Need More Online Leads For Your Wholesaling / House Flipping Business?
Generate More Real Estate Investing Leads And Cut Through The Marketing Clutter In Your Market. Download our FREE Marketing Toolkit: Get Access To This Content Marketing Toolkit + Training For Real Estate Investors here!
And take a Demo of Carrot today to leverage the same system that Bryan uses to generate his online leads and deals each and every month.
How much should you invest in search engine marketing in 2016? This includes SEO and PPC. Well in this post we’ll dive into the 3 things I consider when I dive in to create an effective and high ROI SEM (search engine marketing) budget for myself and the clients that we work with in the real estate industry.
If you’re feeling beads of sweat drip down as you try to determine where to spend your marketing dollars to get more real estate deals for the highest ROI, don’t fret. I have three top tips to help you make smart decisions.
1. Dig Into The Long-Tail Keywords, Not Just The “Broad” Popular Ones Your Competitors Are Using
Long tail keywords are easier to leverage and often times bring a high quality visitor to your site.
Why?
They’re very specific – often three to six word – keyword phrases (also less competitive than more general keywords). Long-tail keywords became more important to online marketers with the advent of Google Hummingbird, Google’s major algorithm update in 2013, which gives preference to the long tail keyword.
With a recent surge in voice search via platforms such as Siri and Google Voice Search, there’s no question: long tail keywords are more important than ever.
People are searching just as they speak, so it’s time to pay even closer attention to real estate investor keyword phrases like, “How to sell my home fast?”vs. just “sell house.”
But even if you’ve mastered the art of conversational dialogue and are pretty certain you know how people might search, there’s a science to figuring out how to get ranked for the right long tail keywords with the least amount of effort / cost (relatively speaking). So working with a good SEO agency to ensure you have a solid long tail keyword strategy in place is definitely going to be vital to online marketing success in the coming year.
Here is an infographic that dives into the key differences of long-tail vs. short-tail (or broad) keyword phrases.
2. SEM Done Right Is Always a Worthwhile Investment
There are certain online marketing tactics that are a sure-bet for a long time to come, and SEM is one of them.
Overall, U.S. marketers will spend more than $103 billion on search, display, social media, and email marketing by 2019 — growing at a 12% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) — but search will remain the largest share of interactive spend. (MediaPost).
Based on our experience, when doing SEO or PPC, businesses are likely to get at least three to four times their money back. That’s being conservative!
Having the right mindset is crucial when planning your marketing budget. Many real estate investors make the mistake of thinking in terms of costs rather than returns.
While costs are an important consideration, ultimately, your objective is to “move the needle” and get a return on your money.
Take a demo of Carrot today or reach out to us if you have questions about how to plan your 2016 Search Engine Marketing budget in the comments section below.
The first month of 2016 is in the books. How did you do? Were you able to improve your mindset, your business, or your numbers? For a lot of our members we sensed a change in focus and finding a marketing plan that works for them in 2016.
Across our network of real estate investor websites, there were definitely a strong number of leads coming into Carrot sites. Let’s cut to the meat and potatoes and show you exactly how many leads Carrot sites generated last month.
Last month Carrot members generated online opt in 14,212 leads. This doesn’t include the thousands and thousands of phone call leads our members have received… which takes it well over 20,000 leads per month. Those include motivated seller, rent to own, cash buyer, and a few note buyer leads.
Last month Carrot members generated online opt in 14,212 leads.
As you can see, these numbers are up from last month’s 13,340… which we expect.
Leads aren’t the only thing improving
We have seen a steady rise in sessions (visits) on Carrot member’s websites. As more and more members improve their SEO rankings it is no surprise that we will see more sessions.
A Quick Note: A session is a group of interactions that take place on your website within a given time frame. For example, a single session can contain multiple page views. Another name is “visits”.
This graph shows Carrot members’ website sessions from September to January
So what does this all mean? It means that Carrot members are effectively driving more traffic to their sites. This is awesome and is something that we will see continue on an upwards trend.
When was the last time you asked yourself why?
The last month has been crazy busy for us at Carrot. We have a lot going on and some exciting information to share with you soon. But one thing we realized in the month of January is, with all the planning, all the organization, and all the best intention in the World you really need to ask yourself why?
