Chicago (IL) Marketing Strategies
Fellow Chicagoland investors,
I am starting to build up my buyer's list and embark on my first marketing journey. I would like to know which marketing strategies have worked best for people working in this area. For instance, ads in the Sun-Times, Daily Southtown, or PennySaver; bandit signs on major thoroughfares, fliers put on grocery store bulletin boards, or direct mailing.
Thanks in advance for your response. 
Melanie
Okay......Anyone?
commercialking?
snek11?
C'mon People! Help her out! I'm sure that you don't have to be from the Chicago area to give her some advice!! The process is still the same!!
Okay! I'll go first! I've never bought or sold a piece of investment property, but with twenty years experience in most areas of real estate I have several sources on this topic.
Free is always good!! Joining your local REIA and networking seems to a VERY popular decision. At least you're networking with investors with all kinds of varying experiences, who are happy to offer their story of how they did what you are trying to do.
Also, you can usually gleen SOMETHING from an evening listening to the guest speaker.
THE CHICAGO REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT CLUB
I just one of about 8 REIA s in your area.
Good luck. Let us know how it works out!!
_________________
:-D [ Edited by Nick_Long_JGI on Date 05/26/2004 ]
Hi Melanie,
Is this Melanie the fashion designer and friend of my daughter Prudence?
Well if not, welcome to TCI and the REI world.
Any of the above are good marketing strategies. Business cards are always a good form of marketing strategy as well.
Try them all and see which method gives you a higher response.
PennySaver's and Thrifty Nickle are fairly inexpensive as far as advertising in the newspaper.
It has been twelve years since I've lived in Chitown. I hope to be investing back home in the near future.
But, like the previous reply, FREE is always good.
Best of luck to you and hope this was helpful.
JB
Thanks everyone for your responses. I guess the people in Chicago don't want to share. That's okay. I have to start somewhere. So biz cards, fliers, and ad in the Penny Saver it is, in addition to attending REI meetings. I missed the May meeting of the Chicago REI club, but I plan on going to the one in June. I am also a member of another club, WCRT, which has an organization site.
Wish me luck, as I am about to jump off of the diving board!
Sincerely,
Melanie
PS, I'm not a fashion designer, although I do love clothes!
Hi Melanie,
I'm currently bird dogging for investors who use biz cards, direct mail, and bandit signs as their main marketing strategies.
Ana
Melanie,
Try all of the above and get rid of what doesn't work for you =) I know, a flimsy answer but it's the best anyone can really give. Why? Because what works for one person doesn't always work for others. It's best to start cheap, and work up from there =)
I've put up fliers on grocery stores, I've gotten a few calls. Nothing solid, but it was cheap and who knows about the future?
I've done a few bandit signs in my area (though I have tons still sitting in my trunk and dining room) and they all come down quick. Now, I use wooden stakes from home depot since I was too cheap to buy the 89 cent stakes from my sign supplier. They SUCK to put in the ground! Imagine a guy on his knees stabbing the ground like Van Helsing going off on Dracula. It's so bad I wait until it rains and go out with my slicker. If you hear thunder at night, you know where I am. I suggest you buy the 89 cent stakes =) OR get a hammer tacker, a small ladder, and put them on wooden poles.
I've done mailings, and I have no luck with them. I know others in Chicagoland are having luck, so it must be my wording. Probably wise to experiment with different letters and see how it pans out. You need to decide WHO you will mail to. You can get foreclosure lists, that everyone else gets. Are you looking for high equity deals to pay cash on? Maybe wholesale or rehab? Maybe you want to go after those low/no equity deals and try some short sales/subto/lease options???
You can do a saturation mailing to different postal carrier routes. Search around, there's a detailed post on how to do this. You can hit owners before they're ever in foreclosure and beat the pack. I haven't tried it personally.
I've done ads in the big papers. This is your most expensive option. A 30 day run in the Suntimes will run you about $250 or so. You'll get calls, so be ready to handle them. Can you answer your phone during the day, or have it forwarded to phone you CAN answer? If I guess you can setup an voicemail syste, but I really suggest you answer the calls. Alternatively you can get an answering service that will take the calls and pre screen people, at least the seller will be talking to a real person. Trust me on this, because the times I didn't answer and tried to call back it was useless. Anyway, you'll get a lot of investors calling you. Mainly they're new too and they're trying to build up their buyers list because they want to wholesale. You'll never hear from them again =) Or you'll get a guy with a "great" deal, that's trying to unload a lemon on an unsuspecting newb....don't let that be YOU. Although there can be a diamond in the rough...the real question is will be know what to do with it?
