We all had it at one point and you’re probably going to have it if you don’t have it right now. I’m going to be walking through on this Carrot whiteboard strategy sketch, a suggested path in your first 90 days with your online marketing strategy in the real estate industry.
Real Estate Marketing Plan: Our Simple 90 Day Lead Generation Strategy For Sellers and Buyers
If you have not set up your website yet, the first thing you’re going to be doing is, of course getting a website set up. If you need a website, check us out atoncarrot.com. Or, check out biggerpockets.com or Facebook forums to see how our clients perform. If you’re not a Carrot member, great! We’ll roll with whatever you have going on now.
The first 90 days really is the foundation. So, a lot of people have unreal expectations in their first 90 days of any type of marketing, but especially online.
Online marketing takes some time to build, so if you’re looking at search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, or anything like that, you’re first 30 days, especially, is really just getting things going and refining things.
Even if you’re doing PPC, you’re not going to have your campaign styled in that first month. So have realistic expectations about your first 90 days. This is your foundation set up and then you’re going to scale up after that.
“Patience and fortitude conquer all things” – Ralph Waldo Emerson Click to TweetOne of the biggest things, is you need to have patiencein this first 90 days because if we expect the world to change this first 90 days, you expect a flood of leads to start coming in, but you’re not putting a flood of marketing out there, then you’re probably not going to get the results that you expect.
Now, not saying that you can’t get a flood of leads coming in in the first 90 days, you totally can; but you have to put a flood of marketing out there to capture that and we’re going to show you how to do that.
So, one thing that I want to make sure that we all do in our marketing and in our businesses is keeping your marketing simple to start. You see many different marketing methods and feel the need to explore all of them at once.
But that isn’t the path you need to follow. We’ll often times look at companies and we’ll go, “Man, that company is exactly where I want to be,” but they didn’t start there. They slowly stacked things onto their business, over time as they found out something worked they made it good, they made a process. They systemized it and then they said, “Let’s go stack something else on there.”
That’s how you see a real estate investor go from doing their first deal to doing 2,000 deals. It doesn’t happen overnight. It happens by stacking marketing methods and systems on, one by one, as they perfect one. So have patience and stack your efforts.
What Should Be The First Thing You Do In Your Online Marketing?
The first thing I would suggest people do in their first 90 days is you’ve got to get a high performing website set up.
We’re talking a website that converts well, that looks great on mobile, not just is mobile friendly but looks great on a mobile device, and performs well on a mobile device. It converts a visitor into a lead at a higher rate on a mobile device, which is one thing that we focus on a ton here at Carrot. Which is why our clients get such great results.
Launch a website, that’s day one!
Personalizing Your Website To Cut Through The Clutter
Within the first 48 hours or so, you’re going to want to be doing some basic stuff. Get your site launched, go in and tweak your content up, personalize your content a little bit, get your story on there, and get your “about” pagefilled out so people can make that connection with you.
You want your visitors to see there’s a real face or real person behind this company. Not a nameless, baseless entity because like we’ve talked about in other Carrot strategy sketches, in our CarrotCast podcasts, and our coaching calls for our customers, it’s a cluttered market, so the way you stand out is by telling your stories, by connecting at a personal level.
So, make sure you’re personalizing your content within the first couple of days of launching your website. You have to re-invent the wheel. If you’re a Carrot customer, take our content and look at one paragraph, read it, see what’s in it and then write that paragraph in your own words, and then delete ours. So adjust 20, 30, 40% of that content.
If you’re creating a website from scratch, just write really good engaging content, work real credibility and real testimonials into it.
Add Lead Tracking So You Know What’s Working And What’s Not
Next thing you need to do as soon as you can, is put tracking in place. If you’re a Carrot customer, you already have tracking in place but if you want to get more advanced, and you want to use your own Google analytics account, or you want to put your Facebook pixel, I would do that the first couple weeks of getting your website. Or, we can do it for you, if you’re a Carrot customer.
You’re going to need to start tracking that traffic right away. That way, you can start retargeting people.
Hone Your Unique Selling Proposition
Next, you need to really make sure you have your unique selling proposition nailed within those first few weeks of your online marketing.
What is it about you and your company that stands out, that gives people a reason to work with you.