Why am I spending so much time on X. Why can’t I figure out how to rank for a specific keyword. Why is my site not generating leads.
Why are you doing what you are doing? If you can’t answer it quickly and with a one sentence that you are proud of, there is a good chance you need to revisit your priorities.
Why are you using InvestorCarrot? To get more leads? To have a website that performance for your business? If you said yes, great. But what are you doing to get to your why? More on that later.
We wanted to briefly shout-out some members who are seeing their websites perform for them and then break down how they got there.
Jeff was wondering why PPC Marketing wasn’t working for him on his non-Carrot website
Jeff reached out to Adrian our head Customer Success Hero of Strategy via Facebook after a Coaching Call and informed us that his Carrot site brought him his first lead. Yay! We love to see that stuff on a daily basis.
Jeff was using pay per click to bring traffic to his old non-Carrotsite, but it wasn’t converting. Instead of getting frustrated, he researched InvestorCarrot, signed up and found that our pages generally convert very well for pay per click traffic.
Jeff hit us up on Facebook to tell us he received his first lead from his Carrot website.
A high performing website was the difference for Jeff
For Jeff he simply needed to find a site that converted his traffic into leads. If you are struggling with the traffic side of lead generation have you considered PPC?
If you are only using Google AdWords wait until you see what we have next.
If you are unsure of where to start with pay per click or not sure how to optimize your pay per click campaigns we recommend watching this webinar and reading this blog post.
Bryan found that Adwords isn’t the only player in the game – We added Bing PPC to the mix
Bryan is a successful and highly active real estate investors in the central part of the country. Bryan has been on a roll lately and is closing a ton of deals from his leads that he generated online. In fact he did a podcast that you should listen to where he walks through how he’s had 3 $100k months in a row recently.
Bryan’s PPC to his InvestorCarrot websites crushes it for him and constantly delivers high ROI for his business.
But just recently we sprinkled on little a Bing love into his pay per click strategies.
Bryan shared his results from that campaign on Facebook recently.
Breaking down Bryan’s success: PPC + High Performing Website
Bryan has seen mega success from his online lead generation. Now that he is closing very consistent deals every month he has a working marketing budget. For Bryan his big “why” was why not try another platform to drive traffic to my website.
Have you looked into Bing for pay per click in addition to the Google Adwords you’re running?
Joy is making use of automating her business lead flow
Joy has been with Carrot for a couple months and was finally able to reach her first milestone (getting a lead).
We are pumped for Joy that her first lead turned into a deal. You don’t see it in the Facebook comments (and there were a lot of them).
But Joy admitted that her lead came from her PPC campaign, which she is doing herself. So if you aren’t like Bryan with a marketing budget, you can be like Joy and roll your own campaign until you get your feet under you.
Breaking down Joy’s success
Sometimes the path best traveled is the toughest one. If you are struggling with getting leads, are you asking yourself, why isn’t my Carrot site performing like these other Carrot members?
What is the answer?
Have you tried paying for traffic? Have you tried updating the content on your website? Which SEO keywords are you targeting in 2016? How did your January 2016 marketing plan turn out? If you are able to answer some of those questions you should have a better idea of what the next move is.
But we understand the answer isn’t always clear, and we are here for you. We spend a lot of time reading, testing, implementing, strategizing, and analyzing data. Utilize us as a resource to launch your business in 2016.
Here is what you need to do if you aren’t getting enough leads for your real estate investing business
If you are a Content Pro member, consider joining us for one of our weekly LIVE Coaching Calls. We host them every Tuesday at 11am Pacific. Can’t make the call? No problem, we record all of them and give you access to view them later.
Get on a call and ask questions
Watch 1 recording a week and find something to implement during the week
Decide how you are going to drive traffic to your website
Do one marketing activity this week to accomplish that goal
If you are new to InvestorCarrot here is what you should do
Don’t get overwhelmed and don’t think that if you aren’t generating leads in your first week that you are failing to do something.
The most important thing you can do is get your site set up correctly, and start implementing your game plan.
If you don’t have a marketing strategy then the first step is research how you plan to bring people to your website. If it is SEO, great, but how are you going to improve your site’s SEO? If it’s PPC, then set up your Adwords campaign and get the tracking in place.
