Things are moving fast over here at InvestorCarrot headquarters.

We’re cleaning things up on the system every day based on member feedback. We’re simplifying the system every week with our effort to make InvestorCarrot the easiest and most powerful inbound online lead generation system for real estate investors. And we’re building out new features every month and releasing them into your accounts.

Most of these updates we’re making quietly behind the scenes… but we’re going to start updating you on the big changes to your account as we make them.

June 2013 Updates

Here’s some of the bigger updates we’ve made already in June.

Check out the video we made for you below… and read the specifics below the video as well (especially the part about the change on your monthly billing statement).

Check Your Credit Card Statement! -

We recently made a change to the way your monthly subscription payments will show up on your credit card statement. In the past you’ve noticed it says “Mach One Media Marketing, LLC” on your statement.  Now that InvestorCarrot is growing up and becoming it’s own company… we’ve updated it to say “InvestorCarrot.com – 888-978-1418″ .

So, please be on the lookout for that in your next billing statement. We don’t want you to mistake it for something you don’t recognize (we actually had a couple members this year not recognize the charge on their statement and report us as “fraud” mistakenly… which actually really can damage our merchant credit. So please please make sure to remember this change.

New Dashboard! -

Just Monday we rolled out our newest version of your Carrot Dashboard. Over the next few months this dashboard will become more and more useful and powerful for you.  With this release we’ve cleaned up the dashboard and added a wizard area to help you get up and rolling more quickly with your system.

In the coming months we’ll be adding more tools, website stats, and more! Be on the lookout!

Text Based Logo -

We heard from lots of members that they didn’t have a logo and just wanted to get up and rolling faster!

So, we launched our simple Text Based Logo creator. All new websites set up from this week forward already have the text based logo implemented on their sites. But, if your site was set up prior to this week and you don’t have a logo… or would just rather move to the text based logo… it’s there for you!

Just go to the Help Center and search “logo” for the tutorial on how to do it.

That’s it for this update! Be on the lookout for more updates each month and hit us with feedback on ways we can improve this service to help you be more successful. Thanks!

The post InvestorCarrot Updates! – New Dashboard, Billing Info Change, and more! appeared first on OnCarrot.com.

Some of them we’ll be able to fit into this post… some we’ll announce later this month.

What We’ve Been Up To In The World Of Real Estate Investor Websites

A lot has happened here at REItheme this year.

All the way from rolling out this new website that you’re on now (it’s performing GREAT by the way!)… to launching LIVE chat between 10am pst – 5pm pst which our customers have been loving… to rolling out new updates to the look and feel of the websites… and more.

But, we’re just getting started.

In addition to welcoming in dozens of new REItheme members in the last couple weeks alone… including a shout out to Mike with Just Close It Home Buyers in CT… the we buy houses CT specialists… we’re going to be announcing a whole slew of enhancements AND a totally new brand that we think you’ll love

More on the new brand later this month… including why we’re changing from REItheme, what the new brand is, and what it means to new and existing REITheme members (all good stuff I promise .

But a few hints I can throw at you for what you can expect in the coming months…

• Enhanced Lead Pages engine
• Simpler and more robust members training center
• Totally redone and simplified user interface (you’re going to love it)
• We’re cutting some features and options that most people don’t use and enhancing others that will make this system rock and roll
• Built in email marketing system
• “Done for you” marketing that we’ve tested and tweaked that you can use to build your cash buyers lists, generate motivated seller leads, and more

Exciting stuff.

Keep An Eye Out

Keep an eye out for updates from us. If you have any questions at all don’t hesitate to email us or hit us up on LIVE chat between 10am pst – 5pm pst… and our new system demo video is live if you’re still looking at REItheme as solution for your real estate investing website needs.

Have a great week!

- REItheme team

The post Exciting Update and Announcements! appeared first on OnCarrot.com.

Need to generate leads for your real estate investing, wholesaling, or fix and flip business? Read on…

So, you want more leads for your real estate investing business?  Or any business for that matter?

Great. You know the easiest way to generate leads as a real estate investor?

Offering something of value to your prospects for free… in exchange for their information.

In this article we’re going to talk about using free reports as a lead generation tool for motivated sellers, cash real estate buyers, private lenders, and more.

Sample Real Estate Investing Free Reports

A free report can be on anything that will help your prospect get closer to their goal… while at the same time build credibility for you and get you closer to a sale.

Here are some topic ideas for free real estate investing reports you can use to generate leads online.

For Motivated Sellers:

• 5 Ways To Stop Or Avoid Foreclosure
• Why Sell To A Real Estate Investor?
• How To Repair Your Credit During A Foreclosure
• 5 Ways To Sell Your House Fast In Today’s Market
• 6 Ways To Increase The Value Of Your House Before You Sell
• How To Navigate The Probate Process: Selling An Inherited House The Easy Way

… those ideas are all geared to help the prospect get information on solving one specific problem.  There are many many other topics you can write (or have someone else write) free reports on.

