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At my real estate seminars I am often asked by my students what area of the business they should focus on first. I can relate to their concerns because I know how much there is to learn when you are building a real estate investment business. Unfortunately, some investors flounder the first couple of years in the business because they try to learn a little bit of everything without mastering anything. As a speaker and educator, I think the opposite approach is better. Instead of trying to dabble in every niche, I think you should spend the majority of your time studying the areas of the business that generate revenue NOW! You can learn the rest of the business as you go along, but what is important now is to get your phone ringing off the hook. You are looking for motivated sellers willing to sell you their properties at 50 to 65 cents on the dollar. In order to do this you must become a Master Marketer!

Your knowledge of marketing will be the foundation from which your business is built. Marketing is what makes the phone ring and generates leads. Leads are the lifeblood of your business. They are the oxygen your business breathes. The more leads you have the more money you will make. So how do you become a better marketer? First, you must understand the principals all successful marketers live by.

Real Estate Marketing Principal: Define Your Target Market With the percentage of people motivated to sell their property at a discount around 5%, it is important that you target your marketing efforts toward those who have an enhanced need to sell their property, often at a significant discount. The justifications for this need to liquidate are many, and include death, divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure, and others. Public records are a simple and important source in finding these motivated sellers. Reaching out to these potential sellers is the next step in your marketing efforts.

Real Estate Marketing Principal: Create a Compelling Message How do you compel the prospect of your narrowed down market to react favorably? Narrowing you target market to motivated potential sellers will be most effective. Distressed property owners are by nature procrastinators and thus unlikely to respond to a generic offer. You must strike an emotional chord within the prospect in your offer letter by creating an irresistible offer that is compelling. Only then will the prospect react favorably to your contact offer.

Real Estate Marketing Principal: Create Systems for Outsourcing and Deliver The average prospect will not respond to your marketing contacts until they have seen your message at least seven times. Successful marketers development systems to respond to this reluctance. Developing a system will prevent you from wasting time while you respond to quality leads.

In our business, we have a system for every one of our marketing campaigns. As an example, we locate, select, and mail to homeowners in bankruptcy. List are download regularly, added to databases, interns prepare from the lists with predesigned letter and postcards, than mailed. After setting up the system, you participation in this part is minimal or zero. You than have time to select and respond to those prospects who responded favorably.

You will forever be stuck in the details of your business and never free from the drudgery of minutiae if you do not utilize process systems. It is your responsibility as the owner to recognize the need, develop, and implement these systems.

Real Estate Marketing Principal: Test and Track One of the most common problems real estate investors make is not testing and tracking their marketing. When it comes to marketing and running a business the devil is in the details. Marketers are usually ultra-creative people and often times allergic to the bottom line. However, there is nothing more important when it comes to building a business. Your goal as a marketer is to have a system to concisely test and track your marketing and understand the numbers. Measurement eliminates waste and tracking your results will help you build a profitable real estate investment company.

I sit down monthly and review my system for marketing expenditure tracking and reporting. This system allows me to look at how much was spent, how many leads came in, and which campaigns produced actual deals. I can then make decision on future shifts of money from one marketing campaign to another so as to maximize the return on my investment. I created this tool to track my marketing and it is highly effective, literally saveing me thousands of dollars over the years. If you do not have a tool for testing and tracking your marketing then precious dollars will slip through the cracks. To find more wealth building articles like this one go to www.ThanandPaul.com.