We have an opportunity for all new members to get on a “Getting Started” call.
This is a great place to get your questions answered and have time to sit with a Carrot coach and get a strategy in place.
Are you a current InvestorCarrot member and crushing it with online lead generation? Want to talk with us about scaling up your business and or be highlighted in some of our content? Shoot us an email to support@oncarrot.com and tell us about your journey.
We’re switching up the format of our monthly Carrot Lead Harvest Reports to not just live up to our core value of transparency by showing our actual data so you can learn what’s working to generate leads online and what’s not… but we want to start to highlight real stories from investors around the country so you know what they’re doing with some of these leads that we’re reporting on each month… and how they’re Harvesting deals consistently online.
This month we’re diving into…
The “Holiday season dip“
How many leads our members generated and where they came from
Highlighting Connor’s story on how he’s “Harvested” over $60,000 in new closed deals in the past 6 months leveraging the InvestorCarrot system and our guidance (awesome!)
The Holiday Season Dip (wait for the Q1 bounce!)
As we’ve written about before, the holiday season (especially when there is harsh weather like some parts of the country are seeing) sees less house sellers hitting the web to actively sell their home. More time is being spent with families and selling a house around the holidays can be tough.
Below we dive into the places the leads came from in December… which shows you that Inbound marketing… specifically SEO and content marketing are still leading the charge by a very wide margin (studies show up to 60% of “direct” leads that Google reports are actually from Google searches).
December 2015 Real Estate Investing Lead Sources
So congrats to all of you Carrot members who crushed it in December and still had time to enjoy time off, some egg nog, and time with your family. Great way to finish the year!
With Fewer Leads In Holiday Months Are Deals Still Closing Consistently?
You bet. Realty Trac released it’s Q3 2015 U.S. home flipping report and in that report they state…
“43,197 single family homes and condos were flipped — sold as part of an arms-length sale for the second time within a 12-month period — in the third quarter of 2015, 5.0 percent of all single family home and condo sales during the quarter.”
Holy cow! That’s a lot of house flipping going on :-)
The report breaks down markets for the flips and covers more details about the report and the methodology for which the data was gathered.
Knowing that there are deals to be made, it forces you to step back and get the basics down first, and that is generating leads. It’s hard to do a deal without the lead.
Today, we wanted to spotlight Connor, an InvestorCarrot member who was struggling to crack the first page of Google in a crowded market. We interviewed Connor and asked what he did to get to the first page of Google for top motivated house seller keywords in a hyper-competitive market, and how those results have paid off for him.
Connor Steinbrook’s $60k Deal Harvest Story: Closing Deals In A Competitive Market
Connor is an investor in the Dallas market, which is one of the most competitive markets in the country.
Many of you reading this may be thinking…
“But if there are already Carrot members doing well in my market can I succeed too?”
Connor was brand new into the market in 2015 and got focused and implemented our system and leveraged our resources…
… and is carving out his own space in that crowded market.
The cool thing is… there were already dozens of Carrot members in the Dallas market before Connor ever entered it, but he didn’t sit back and relax and wait for magic to happen without doing anything… he busted his butt and leveraged every resource available to him here at Carrot and outworked most of the others in that market (there are other Dallas Carrot users crushing it as well!).
So let’s dive in and hear from Connor!
Q: What was your biggest problem in generating leads online at the start?
Connor: “I needed more automated leads that would come in with consistency throughout the day without taking all of my time and focus away from my daily business.”
Connor started researching real estate investing and how to wholesale properties. After trying a few methods online he realized that his biggest limiting factor was the consistency of leads.
He did some research and found InvestorCarrot and signed up a little over a year ago.
Connor: “I have closed over $60,000 dollars in deals off my Carrot Sites alone in the last 6 months”
Q: What would you attribute to your success so far?
Connor: “Hard work and following the plan. I spent 9 months studying and implementing… watching the Carrot training videos, making YouTube videos, and writing original content for every page I have. I knew it would be a lot of work so I just set goals to do a little bit every day.”
Connor attended a lot of our weekly LIVE Coaching Calls (included in our Content Pro plan), went through our trainings, and experimented a lot with is InvestorCarrot websites.