For Cash Real Estate Buyers:

• A Local Real Estate Market Report (investors eat these up. Offer this on your home page… just compile a new local real estate report every few months w/ free info you can find online or from your real estate agent)
• 4 Ways To Cashflow Invest In Today’s Real Estate Market
• How To Buy Investment Real Estate With Your IRA: The Pros, Cons, and What to Avoid
• How To Analyze A Real Estate Deal So You Never Lose A Penny On A Deal

For Private Lenders:

• An Unofficial Guide On Private Lending In Real Estate: What Is It, Pros, Cons, Risks, Rewards To Look For
• 3 Ways To Invest Passively In The Current Real Estate Market

You get the drift. Simple stuff… just good little guides that will help whoever you’re trying to attract get a bit closer to solving a problem or helping them reach a goal.

How To Write A Real Estate Investing Free Report

We actually provide our REITheme members 6 or so real estate investing free reports that you can use in your online lead generation (our members can even edit and customize the reports)… but if you’re not yet an REItheme member and want to create some great “free report” material to give away on your site… here are your options:

1. Bear down and write them yourself:  Really, they don’t have to be long… 2 – 10 pages is good enough. Anyone can write a 2 page report… right?  Just create a report title, determine what you want that report to do for you (i.e. – get a seller to call you), then start doing some research on Google to come up w/ the content to write about… then write for a couple hours. Done.
2. Hire someone to write the reports for you: You can go to websites like www.TextBroker.com, www.Guru.com, and others to have great content written for you pretty reasonably. A 5 page report on a topic like the ones we’ve lined out will probably only cost you about $50 – $100 or so for solid writing. If you want top shelf writing with good graphics… you’re probably looking no more than $200 – $300 or so.  Pretty cheap in the whole scheme of things.
3. … or once again, shameless plug… but join REITheme and get access to ours

What To Do With The Free Real Estate Lead Generation Reports When You Have Them?

Get them on your website, in your email signatures, etc.

Here’s some examples of effective ways we’ve been generating leads with our free reports (and ones we’ve seen elsewhere that we know work well).

Example #1: On their website, they put these 2 free report boxes in the right sidebar. One on the real estate market forecast and one on using real estate to build wealth. Simple enough eh? And it works great. Then, when people click on these they go to “Lead Pages” (some people call them Squeeze pages for real estate investing ).

Example #2: A Squeeze Page (or we call them “Lead Pages” ) for Real Estate Investing. A page like this is where you’d drive people to once they click on a link to download your free report. These pages are the real key… they need to be designed to convert well.  Keep them simple, keep them short, and the only goal of the page is to get someone to put in their email address in exchange for this valuable information. From there, they’re in your email database so you can followup with them again.

Example #3: Here’s an example on one of our REItheme sites that drives people to opt in to get a free report.  Quick, simple… not a fancy design… but we’ve found designs like this tend to work very very well.

Example #4: This is a really cool strategy that has worked really really well for us on all of our sites in multiple industries… including real estate investing.  At the bottom of every page on your website you should have some sort of a call to action.  In this example, on the bottom of our “motivated seller sites”, this particular site focuses on “stop foreclosure”… we have a message offering our free report.  This is VERY effective.  Build out your own, or of course… we have these built right into our REItheme platform for our members.

What To Do Next To Get Leads Online For Your Real Estate Investing Business?

So, now that you’ve seen some examples and samples of how to effectively use free reports for your real estate investing business… what do you do next?

Here’s some quick action steps for you:

1. Take some of our topics above or create your own free report topics… and create your first free report in the next 7 days (or hire someone from guru.com or textbroker.com for cheap).  OR, join REItheme and get our “done for you” reports, websites, and Lead Pages to use to generate more leads online.
2. Get your website tweaked a bit to have 1 goal in mind, to generate leads… and close deals… that’s it. If a specific page on your site doesn’t actively drive people to take an action… add a free report link on it. Simple.
3. Start driving traffic to your site. We teach our REItheme members how to drive traffic to your site… you can have the best site in the world… but if no one gets to it and reads it… it doesn’t mean a thing. So, learn how to drive traffic and start to generate leads with your new free reports.

The post Sample Real Estate Investing Free Reports for Lead Generation – Ideas to grow your business appeared first on OnCarrot.com.

I want to tell you about the 100% customizable real estate investor websites that REI Theme offers. And if you don’t want to read this and you just want to see for yourself, you can test out any one of the packages for $1 for an entire month!

From the layout to the color scheme, content and squeeze pages, these sites offer you full flexibility. The sites are made to where all you need to do is upload your own header logo and then you’re good to go if you focus on foreclosures, however they’re intended to be customized on your own time to fit your own company. They have premade forms, squeeze pages, and a very easily editable backend to adjust layout and color schemes etc.

