Investor Idea of the Week - Posted by Tim Jensen

Posted by Lazaro on July 02, 2001 at 17:50:55:

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Investor Idea of the Week - Posted by Tim Jensen

Posted by Tim Jensen on June 30, 2001 at 22:01:30:

Hi All,

Since I have been on a bit of a marketing kick with these weekly posts I thought I would finish it off with the results of my marketing.

I have been advertising via the newspaper, phonebook, flyers, bandit signs and internet. I have tracked the calls for the last 30 days and I have recieved about 47 calls from my marketing. The total cost of that market was $288.00 for a whole month. It cost me about $6.13 per lead. Out of the 50 calls I purchased two properties. One will be a rental and the other was a quick flip that I made $2500 on. So you can see that the advertising more than paid for its self. So here is the break down:

Price
$ 83.00 Phonebook
$169.00 Daily paper
$ 28.00 Thrifty Nickel(local free paper)
$ 5.00 Internet website
$ 3.00 Bandit signs and Flyers

Number of calls

Phonebook 5
Daily Paper 23
Thrifty Nickle 4
Internet 7
Bandit signs 5
Flyers 3

Now by looking at the numbers, you can see that the nespaper cost the most, but drew the most calls. The main reason I think that happened was the fact that my ad is in the paper 7 days a week 52 weeks a year. This leads me to believe that repitition is the key here. Now the Thrifty Nickel is a free newspaper and the cost is cheap, but it did poorly. I believe the reason it did so poorly was that I had only run it for 30 days prior to tracking the calls and I had changed the ad a bit. It now reads: ATTENTION SELLER: we buy homes… I will keep if that way for at least three months and if it does not improve in volume, I will change the ad. If after three more months I may drop it all together.

The phonebook was another medium that I was less than impressed with. I thought I would try it and see what would happen. The ad has been out 2 months and has pulled very bad, it is a color inline ad. The jury is still out on the phonebook ad. If I do not get at least one deal from the phonebook, it will be gone next year.

The internet surprised me. Now I did get 7 responses, however only 4 were from my area. I looked at my webstats and was getting 17 hits a day. I am impressed. Now the only reason that it costs me $5.00 a month is for webhosting. I may just go to free webhosting. I have not decided.

The bandit signs and flyers gave the most bang for the buck. I have stopped putting out new bandit signs, because the local alderwoman called me and told me stop it or I will be in big trouble. So I stopped, I only put them on the properties I own or am working on. The flyers were the real surprise for me. I handed out 75 flyers door to door and got one deal. You have to be impressed with that.

I hope this has helped you all out. One important thing I hope you get out of this weeks posting, is to try many different types of advertising. Some ideas work better than others in different parts of the country. So try and see what works for you.

Good Luck,

Tim

Re: Investor Idea of the Week - Posted by eric-fl

Posted by eric-fl on July 02, 2001 at 09:45:06:

Tim:

I, for one, love these posts, so please keep them coming! Consider me a fan.

A question, regarding the flyers. Did you use door hangers, or just paper with rubber band? I ask because I have found a company that will distribute flyers in my area, but they only do 5,000 at a time. The door hangers are a little cheaper on production, but the big thing, for me, is that I don’t want to sit down and staple 5,000 rubber bands to paper, LOL.

Re: Investor Idea of the Week - Posted by MoniqueUSA

Posted by MoniqueUSA on July 02, 2001 at 09:10:34:

Tim,

Thanks for sharing the details of your results.

I’ll admit that I’m shocked how inexpensive your advertising is. For example, a 7 day a week ad in our
daily paper runs $1500 a month. I’m salivating over $169.

MoniqueUSA

Great post, Tim, thanks! (nt) - Posted by JoeKaiser

Posted by JoeKaiser on July 02, 2001 at 02:24:19:

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Re: Investor Idea of the Week - Posted by Lazaro

Posted by Lazaro on July 01, 2001 at 16:55:31:

Who is you website host? I have seen others but they charge much more. Thanks for the Help.
Cordially,
Lazaro

Effective marketing…and tracking (nt) - Posted by JT - IN

Posted by JT - IN on July 01, 2001 at 13:33:05:

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Re: Investor Idea of the Week - Posted by Mike Schmidt (IL)

Posted by Mike Schmidt (IL) on July 01, 2001 at 11:45:20:

Has anyone tried a We Buy Houses ad in the weekly church hand outs? My wife used to run a ad in our local church’s and it was pretty cheap. I know each church has their own and it gets handled by a national company that does most all of them.

Results???

Re: Investor Idea of the Week - Posted by Tim Jensen

Posted by Tim Jensen on July 02, 2001 at 15:55:00:

Eric,

Thank You for the kind words. It makes me feel good to know that someone out there likes my posts. If there is any topic that you would like to hear my opinion on, please e-mail me. Now onto you question.

What I did with my flyers was to just put them in the door. I printed my message on half sheets of 8.5 x 11 inch cards stock paper. I saw no need for doorhangers. I just slid them in the crack of their door. It is real hard to explain here. I think that if you tell the company distributing the flers what you have, they will figure out what to do.

Finally, 5000 FLYERS!!! You are going to be real busy. That phone will ring like crazy. I would try and word your message so that only motivated sellers will call. Otherwise everyone and their brother will be calling. If I can be of any help feel free to contact me.

Good Luck,

Tim Jensen

WWW.Netfirms.com (NT) - Posted by Tim Jensen

Posted by Tim Jensen on July 02, 2001 at 15:42:43:

:slight_smile:

Re: Investor Idea of the Week - Posted by eric-fl

Posted by eric-fl on July 02, 2001 at 09:42:04:

Just last week I met with my broker who I am hanging my license with to return to “active” status. I was talking with him a bit about marketing. He says that he has had good luck with the neighborhood association newsletters. These are somewhat similar to church bulletins in terms of layout, price, and audience. Of course, he is prospecting for listings, but at least it’s information to work with. Maybe using both church bulletins and neighborhood newletters in the specific areas you are targeting would be a viable marketing method.

Side note (in case any one was wondering): In most states, there is a distinction between brokers and just regular agents. You have to be an agent before you can become a broker. Most people just stop at “agent”, but all agents must actually be under a broker, hence my association.