Find Leads With Craigslist Marketing – First 30 Days
So we launched the website, we’ve got our tracking in place, we’ve personalized some content, got our “about” page up there, put a picture of you on there, swapped out pictures so they’re local to your area, swapped out some content so it’s unique to you and your area, and built in that credibility, testimonials, things like that, and then we start to do Craigslist marketing.
Start doing some Craigslist marketing, in probably week two or three, after you launch your website.
Craigslist marketing is fast, it’s quick, it’s free, and if you do it correctly, you can have the leads and traffic coming in that day. We have some great resources on our blog, and we have a Craigslist course if you are a Carrot customer, that you can dive in and learn about Craigslist marketing.
Start by doing two ads in the morning and two ads in the evening, then scale it up over about a four to six week period to where you’re doing about four to five ads in the morning and four to five ads in the evening.
Check out our other Carrot strategy sketch that’s on the timing of your content and marketing because we talk about why those times are important. Or, go check it out on our YouTube channel.
Launch And Build Up Your Pay-Per-Click – First 30-60 Days
Next, once some Craigslist ads are going, your website is optimized with great content, you’ve personalized it, you’ve built in credibility, built a great “about” page, then you start to do some Google PPC, if you have a budget. If you have $200 to $400 a month and you’re in certain markets, you can start some small scale PPC marketing and then ramp it up from there.
Sprinkle Credibility Into Your Real Estate Marketing Plan
In month two, you have some momentum going. You’ve got your website, you can always tweak your website later. You can always add more credibility. You can always add your Better Business Bureau logo later. We always are looking for progress, not perfection, so get that site out the door the first two weeks, build some basic credibility on there and then you can always refine it from there.
If you’re not sure what to do on your website to build credibility, hit us up or check out our credibility building whiteboard strategy sketches and our coaching calls on that topic.
Time To Work In SEO – 30-90 Days
Shift your focus on SEO. Pick maybe two to three keywords to focus on for your market that are high leverage keywords, we talk about it in some of ourresources and start to set that foundation.
Then, if you have a tool to track your rankings, maybe start to put those keywords in there to track how your rankings are going. We have that built into Carrot, but there are other tools out there if you’re not a Carrot user, that can track your rankings.
Begin To Adjust Your Pay-Per-Clicks
Now it’s time to adjust your PPC because you can’t set your PPC up and forget it and not adjust it. So in month two, you’re going to be adjusting and refining your PPC campaign. Month two, you’re also going to be turning on your retargeting, if you have enough traffic.
You’ve put your Facebook retargeting pixel on, which we teach you how to do in a blog post on our website, and then, in month two or three, we’re going to start turning on retargeting ads on Facebook, and same thing, we teach you how to do those in those other resources, so check them out. Also, keep your Craigslist marketing going.
Finally, to wrap out your foundational first 90 days, you’re going to be tracking and refining your SEO. You’re going to be going to a coach or someone that you can go to to ask them for advice and how to improve your SEO, build some backlinks, build some social media signals, and in this time, you’re probably going to get some citations.
So, get your website listed on Yelp and Yellow Pages and all those citations. We suggest between 20 and 40 to start in that first 90 days. If you’re a Carrot customer, we can do it for you, just check out our marketplace. If you’re not a member, check out our how to build citations for real estate blog post.
After you refine your PPC and only at this time, start thinking about a CRM. Way too many people starting thinking about a CRM on tracking your leads in month one. If you don’t have any leads coming in, you have no leads to manage in a CRM. It’s kind of like having gas with no car to put it into.
So make sure that you’re focusing getting leads first, and then you get your CRM to manage your leads once you start getting enough lead flow to come in that you can’t manage it. If you do it correctly, you scale up.
ADVANCED MARKETING AND LEADS SYSTEM – TRY IT NOW, RISK FREE
Wrapping Up Your Real Estate Marketing Plan: First 90 Days
Once again, if you are a Carrot member, hit us up for those resources. It’s just a quick run through, we have so many other resources and coaching and guidance so we can help you crush it, just like we are with thousands of other customers. If you’re not a Carrot customer, keep coming back to our whiteboard videos or our CarrotCastsor free resources to help you grow or join the fold. Join the Carrot community. We’d love to help you too! Have an amazing rest of the week. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
We’re going to be learning new, amazing things each and every week with great experts, great marketers and our Carrot team to teach you how we do what we do and how you can make your bigger difference!
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