Why pre make the website for each customer if they’re supposed to change everything anyway? A couple reasons. First is so that there is no down time for the customer while they’re adding content and pictures. The customer has a site from the get go so they can use to bring in traffic, sign people up to mailing lists and that looks professional. Secondly and more importantly however the site is created for Search Engine Optimization. The pre packed content is littered with SEO keywords to better rank your site in search rankings such as Google and Bing. Even the images that are already put in each site have SEO plugged into them. The SEO of the site and REI Theme’s focus to help you rank well in search rankings is really the butter on the biscuit of these sites. It’s what makes REI Theme so special. However, the customer service and tech team are what REI Theme really takes pride in.

REI Theme offers website customization to save you time and money. It comes at a small fee, but is minuscule to what you’d pay a web developer to do your work. REI Theme also has an array of how to videos to answer your questions and show you step by step how to do what you want to do. Everything from logo design to changes to the website coding can be done by REI Theme for you.

So if you’re looking for a custom real estate investor website REI Theme is the only truly customizable option on the market. REI Theme is inexpensive, responsive, trustworthy, and most importantly, they produce results for those that put in the effort. Check out the site at OnCarrot.com

The post Custom Real Estate Websites appeared first on OnCarrot.com.

Real estate investing is one of those professions where the barriers of entry for new investors is so low… there are lots of unethical investment companies out there giving real estate investors a bad name.

So, how do you stand out above the crowd… and make it so when a motivated seller, cash buyer, or private lender finds your website… they feel compelled to work with you?

First…

Importance Of Building Credibility (and how to do it with your website)

It goes without saying… that today consumers have more options than ever.  If you’re a motivated seller going in foreclosure… or a private lender who is doing your research… one of the first things you’ll look at after you hear of a company is THEIR WEBSITE to see if they are real.

Our society is an internet society now. Just look at the phone book and newspapers… those businesses are in decline… while internet news sources and internet directories are on the rise.  People go to the internet to do research on companies they’re getting ready to work with.

So, what will a private lender prospect or motivated seller see when they search you online? Will they even see a website? If not, people immediately think, “They don’t have a site… are they a real company?”.

If you have a website but it doesn’t have the 9 elements below… that could be even worse.  Is your website actually harming your credibility (if I had to guess, I’d say probably 60%+ are).

If people don’t feel comfortable that they want to work with you within the first 2 minutes of being on your website… odds are you’ll lose that business.

So, here are 9 ways to build credibility on your real estate investor website.

9 Ways To Build Credibility In Real Estate Investing

Stanford University did a study called the “Web Credibility Research” project.  Stanford compiled 10 elements that your website should address that can either make or break your credibility as an investor… we’ve consolidated them into 9 elements that without them… your credibility (and profits) are likely suffering.  See how many of these your real estate investing company website is doing well:

1. Show that you’re real people behind your company – Most investors we work with to help them build their online presence for their real estate business are hesitant to put too much of their personal information on their site.  They don’t want their name, picture, bio… nothing… on the site.  If this is you too… it’s hurting your credibility and results.  Ask yourself this… do you like it when you’re on a website and you can see the actual faces of the people behind the company? Yes, we all do. It increases conversions and leads.
2. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site – A lot like #1, your website visitors land on your website with their scam detector running in full force. They want to know that they can trust you to help them solve their problem (save them from foreclosure or get better returns, etc.).  How do you do that? A short bio on your site, again… a picture of you and your team (we teach our REItheme members ways to build credibility even if you have’t done deals or don’t have a team), testimonials are a biggie, etc.
3. Highlight the expertise your company has - Well over half of the investors we work with feel that they don’t have enough “experience” in real estate to put on their site. But, once we dig… they usually have a lot more experience that makes them qualified to provide great solutions to buyers, sellers, and investors than they think. Anything that you feel helps you in your real estate business qualifies.  One gal had never done a real estate deal herself… but she was an executive assistant to a mega investor in New York for years, was a certified Draftsman, and had managed rehabs for another investor for a couple years… thats experience that should be on your website. Or, heck… even if you’re just getting started… leverage the experience you’ve gained in your education or your mentors experience for now.  Bottom line… if you don’t feel you have enough experience related to being able to help your clients reach their goals… then you should rethink your decision to be an investor (or go out and get that experience).
4. Make it easy for people to contact you - Simple. Obvious. But overlooked. Have the “BIG THREE”. Phone number, email, and mailing address on your site.  It gives people a feeling that you’re not a fly by night operation… and easy to get in touch with if they have a question or problem. You can get a free phone number from Google Voice and a professional mailing address from your local mailboxes store if you don’t have one.
5. Design your site so it looks professional and clean - Who likes to land on a website that looks like a 12 year old made it in 1998?  Find a nice clean design with lots of whitespace on the site… with crisp clean graphics. It doesn’t have to be fancy… or flashy. In fact, flashy isn’t a good thing.
6. Make your site easy to use and useful - Easy to use = not too many links on your site. Give people a few options… don’t confuse them. Useful = providing great content on your website that helps your visitor solve their problem?  Your motivated seller site targeted to helping people stop foreclosure could have FAQ on the foreclosure process, free guides on helping them stop foreclosure, information on how your company works with homeowners, etc. Give them great information… it builds massive trust.
7. Update your sites content often - Have you ever went to a website and saw somewhere on the site where it said the last blog post was done 10 months ago? Or when you read the site and it references old outdated information? This is a credibility killer. Update your site on a regular basis. We teach our REItheme members our process for creating great blog posts, optimizing those posts for Google rankings, and making it so easy that you never have to think about what to write about next. It’s simple when you have the right process and system in place for your content.  But, aim for a new blog post every week if you can… once a month minimum (not only does this help for credibility but it helps for your search rankings and leads too!)
8. Avoid typos and errors - Enough said.
9. Borrow credibility from other sources - A great way to build credibility on your site is to borrow it from other credible sources. Have you been on a website and it said “As Seen On TV” or “As Seen On Google”… or a site that has a quote from a famous and respected person?  That’s all “borrowed credibility”.  If you work with a real estate agent from lets say… Century 21… get a testimonial from them and ask permission to put the Century 21 logo on the site as a “company we’ve worked with”. Can you imagine the credibility that’ll give you in a website visitors eyes when they see the symbols of companies they know and respect on your site?

