Before Television: Classified Ads
After the testimonial I posted about John Locke, several people sent private messages and emails asking how I advertised before television. Before I relate the story, let me fill you in on my background in the corporate world. My experience comes from many years of building software systems. These systems were used for researching, measuring, and managing marketing campaigns. For several years, I even built systems for the largest bulk mailer of the US Postal System. In an effort to be helpful, I’ll explain my experiences with marketing for subject to deals prior to television.
Classified newspaper advertising is how I started out. Starting in the Richmond, Virginia metropolitan area, I listed my ad in the paper with the largest circulation. As you know, one of the first rules of marketing is test, test, and test. Well, this test failed my needs. The reason was that in the “houses wanted” section of the paper, there were 14 other people all advertising variations on the same theme of buying houses cash. I discovered that everyone that called me also called every other ad in the section. So that was the unfortunate beginning of my classified ad experience in real estate but it turned out better. Read on.
Quickly, I began advertising in the paper local to my suburban area. There were no competing ads in it. Also, the rates were so cheap that my ad was 10 times bigger. Well the calls poured in like crazy at one or 2 per day. Actually, this is the source of the first deals John helped me close. On the downside, half the properties serviced by this paper are in war zone areas. This made many of the leads undesirable. Simultaneously, the rest of the calls were low price houses. Undaunted, I was able to purchase houses that range in value from $70 to $90 thousand. So the down payments were around $6000. After cash to the seller and closing costs the profit was nice. Still more was needed. As you see, my local paper was more effective than the larger one.
Sincerely,
Mark Walter
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