800 Pound Guerilla Marketing

What is the first thing you need to do for your first or next successful real estate deal? You need leads of course. How many leads do you need to do one single deal? If you are a new investor or even a seasoned one, you may need to go through as many as 10 leads to get one solid, profitable deal.

So how many leads are you generating each month? Are you generating 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 or 50 leads per month? If you are not generating at least 50 leads per month, you are not alone. Most investors don’t generate anywhere near 50 leads per month. In fact, it has been said that only the top 5% of all real estate investors generate and capture 80% of all the leads floating around out there. So what do these top investors know that the average investor doesn’t know?

The answer is simple… the top 5% of all investors know how to generate all the leads they can handle and more. Perhaps you know some of the top lead generating real estate investors in your area. Chances are you see their marketing efforts every time you turn around.

One such investing company that you should all be familiar with is HomeVestors^®, the nice folks with the “We Buy Ugly Houses^®” signs all over town. HomeVestors^® used to be a huge 800 Pound Gorilla before the housing market crash, but as of mid-2012, they are back in force and are quickly regaining their marketing dominance once more. 

An “800 Pound Gorilla” is “One that is dominating or uncontrollable because of its great size and power” or “An overbearing entity in a specific industry or sphere of activity”. An 800 Pound Gorilla is “A seemingly unbeatable presence always to be reckoned with, whose experience, influence, and skill threatens to defeat competitors with little effort.” As the number one home buying franchise in the country, you can see how HomeVestors^® definitely fits the description of an 800 Pound Gorilla Marketer.

Most Gorilla Marketers have big budgets and tend to use lots of traditional and internet marketing to totally dominate their market and destroy their competition. So how can the smaller investor dominate their local market like an 800 Pound Gorilla and do so with a limited marketing budget? They can use a strategy called “Guerilla Marketing”.

Jay Conrad Levinson, the man who coined the term, describes Guerilla Marketing as “achieving conventional goals, such as profits and joy, with unconventional methods, such as investing energy instead of money.” I define Guerilla Marketing as “An unconventional way of marketing intended to get maximum results with minimal resources and a very low budget.”

So what do you get if you combine 800 Pound Gorilla Marketing with Guerilla Marketing? You get what I like to call “800 Pound Guerilla Marketing” which I define as “the ability to totally dominate your local competition with little effort and a relatively low budget using new and traditional marketing, a little creativity and the power of the Internet.”

Since getting started in the real estate investing business over a 13 years ago, I have become pretty good at marketing my business and have enjoyed sharing many of the marketing methods that work for me and others with my fellow real estate investors. In an ongoing effort to continue to do so, I am creating a new monthly column in The Profit called “800 Pound Guerilla Marketing” to share many of the strategies, tips, tools and techniques that will truly allow you to dominate your local marketplace with a little effort and a small marketing budget.

Additionally, I will be speaking at the Tampa REIA Meeting on Thursday, March 14^th and will be sharing many of the “800 Pound Guerilla Marketing Strategies and Techniques” I use to promote my real estate investing businesses. I will also be teaching a full day workshop in Tampa on Saturday, April 13th called “101 Plus Ways to Generate Buyer & Seller Leads” which is the first in a series of 800 Pound Guerilla Marketing Workshops that I will be teaching online and in person in 2013 and beyond for all those who wish to learn more about free or affordable, creative marketing strategies and techniques for motivated real estate investors.

Until next time, get out there and get marketing for leads!