So, how many of those 9 credibility builders for your real estate investing website are you doing on your website?

If you’re doing 5 or more… you’re ahead of the curve.

7 or more… you’re doing better than 90% of your competitors.

All 9?  You’re crushing it and should be teaching this lesson alongside us

Action Plan To Help You Build Credibility This Week

Real estate investors websites can be a huge tool in building credibility or it can harm your credibility. If you have a website, this week pick 3 of the 9 elements above and implement them on your website.

If you don’t have a website but now see the value in it just from a credibility standpoint… get a site this week. You can work with us or find another solution… either way is cool w/ us because not everyone is ready to work with us (since we push our members a bit harder than a “web guy” or “template site” company does). But if you are ready to work hard and leverage a great system that works (that has a lot of these 9 elements above already injected in the websites)… go here to learn more about REItheme and what it can do for you.

Go here to learn about REItheme to help you build your web
presence for your real estate investing business <<

The post 9 Ways Your Website Should Build Credibility For Your Real Estate Investing Business appeared first on OnCarrot.com.

The website is called PicMonkey.com. PicMonkey.com is a free graphic design online site that allows you to do everything from resize and crop images, to adding text and changing the colors of images. This free online graphic design website has saved me thousands of dollars on graphic designers with my websites. I’ve made all of my logos on this website and also edited all of my pictures for my sports business websites with this awesome tool. Sure, I’ve been using it for 6 months now, but in those 6 months I feel like I’ve mastered it… and it’s not taking up any space on my hard drive.

For those with real estate investing websites, normally you want to pay somebody else to do any customizations so that you get it done right. You want a professional look and feel. Most importantly though you simply don’t have the time to be doing work that you can pay somebody on Fiverr.com to do for you. However, that’s a whole other blog. This time I want to help you penny savers use this free tool to do some outstanding image editing.

Resizing Images

This free graphic design online website allows you to resize your images to nearly any size you want. The way that you do this is by first uploading the picture that you want to resize. Once the picture is resized, look to the left column where your different menu options are. The far left you will see different shapes… you want to click the one at the very top called basic edits. Once your in the basic edits menu you’ll see as an option another menu called “Resize”. Click resize. This will bring up your two boxes to put the new dimensions in and resize your image. A cool feature it presents is a check box that allows you to keep the proportions of the original image so the image isn’t distorted, or you can uncheck the box and distort the image to the exact specifications you need. Once you get the image looking the way you want… click the apply button. At the very top of your screen you will see a save button and by clicking that you can go through the steps to save the newly resized image to your computer. Now you can go upload the image to your REI theme website:) Super easy!

Cropping Images

The next common feature novice computer users pay people to do is cropping their images. PicMonkey.com makes cropping your images insanely easy. The way that you do this is by first uploading the picture that you want to resize. Once the picture is resized, look to the left column where your different menu options are. The far left you will see different shapes… you want to click the one at the very top called basic edits. Once you click that you will see the Crop option at the top of the left hand column. Once that is clicked, you’ll see an option to type in the exact dimensions you need to crop… or you can even go over to the picture and drag the corners of the crop box around to get the exact area you want cropped out. Click apply when you’re finished and then save at the top of the screen. Now you can go upload the image into your REI theme site! Who said there weren’t any good free graphic design programs online?

Adding Text to an Image

Text on real estate investing website images is very common. The reason being is because text is often used as a call to action in images. The image catches the viewers attention, then the text ropes the person in closer then leads them to their next step. So, this free online graphic program allows you to not just add text, but to add text with style. It offers multiple options for text styles and fonts. I personally like to use the ones that look like handwriting because they look more personal. I also tend to use red or bright green because they really stand out. Now the way to add text in PicMonkey.com is to go to that left hand menu where you see the little gray images. Click on the “P” and this will bring up all of your font options. Pick a font, type what you want it to say, drag the corners to fit the picture the way you want it to, select the color, select the transparency, and then click apply when you’re happy with it. Now save your image to your computer and upload your image into your REI theme website!