Inching up the Google rankings…
Connor says “I was nowhere to be found after 6 to 7 months within Google” for his target market of Dallas (crazy competitive and that 6-7 month timeline is expected with a fresh website in a market like that).
But after following a proven model and letting Google index his pages, he noticed he moved up to the 5th page.
From there it only took a month to get to page 3 and then another month to get up the 1st page on Google for his targeted keyword.
Connor: “The leads come in every week. The entire Carrot team is awesome. Their customer support is great. Jake has helped me every step of the way. I owe him a lot. I refer people to Carrot all the time.”
Q: How does InvestorCarrot help your business the most?
For Connor, InvestorCarrot has been fundamental for bringing a steady flow of leads. This is important for all investors, but in a crowded market like Connor’s, having a team of experts to bounce questions to and help guide him was critical.
Connor: “I even get leads when I sleep. I wake up with leads in my email sometimes. You never know when you’re going to get a text with the next motivated seller coming from your Carrot site”
Getting Real Results Requires Focused, Consistent, And Strategic Work (or outsource it to someone who will)
Reading stories like this are inspiring and awesome. We love them to.
But a key I want to hone in on here is that in competitive markets… if you’re going to focus solely on SEO and pulling in leads from Google organic search rankings… it’s going to take time and a lot of focused, consistent, and strategic work.
That’s where Connor dove right in and took the challenge head on, and we’re glad as heck we’ve been able to help him along the way to get there faster, more easily, and with a higher ROI.
Q: Do you have any advice that you would like to give other investors who are in competitive markets and want to pull in consistent leads and deals through SEO?
Connor: “It is a lot of work to get your site to the number 1 ranking. Try to not get overwhelmed. Don’t think you have to do it all at once. Set a game plan and daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Do something every day to make your sites better. And align with experts who can be there for you every step of the way”
He is right, but all that work doesn’t need to be a burden. You have many options when getting that work done. You can break it down to small tasks, like Connor said and just make small improvements weekly. Or you can hire someone if you have a marketing budget to do it for you. You can find more information about managed SEO services in our marketplace.
The Hockey Stick ROI of SEO (when you do it right)
Connor decided to focus his time and energy on SEO, leveraging our built in SEO tools and industry leading Search Engine Optimization methodology built into our system and our training. When you implement a proven plan consistently over time your return on investment from SEO can turn into your most profitable form of marketing. We also suggest launching other ways to drive qualified visitors to your website while you work on your SEO… like PPC marketing for motivated house sellers, Craigslist, etc.
But it takes time and patience. Those who can wait are rewarded.
But the biggest takeaway from Connor’s story is this…
SEO takes time, but the ROI from it is incredibly lucrative.
If you are struggling with your SEO, not sure what to do next, join us on a Coaching Calls if you are already an InvestorCarrot member. These weekly live calls are designed to help each other out with what strategies are working, how to get unstuck, and learn other ways investors are making SEO pay out big time for them.
Don’t have access to the Coaching Calls?Consider upgrading as the overall ROI from getting 1 deal under your belt pays for your Carrot membership for 5+ years.
Congrats Connor! Let’s celebrate with Connor together! Hard work and focus pays off.
Not an InvestorCarrot member yet? Consider taking a demo or joining us today and see if it’s a fit to help you grow your real estate investing business.
It’s amazing how fast the years go by… yet how much you can accomplish in those 12 months when you get clear, get focused on your “big pumpkins” and have a mission that means something to you and your customers a core level.
I thought it would be pretty cool to do a quick review of some of the cool things that both YOU… our Carrot community… and us… Carrot the company were able to accomplish together this year.
All in all, 2015 was a banner year for our Carrot members and an amazing year of growth for our team and company because we focused so much on the one thing that matters… helping YOU get what you want out of life more easily and more effectively with our tools, software, training, and support.
So what happened in 2015?
Let’s dive into some cool stuff in this quick post!
Carrot Members Are Crushing It With Leads!
You guys were a force to be reckoned with in 2015. With over 20,000 leads per month coming in (when you count phone call leads… which we can’t track in Google Analytics currently) you’re pulling in more PPC, SEO, and social media online leads as a collective group than any other real estate investor lead generation platform… by far. Keep crushing it! We’ll help you get there.