Get some business cards made up, carry them with you everywhere. Just leave them here and there...again, this is cheap. Network as much as you can, it really helps. This is your cheapest option and probably the BEST. There are always deals that could have been done if only you knew the right person. Alternatively, there is someone out there that has something that they need help with. Position yourself in the middle of that somehow, grab a piece of the pie.
Again, you need to experiment on your own to see what suits your situation. Don't let minor setbacks get you down, you better expect them now. Good luck, and don't forget to share you progress.
[ Edited by snek11 on Date 05/27/2004 ]
Hello Melanie, Nice to meet you. Heck, as long as we're both in the same town lets do lunch sometime.
I appologize to Readywhip and Nick Long for not responding as quickly as I might-- I was out sailing all day yesterday and it was glorious, perfect winds beautiful views. It really is a wonderful city we live in, isn't it? One of my great pleasures as sailing past the lighthouse is to look at all those office buildings and think about all those people slaving away in 9 to 5's who have not yet learned the pleasures of self employment and the ability to take a day off just because the wind is 10 to 15 knots out of the west. Nice to be part of the real estate fraternity too, yes?
Anyway, turning to your actual question. As you know Chicago is a big market and your buyers list should recognize that. Do you have a neighborhood you are working yet? Do you work a specific kind of deal? What makes your product different from all the other housing options out there? Finding customers in Chicago is mostly a matter of figuring out a way to look different from the other suppliers.
If you have a neighborhood that you work consider advertising in the local paper-- not the SunTimes or the Trib which are extreemly expensive but hit the whole market place. Also work the grocery store bulletin boards, etc.
Many years ago I was running a property management company renting a lot of apartments (somewhere around 530) mostly in East Rogers Park. So we decided we should figure out which advertising media were most cost effective. We put ads everyplace we could find and tracked every single phone call that came in as to where it came from. Then we tracked what became of those leads. Then divided those calls by the cost of the ad. After much research we found that the Sun Times generated the most phone calls per dollar spent but the Reader generated the most rented apartments per dollar because many of the SunTimes calls were looking for apartments elsewhere in the city.
We did a similar test for advertising wording and found that the word "superclean" boosted responses by 15 to 20% when added to any other ad.
I'm not sure how these findings translate to your niche product. If you're not on the NE side I suspect the REader's effectiveness goes way down. I'm currently working an industrial project on the west side and I'm trying to figure out how to get the phone answered in Polish so I can advertise effectively in the Polish papers. When I ran the apartment hotel in Streeterville we advertised in Chicago Magazine because that up-scale client reads that mag.
So, to summarise: a marketing plan begins with figuring out who your buyers are (demographically) then figuring out where they hang out (either figuratively (as in which paper they read) or literally (as in which bulletin board they are likely to see)) and then figuring out how to be in the place they are likely to be looking.
I know, its an answer long on generalities and short on specifics. Specifics require an understanding of your product, more than "I sell houses in Chicago."
Drop me a PM and we'll make that lunch about your specific market and how to target it.
Snek11 & Commercialking,
Thanks so much! Your advice was very helpful. I knew I could count on you. I have searched and read alot of the archives about marketing, but I was looking for something more specific to Chicago. I knew you guys would come through.
Snek11, I guess you've been out in your rain slicker nailing down signs for this past week, since it's been raining so much! I'm glad I don't live near the Fox River, since it's been flooding lately!
Commercialking I sent you a PM. I would love to do lunch with you. I wish I had the freedom to take a day off and do whatever I please. I will have it in some time in the near future though. It's a shame I work on the mag mile but don't have the time/money to enjoy it.
It's funny because now that I am thinking about putting up bandit signs, it seems that everywhere I would like to put one, there's already one there. Whatever, the more the merrier.
The great thing is that Chicago is big enough for all of us to make $.
Thanks again,
Melanie