Those are the 3 most common image editing needs for people who own real estate investing websites. This program makes it super easy for you so you don’t have to wait for somebody else to do the simple changes for you and you don’t have to pay out of pocket either. No down time, and you can go take your loved one out for dinner with your saved cash.

My suggestion if you don’t care about money and time though… hire a graphic designer or find a good gig on Fiverr.com. It will look more professional until you master the art of graphic design on your own. Really, time lost is money lost. Happy editing!

The post Free Graphic Design Online for REI’s appeared first on OnCarrot.com.

We’re a young REI company fresh on the scene looking for some new faces to help us grow. Right now we’re looking for somebody to help us take our customers website customizations by the horns.

Now Hiring

A Ninja (Person who knows WordPress like the back of their hand)

User Website Design Lead

(Virtual / Independent Contractor)

Hours: 3-10 Hours/week (More hours  awarded the better work you do)

Wage: $15-$20 per hour

Job Description

Looking for somebody to handle our awesome customers site customizations. The websites are WordPress based. What you could be doing is logo design, minor graphic design, help clients set up their emails, create gravity forms, set up and link MailChimp accounts, embed videos on to WordPress sites, and anything else customers want customized on their sites. It is not necessary for the position, but a bonus to know web coding and have video editing skills.

We’re looking for a long term relationship, so the better work you do, the more hours we can award to you. Grow with us, and your role with our rapidly growing company will continue to grow as well.

Skills Needed

• Basic graphic design (image resizing, favicons, simple logos, basic image editing, etc)
• WordPress Experience
• Highly organized
• Attention to Detail
• People skills (email and phone)
• Email (mx records, forwarding etc)
• Gravity Forms
• Mailchimp (autoresponders)
• Youtube (embedding videos etc)
• Self motivated

Bonus Skills

• Web coding
• Video editing

Interested?

Email us your resume at Trevor@reitheme.com today!

The post We’re Hiring – Looking for a WordPress Ninja appeared first on OnCarrot.com.

If you’re not marketing… usually it boils down to a few core reasons you haven’t moved forward with marketing yet:

1. The Cost:  You think it costs too much to do online marketing for real estate investors
2. You’re a terrible marketer:  You have no clue what to do to get more qualified visitors to your real estate website
3. You’re lazy and don’t really want it all that bad:  You thought you wanted to be an investor but see it’s more work than the late night infomercial guys say it is and you are overloaded with info… so you don’t do anything.

Now, if you’re reading this site… lets assume that you’re not #3… because you want to make stuff happen.  If you’re a terrible marketer… you need to study your butt off over the next few months and learn the basic foundations of solid marketing and human psychology.  We’ll write a post soon that will give you some great books to read that’ll make you a smarter marketer than 98% of the world.

It just leaves us with cost.

What If You Could Get Stuff Done For Only $5?

Is $5 too expensive?  I didn’t think so.

In this post I’m going to show you 5 ways you can leverage a website called www.Fiverr.com to get online marketing done for your real estate investing business for just $5.

Five $5 Real Estate Investor Marketing Tips

1) Pimp Your Facebook Fan Page:   Facebook is a great place to build your brand for your real estate investing business.  But, if your Facebook page looks like something out of a 1990′s MTV cartoon… it’ll bring down the credibility of your business. So, have someone on Fiverr.com design a custom Facebook Fan Page cover photo for ya… for a whole $5.  And while you’re at it… you can leverage social proof (i.e. – people automatically feel that pages with more “likes” are more credible) and have someone get you 500 Facebook likes to your page for… yep, $5

2) Pimp Your Twitter:  Twitter can be a great place to network with other investors… and maybe even round up cash buyers. I wouldn’t put a whole lot of effort into attracting motivated sellers with Twitter.  Head over to Fiverr.com and have someone create a Twitter background image that has your picture, facebook URL in it, heck… if you really want to ramp up the marketing… include your text message marketing info on there (or a toll free 24 hour recorded message geared at attracting cash buyers) and build your list right there. Clever eh?  You can have someone whip a great looking direct response Twitter background image for just… you guessed it… $5.

3) Hire Emmy Award Winning Voice Over Artists To Record Your Phone Greetings:  This one is more cool than “results driven”. Truthfully… your own voice (unless your voice is like Gilbert Godfried inhaling helium) will do just as fine on your phone voicemail boxes and 24 hour recorded message lines… but it’s just cool saying you have an Emmy Award Winning voice over artist doing stuff for ya  For $5, you can get the dude below to do your voice over work… I don’t have to tell you… for just $5.  Heck, its worth that just in the time you’ll save.  I know I usually waste 20 mins trying to do a 30 second voicemail box greeting… save that time for just $5.