375 “Doses Of Awesomeness” Sent In!
At Carrot, hearing back from our clients is like fuel for us. So much so that we created an internal tool for our team members called the “Thread of Awesomeness” where our team members add the great things that Carrot clients send in to us on a daily basis. Here is a very small snapshot of some of the messages Carrot clients have sent us recently.
Over 6,600 Live Chats + 17,215 Help Tickets Solved!
You guys were busy! And so were we! Our team helped our Carrot members through the tough spots in 2015 in a big way. We process hundreds of tickets and live chats per week and we’re humbled by the ratings you gave our team during your interactions with us.
We work our butts off so you can spend less time working with our software and more time closing deals. Soon you’ll be introduced to our newest addition to the Carrot Customer Success team in January… keep an eye out!
We LOVE Chatting With Our Customers. Keep It Coming In 2016!
Or, Send Us An Email And Our Customer Success Team Will Dominate That Too! :-)
Never Stop Improving
Another Core Value of ours is “constant never-ending improvement“… and both our customers and us as a company sure did live that one. In addition to the dozens of features we released in 2016 to help our clients spend less time hassling with tech and marketing issues and to pull in more leads… and dozens of split tests we ran on sites to increase the conversion rates of your websites (to much higher than the industry average)… our members relentlessly showed up to our weekly LIVE Coaching Calls, asked us questions, and helped us find the best ways to help you improve. Keep it up in 2016! We have some amazing new features and additions coming your way!
We Helped Your Conversion Rates Improve Even More In 2015!
There are some really cool innovations coming out in Q1 of 2016 based on our continual conversion rate optimization team. It’s this dedication to performance and ROI that has helped you pull in so many leads in 2016 (especially on mobile devices!)
In 2015 we mailed out over 721 Carrot Bud dolls to Carrot members. That’s a LOT of Carrot love. And we just ordered another thousand for 2016 (with 2 new designs that you’ll love!). If you’re a Carrot member keep an eye out for special surprises from us. You never know… you may be the next to get your very own Carrot Bud in the mail in 2016.
721 Carrot Clients Received A Carrot Bud In The Mail In 2015
1 Carrot Customer Sent In A Carrot Bud Unboxing Video (haha, gotta love that!)
You guys are awesome! Our family loved the gift! Merry Christmas!
Posted by Justin Morgan on Monday, December 14, 2015
Plus Tons Of Amazing Smiling Faces With Their Carrot Buds!
Our Team Has Grown In More Ways Than One
InvestorCarrot started out as a one-man show 3 years ago… then we quickly added our CTO, built out the Customer Success team, and the rest is history. Now the team is continually growing to stay ahead of the curve so our members can also stay ahead of the curve from their competition. We’re proud to be adding several more full-time team members to the Carrot team in early 2016 as well! Keep an eye out!
8 Scotch Eggs Consumed (give or take a few)
Thanks, O’Tooles for making the best damn Scotch Egg in the land.
Countless Pints Of Beer Down The Hatch
… and much more fun, challenging, and rewarding ways our team grew in size, skill, and in our relationships together.
All In All, An Amazing Year You’ve Made It Carroteers!
With 2016 a blink away, make sure to use this time to look back on your own 2015. Reflect on the great strides you’ve taken toward your dreams and goals… and reflect on the things you still need to improve on and tackle with focus and intentionality in 2016.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out these 2 posts we published the past 2 weeks (both were our most actively shared and commented on content pieces in 2015 too!)… dive into them. They’ll help you make some important mindset shifts for 2016 and we walk you through how to make 2016 an epic year.
So, are you seeing your leads slow down right now versus the volume of cash buyer or motivated seller leads you saw in the summer? Well, you’re not alone. It’s a seasonal thing… and here’s what you can do about it to make up some of those lost leads with other types of marketing.
There’s an interesting phenomenon happening right now that some investors are noticing and I wanted to write a blog post about it to make you aware of it:
Some investors (maybe even you) are noticing fewer leads right now… have you noticed that? (It’s not happening to everyone but to some).
Maybe you’re seeing this happen and you’re wondering if something is broken on your website or if Google changed their algorithm again. So I’m writing this blog post to let you know: it’s actually very normal…
What’s happening is kind of like what happens with the stock market:
Look at a chart of the Dow Jones over a period of years and you’ll notice that it trends generally upward.
