Top 5 Low/No Cost ways of marketing

A common question among almost all professions is: “How do I utilize my advertising dollars most efficiently?” There are hundreds, maybe thousands of different ways to spend money on advertising; I will talk about my top 5 lowest cost marketing strategies that I have been successful with. 5. Business Cards

Wow, revolutionary huh? Yeah, I know, not very creative but let me explain. It’s not just the fact of HAVING business cards, it’s effectively utilizing them. Business cards are cheap, easy to carry with you and if handled properly, will remind the person you give them to of your time together. Let me tell you a quick story. Everywhere I go, I leave a business card. If I go into a store, I will leave a small stack of my cards at the cash register, if I go into a bathroom, that’s right, I will leave a card or two in the bathroom. A couple days ago I had dinner at a local restaurant and left my business card in the bathroom. Less than five minutes after leaving the restaurant I got a call from a gentleman who owned a commercial building outright worth 1.5 million dollars that he wants to refinance. If I close that deal it will pay for all of my business cards for the rest of my life.



4. Investor Club

Whether you are a realtor, mortgage broker, investor, CPA, or any profession that involves real estate, spending a couple hours of your month to attend these can be informative and quite lucrative to your bottom line from the contacts you make. Realize that as an investor YOU MAKE PEOPLE MONEY, why not know these people and bring them business rather than be another number. More on this later…



3. Communication

My partner called on a group of ten duplexes for sale, spoke to the realtor, told him he was interested, yet, never got a callback. HELLO! This type of action always blows my mind. Who cares if that realtor did sell those duplexes to someone else, wouldn’t you want to contact that person back and try to fit him with some other product? Email is an awesome way to communicate deals. After collecting business cards at your local investor club, shoot them all an email reminding them of your name and what you do. The more times people see your name, the more they will also recall what you do and that can mean more business for you.



2. Relationships

It was a battle to not put this first. A famous investor guru says “If you can get people what they want, you will automatically get what you want.” How true it is. You need to know someone at every level of real estate. Another recent story is I know someone who just got a contract on a piece of land. She was looking for a title company. As I don’t do title work, I could have just blindly sent her to a title company, gaining nothing out of the transaction. Instead, I introduced her to a title person that has helped me in the past and also passed on how excellent the title person was. Guess what? Two days later that title person emailed me saying thank you, that she had put together a website and was I interested in free advertising for bringing her a referral. Your job is to put people together with the things they want and you will reap the rewards.



1. No Fear

THE LOWEST COST, yes the hardest to do. Funny how that works huh? People want to be associated with “go-getters” and successful people. No one wants to be associated with someone they feel sorry for or begs for business. Can you succeed with fear of talking to people and fear of true networking? Sure. But I bet you that you can gain success ten to one hundred times faster and more lasting by throwing that fear out the window. My goal when I am anywhere, ANYWHERE, is to talk to at least one person about mortgages and or real estate investing. I am not always successful at this but I would say I run about 90% of every single place I go; someone gets talked to that I do not know about mortgages or investing. You do not have to be a braggart but you SHOULD let everyone around you know what you do and how you can help them. Another story…I was at a restaurant for lunch the other day (I eat out a lot) and I saw a woman I used to work for eating with her husband. I went over to them, asked how she had been and also informed them that I recently starting working for a mortgage company, the husband informed me that he was looking at 40 acres in North Florida (cha-ching). NOW, as I was talking with them, I noticed an older gentleman in a suit and tie, perk up his ears when I was talking about real estate. After I left their table, I went back to mine, had another bite or two to eat, then when it was time to leave, I went to his table and said my name, what I did, and that if I could help him or his clients with his financing needs, to please give me a call. He announced to me that he owned a major realty company, was developing his mortgage company, handed me his business card that said CEO and told me to call his hiring manager and tell her that “Jack” sent me. Now, whether I go to work there or not, that is an opportunity that most people would never hear, IF, they don’t throw that fear out the window. HOW MANY OPPORTUNIES ARE YOU MISSING?



Happy Investing!



Ray Higdon

SWFLA Investments and First Integrity Mortgage



Note: SWFLA Investments buys fixer upper and rental properties in Lee and Collier County and they offer full service property management. Ray also works for an investor friendly mortgage company in the state of Florida and offers many investor programs.