4) Create Graphics Like Banner Ads To Build Your Buyers List:  A great way to build your buyers list or even attract motivated sellers (if you use the right strategy to make sure your banners are in front of the right people and on the right websites) is by buying banner ads on websites. Yes, some people say banner ads don’t work anymore… but they don’t know what they’re talking about (trust me).  So, rather than try to hack away at Photoshop yourself or pay a fancy graphics guy $50 for a simple banner ad… get it done for $5 on Fiverr.com.  Something simple like… “See Why Warren Buffett Says To Invest In Single Family Rentals Today”... then drive people to a landing page (like the squeeze page we show in our real estate investing landing page examples article ) and grow your cash buyers list.  Place those banners on websites where other real estate investors go… like BiggerPockets.com, thereibrain.com, and others.

5) Get Your Real Estate Investing Business On Video:  Video marketing is hugely effective for a real estate investing company.  If you’re not doing video right now… you should be.  Lots of people put off doing video because they hate what they look like on camera. Well… first off… get over it. You have to walk out in public every day… and I can guarantee you that if you think people are looking at you and being as critical as you’re being of yourself on film… you’re wrong.  But, if you absolutely don’t want to get on video yourself… or if you love video but hate editing videos… have it done for you for only $5.  Have someone create a video reading your script for you… have someone do minor edits to your video file for you to clean it up and make it look professional… etc.  Video marketing for real estate investors is a killer tool to leverage in your business… hit up Fiverr.com and leverage it.

$5 Marketing Tips For Real Estate Investors

Cool. Now I hope your mind is spinning with ideas and possibilities.

Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy and we try to secretly conspire against ourselves and find reasons why we can’t do certain things.  Cost is an excuse we all use too darn often… but in the end, it’s just an excuse.

If I said to you… this marketing campaign will cost you $5,000… most people would say they don’t have the money.  But, what if I said… give me $5,000 in cash by Saturday and I’ll give you $10,000 in cash right back… no strings attached… you’d bet you’d be busting your ass to round up that $5,000.  It’s all mindset and confidence.

So, finding free and cheap ways to get the marketing momentum rolling for your real estate investing business can be a pretty darn empowering thing.  Find 3 or 4 very specific places you could leverage the talent on Fiverr.com in the next 2 weeks… and do it.  It’ll only cost you $15 or $20… and could give you some cool little results to leverage in your business moving forward.

And, if you wonder… yes, we’ve used Fiverr a ton and still use it every month (things like blasting our videos out to all of the video sharing sites, social media sharing, etc.).

Grow your real estate investing business, check out REItheme to start dominating your online presence with your real estate business… and we’ll see you on the flip side!

The post Real Estate Investing Online Marketing Tips: Five $5 Dollar Marketing Tips To Try This Week appeared first on OnCarrot.com.

Ok, so you’re knee deep in real estate investing and now you want to start to generate a cash buyers list.

Do you drive them to your main real estate investor website and hope they punch in their information to join your cash buyers list… or do you learn how to set up a real estate investing landing page (some people call them squeeze pages or lead pages)???

The answer is both… but if you really want to generate a lot of cash buyer leads for your real estate investing business you’ll want to set up what we call Lead Pages.  In this post we’ll show you why landing pages work, we’ll show you real estate landing page examples, and show you how to get your own landing pages up and online quickly.

Why Real Estate Investing Lead Pages Work

Landing pages have been used online for a decade or so… evolving each year it seems to add in some fancy flashy new gizmo to help increase conversions.  You’ll see videos on many landing pages, pictures, audio, some are fancy looking… others really plain and simple.  In the end, it doesn’t matter what a landing page looks like… as long as it converts visitors to leads for your business.

Without cash buyer leads you can’t sell your houses.  Without selling (or wholesaling) your houses… you can’t cash checks.

Without cashing checks… well… you can’t eat.  Not fun.

Lead Pages (or as people call them, real estate investing landing pages or squeeze pages) have one goal and one goal only:  To provide (solutions) value in exchange for a website visitors contact information so you can followup with with.  A good squeeze page doesn’t have a bunch of links, not a lot of options, etc.

The Anatomy of A Landing Page

I’m not going to spend a ton of time on laying out the anatomy of a real estate investing landing page because they’re really pretty simple.  But first, a few questions you probably are thinking right now:

• Is there a specific design that always works the best?
• How can we tell if a landing page is really working well?
• What do I use to build my own real estate lead pages?

First, NOPE, there isn’t a specific design that always works the best.  What works really well for your real estate investing business and your market may not work as well as another design (or message) on another real estate investors website.  But, there are elements that usually work well.

1. A clear and concise headline at the top of the page
2. A short description of what they’re about to get in exchange for their email address
3. A few bullet points listing out benefits of what they’ll get when they “opt in”
4. An opt in box (a box where people can put their information in and submit it to you)

Really, those are the only elements that are extremely important and pretty much are needed on any landing page.  Yes, you can use pictures and videos… but definitely test the video versus just the text with no video… because you’d be surprised that often the one with just the text (no video, unless the video is killer) usually works better. Which is good news for you.

Here are some real estate investing landing page examples below that have worked pretty darn well. (NOTE: All content on these example lead pages below is copywrited and cannot be used without permission. They’re for reference only so you can see the structure and look/feel of solid landing pages for the real estate market)

Example 1: Very simple page, lots of whitespace on the page, offering a free guide to the visitor.  Opt in box on the right. 