But look at a chart of the Dow Jones over a period of hours or days and you’ll notice that it has a lot of peaks and valleys.
The same thing is happening to investors: While Carrot users are noticing a steady increase in the number of leads they get online when you implement what we teach and stick with it, some are also noticing that there are peaks and valleys… and in the winter months leads for some types of prospects (like motivated house sellers) tend to take a bit of a dip.
Why?
Well, the simple answer can be summed up with a meme from the TV show Game Of Thrones…
Winter is coming! Well, actually it’s HERE in many parts of the country.
No, I’m not joking. The season and how cold it is outside can affect the number of people out hunting for someone to buy their house.
Let me ask you a question:
If you live in an area of the country where it snows, when do you think about a snow shovel?
Chances are, you probably don’t think about it at the height of summer, when you’re sitting on the beach and watching your kids play in the surf.
Chances are, you probably think about it when the forecast calls for snow… or (more likely) after you look out the window one morning and see the ground covered in snow. That’s when you think, “Oh, I hope I have a snow shovel!” and then you go searching for one in the garage.
The Home Depot knows this.
That’s why, during the summer, you probably won’t find a lot of snow shovels (you might find one tucked away in a discount bin somewhere), but during the winter, the snow shovels are front-and-center… probably the first thing you see when you walk in into the store.
There are seasonal fluctuations in many types of businesses (including here at Carrot) and smart businesses know this and they plan for it and deal with it.
The same is true for your real estate investing business
The exact same thought process that occurs with you and your snow shovel also occurs with the motivated seller and cash buyer leads who come into your business.
Here’s Why Real Estate Investing Lead Volumes Can Fluctuate During The Year
Motivated sellers might want to sell throughout the year, but there are months when they are more motivated to sell than other months.
Cash buyers might want to buy throughout the year, but there are months when they are more motivated to buy than other months.
Not surprisingly, lead generation trends correspond to the months of increased motivation, which corresponds to increased search activity.
In short: during some months, motivation to sell or to buy increased, which increased searches for related keywords, which increased leads generated.
We first reported to investors on this phenomenon in 2013, in the post Are There Less Real Estate Investor Leads In Holiday Months Than Summer Months? We showed that motivated seller leads tended to fluctuate through the year, with a noticeable spike in the summer and a noticeable decline in the winter. The same phenomenon holds up year-after-year!
The same is true for cash buyers as well. We showed that cash buyer leads tended to fluctuate through the year, with a noticeable spike in January.
Motivated sellers are looking to sell when it’s nice: the summer months; with July being an ideal time perhaps to get the kids settled in a new place before school starts. December tends to be a slower month because of the holidays and people in general just have so much to do in December that they often put their sale off until the new year.
Cash buyers are looking to buy when they’re thinking about their financial future. This often happens around January when we all think about New Year resolutions and the year ahead.
Some investors might get frustrated by this knowledge, and feel tempted to shut things down in the quiet months while they ramp things up in the busy months.
But I believe that investors have a massive opportunity to grow their business by ramping up their efforts in the quiet months!
Here Are 10 Things You Can Do This Month If You’re Seeing The “Winter Lead Slump” That Some Investors Experience
The solution to fewer leads is a two-pronged approach:
You should level up the amount of marketing that you do to increase your leads right now, plus you should put some pieces in place to ensure that your leads remain stable throughout the year.
If you’re seeing fewer leads right now, here are a few ideas to help you shore up those lead numbers and not settle for a dip in volume:
Each week we’ll share with you our very best strategies for building your online presence and generating more leads. Our focus is to help you get more leads.
Keep marketing!
There might be fewer cash buyers and motivated sellers taking action right now… but they’re still out there!
So keep marketing.
Don’t wind down your marketing efforts just because it’s the end of the year and you’re assuming that all of your cash buyers have flown south for the winter.
Integrate your offline marketing
One of the first things we teach our InvestorCarrot members in our Carrot Guide is to integrate your website with your offline marketing. Test your URL on your postcards/letters, radio ads, TV spots, etc.
Find ways to integrate marketing you’re already doing offline with your website.