Example 2: An education based cash buyer generating lead page.  Uses credibility from a well known person to relay the message.

Example 3: Simple looking page as well.  Simple headline, image of what they’re getting, and opt in form to the right

(all of the lead forms above are pre-built forms professionally copywritten that REItheme members get to use as members… in addition to being able to create an unlimited number of custom Lead Pages saying whatever you want them to say, inside your account. Learn more about REItheme website marketing systems)

Example 4: A cash buyer page we came across online that looks great and I’m sure works well (since they’re sending paid advertising to it). Notice the structure of the page is essentially the same as the above 3… but with fancier graphics. 

The reason we’re showing those real estate lead page examples is mainly so you can start to learn why things work… rather than just copying things without knowing why you’re copying.  We’re all about the whole “teach a man to fish” thing… so you understand why things work so you can take full control over your own marketing… but we also like to make things easier for you with our REItheme software that will help you set up your lead pages for you.

Is My Landing Page Working Well?

As far as being able to tell if your landing page for your real estate investing website is working well… there are a couple ways. The simplest… is if you’re getting leads. Are you getting anyone to put in their info and send it to you? If so, it’s working.  Now, if you want to make it work better… you have to “test”.  It sounds fancy… but all testing is is tracking how many people visit your page versus how many actually “opt in” (put their info into your opt in form).

So, if you have 100 people that have seen your page and 20 have put their info in… it is converting at 20%.  Now all you need to do is get some software that helps you track that.  Google Analytics has free tools that will help you do it, or our REItheme website lead gen system has a built in conversion rate tracker on all of your forms so you can see exactly which ones are working the best.

What Do I Use To Build My Own Real Estate Landing Page?

It really depends on the skills or budget you have.

If you have money to put into the project... hire a web developer who has a LOT of experience in generating leads online and knows everything inside and out about creating lead pages that work. As a warning, 98% of web developers have no clue what converts… many will say they do. Always get references, have them show you actual pages with conversion #’s… and make sure they know how to use tools like Google Analytics so they can help you put in conversion tracking so you know if their pages are working.  You should be able to get a solid lead page created for under $200 by a competent web developer to get the page set up… then whatever they charge after that to set up the Google Analytics, graphics, make changes to the page as you test, etc. Overall over a period of a year you can probably have a solid web guy do this for you for under $700 a year.  (email us and we can direct you toward solid web developers if this is the route you’re wanting to go).

If you’re on a really tight budget and plain and simple absolutely have no cash to invest in a solid lead page system… you can “swipe” other pages, learn html so you can customize the html page, then put it on your own hosting account. This will probably take 3-4 hours of your time if you know some html… or a few days min if you don’t know html yet.  It’s not really hard html…. but I can say with experience that I’ve wasted more than a few days hacking away at html that I’m terrible at… blowing more time and money in the end because I was just trying to “save” some cash.  But, if you absolutely have no money to invest… this will be your only route.

If you have a small budget but want a professional result that works… find a real estate investing website system like REItheme that has cutting edge real estate investing specific lead pages in the system.  You’ll want to look for something that has maybe only 2 or 3 Lead Page templates (more than that… and it’s a waste and only will confuse you. A company should only put the couple that convert the best up for you to use.).  Also, look for something that has simple looking Lead Pages (simple is better) and that are flexible.  The worst thing is when you’re tied to a specific design and specific content that you can’t change. Make sure you can edit the content on your Lead Pages so you have full control.  In addition, make sure the system tracks the traffic to your lead pages and shows you conversion rates so you’re not in the dark.

Last, make sure there are several options on where the leads go after they opt into your Lead Pages. If you use a system like Aweber (the email marketing system we use) you’ll want your lead pages to integrate for free with Aweber. REItheme will let you use your Aweber forms, MailChimp forms, or our custom form system on your Lead Pages… and it’s crazy easy.

How To Get Your Own Real Estate Landing Pages For Your Website

I just went over what a Lead Page is (or squeeze page), why they work for real estate investing businesses, what good ones look like, and 3 options on getting your real estate investing lead page up and online.

So, what do you do now?

First, if you don’t have a Lead Page and you’re a wholesaler in real estate… you NEED ONE.  I’ve personally built very targeted cash buyers lists well over 500 buyers 100% online via a squeeze page… it works really well and you’re essentially leaving money on the table if you’re not using them.

Next, decide your budget, skills, and even more important… how valuable your own time is worth.  People try to save money by hiring things like this out cheap (thinking any web guy will know how to create a landing page that works) or they try to learn it all themselves in the name of “saving money”. If you don’t already know html (if you don’t know what html is, I’d highly suggest you don’t do it yourself) then you’re going to be investing a lot of your own time and energy that you should be spending actually finding deals and making offers.  In the time you learn html and hack away at things yourself you could have potentially done a deal that pays you $5k – $20k (which would more than pay for a solid lead page system).