Accelerate the timeline
Cash buyer leads tend to spike in January because that’s one of the times of the year when cash buyers are thinking about their financial future. So create marketing that gets them thinking about their financial future sooner than January!
Start the conversation right now about how to get a jump-start on the new year. You can do the same thing for motivated sellers. Remind them that now is still a great time to sell and they can get cash in hand before Christmas!
Launch a direct mail campaign that markets…
“Cash In your Hand Before Christmas!”
…and get them to start thinking about accelerating their timeline to sell.
Market more to motivated sellers who don’t need to move (2nd homes, inherited, etc.)
Winter might not be an ideal time to move but not all of your motivated sellers need to move when they sell to you. Out of state owners, probate/inheritance owners, landlords, etc. – these people are still motivated to sell and they are not at all impacted by the weather.
Those absentee owners may want that cash injection before Christmas and the new year and may want to go into the new year without that burdensome property. Use that to your advantage.
Do more of what you’re already doing (ramp it up!)
The majority of PPC campaigns by “do it yourselfers” that we see have glaring things that need to be fixed that would really increase the results from the campaign. And lots of people are being held back by a PPC ad budget that’s too low. Here are some tips on making your PPC marketing dollars go further.
Add more marketing channels
If you’ve been thinking of testing some new marketing channels, now is the time to add them so you have them refined and humming along when the spring and summer months kick in.
Craigslist continues to be a surprising source of cash buyers and a consistent stream of sellers for our members.
Many investors have been ignoring Craigslist for a few years because it’s old school and it’s gotten harder to market in the real estate sections. But we have a very powerful and effective Craigslist training that shows you how to still get leads from this source. And I believe that Facebook is an AMAZING source of cash buyer leads when done right.
So now is the time to start testing some Facebook efforts. And don’t stop there.
Motivated sellers are far less motivated to sell in the winter because they don’t want to move when it’s cold.
So how can you help them avoid that pain? Does it mean getting really creative by offering to cover a moving company? Some investors might scream at the potential cost… but consider this: it might make more sense to get SOME profit from a few deals than to get NO profit because you can’t find motivated sellers who are willing to move.
Also, you know all of those leads you generated in the past 4-6 months that didn’t turn into deals?
Well, send out a campaign to all of them to see if they were able to get their situation taken care of.
You could send an email that looks something like this…
“Hi [name], I hope your holiday season is going well!
If you remember, you and I connected a few months back when you let us know about your property at on our website.
I’m going through my notes and wanted to follow up to see if you were able to sell that house yet? If not, would it be worth chatting again to see if the timing is right for me to make you another offer? I’m buying 3 more houses before the end of the year yours is in the neighborhood we’re looking for.
I look forward to connecting with you!
– [your name]”
Plan ahead
Chances are, you’ll see a bump in cash buyer leads in the new year so use this time to build some extra capacity into your business (i.e. train a new acquisitions person or estimator), which will allow you to do even more when those cash buyers spike in January.
Also, if you’re still working to get your search engine rankings higher… the winter months are the PERFECT time to put in the SEO time (or hire it out) to grow your rankings so your website is ranked higher when the search volume picks back up.
Think long-term
Search engine optimization can take 3-5 months to really take effect(or sometimes longer in competitive markets) so if you level up your search engine optimization game now, you’ll help to position your site for even greater search engine result greatness! Don’t wait until March to try to rank well for a competitive phrase by the summer “traffic bump”… if you do you may not be giving yourself enough time for the SEO rankings to mature.
Seeing Your Leads Dip Unveils A Hidden OPPORTUNITY
Most investors will tell you that fewer leads is a frustration.
But I think it’s an opportunity: it’s an opportunity to build a more diversified and stable business by deploying new strategies that you might not normally have time to try out. And once you build these strategies into your marketing, they’ll continue working for you to drive more leads into your business and push that trend line even higher!
See our plans or take a demo… but above all, take this seasonal opportunity to get creative with your real estate marketing!
So you’ve heard people say you can’t generate consistent deals with SEO? Tell that to Jack of Jack Buys Houses in Orlando, FL… he closes 3-5 deals a month in Florida almost exclusively through his search engine optimization efforts. See how…
Connor is an investor in the Dallas market, which is one of the most competitive markets in the country.