Usually the option that makes the most sense is to piggyback on a lead page system that already works and that you can have full control over whether you know html or not.  Of course, we’re pretty darn bias to our own real estate investor websites lead generation system… you should check it out and see if its right for you.  But, there are other systems out there too that you may look at.

>> Take A Tour Of REItheme And Our Lead Pages <<

The post Real Estate Investing Landing Page Design appeared first on OnCarrot.com.

Many people don’t see any true advantages of using social media for real estate investing. Well, I’ve got other news for ya…

Every real estate investor should have a Facebook page whether they have another website or not. Facebook offers a major platform for real estate investors to showcase their real estate and build an audience. Why is it important to build an audience in REI? Because you never know who is looking to buy real estate.

Facebook Ads:

With your Facebook page, as a real estate investor, the number of likes is not important at all. What is important is the quality of the likes. Don’t run ad campaigns just to get 5,000 likes. Run the campaigns and promos to get only people who may possibly help you out in business. Get potential buyers and/or sellers to like the page rather then people who just like the ad you ran. You can accomplish this by the picture you use and wordage in your Facebook ad.

Though these 2 ads will get a lot of likes, in real estate we don’t want likes, we want customers.

To get 5,000 likes, you may advertise a giveaway with a picture of a good looking person, close up on their face, and text promoting the item you’re giving away that is slightly encouraging the reader to like the page. Doing this, if done right, can usually get a lot of people to like your page in hopes of winning the cool giveaway. You’ll pay about $0.35 per click and would be lucky to have one person like your page because of the ad that will actually help your business financially. What you will get though are a lot of people clicking your ad, making you pay Facebook  about $0.35 every time they click the ad simply because they want to win something. Then they will most likely never go back to your page unless they go back to unlike the page. In the end, a huge waste of your marketing money.

The way it should be done if you want to attract buyers example: 

Ad Title: As a real estate investor wanting to attract buyers to your Facebook page, think about what would catch the eye of your local community. As you know, when somebody is looking to buy real estate, they want real, personable people to deal with. That should be well expressed in your short ad. Titles such as “Looking for a Home?”, “Real Estate Investors”, or “Buy a Home Now” are attention grabbers to those that are actually looking to buy at the time.

Ad Picture: I’ve found that using pictures that look amateur are actually more effective then using professional well edited pictures. My psychological explanation for that is that people feel less like it’s an ad and more like it’s a peek into something an individual did when it looks unprofessional. Now remember, people aren’t on Facebook to buy houses, they’re on Facebook to see what Nancy’s relationship status is and say “sup” to Billy. So the key in your picture is to catch their attention to make them read your title. The picture is the most important part of a Facebook ad.

Here’s a little trick to use on your ad picture. Edit your picture with a very small, bright colored outline like you see on the right. I suggest using a lime green, orange, or something bright other then red. You will find everywhere else that you should use a red outline to catch attention, but people are catching onto the red outline and starting to not even notice it anymore. What this does is just that, it catches your attention. The human mind is conditioned to subconsciously noticed circled and outline things because your mind associates that outline with something that must be important. Think of it this way; when you shop in a magazine, how do you remember which items are your favorites? You circle them.

Ad text: Your Facebook ad text should be brief and to the point. If the real estate that you’re selling has something unique, let them know. Make sure to mention the city or neighborhood, and give a quick call to action. Something along the lines of “3 br 2 bath, SCOTTSDALE home for sale, see it here TODAY.”

Choose your audience:

First off, pick the exact city and state, and surrounding area where the real estate is located for the location. Next, the age range should be chosen in coordination of the price of the home, and the neighborhood. Decide who your target is to sell the real estate to. If its a cheap college home, range it from 18-25. If it’s a nice family home, range it from 30-45. If it’s a nice 1 or 2 bedroom home, range it from 45-no max etc. What this will do is better direct your ad to the right audience and get the cost per click lower for you.

For the interests section, you have to have the same mindset as the age. If there is a local college in the area and your selling a college home, then make sure to include that college as an interest and all of its athletic teams. Also add the movie theaters, and hang out spots of college kids. Same goes for families, bachelors, and retirees. Think of what places near your real estate that your age group would go to and make sure to include them all. This puts your ads infront of the people who liked those other Facebook pages of the schools, theaters etc.

Next, pick “anyone” for the connections and then go down to Objective and pick “click on my ad or sponsored story.” This way you only have to pay whenever somebody clicks on your ad. This also means you only have to pay for people who are interested in buying that home, aka, people you may make money from. Try your best to get your ad price per click somewhere between $.25 and $.45. Facebook only allows price per click of what it believes best benefits them. $.30 is usually where I try to get it and is a great price to pay.

If your ad is not approved, bump the price up a few cents until it’s approved. If you check out your analytics and see it’s not getting many views or clicks, you may have to raise your price per click up to the suggested price per click. The closer you are to Facebooks suggested ppc, the more views they will give you. If you’re willing to pay over their suggestion, even more views they will get you. So it depends how bad you want to get your real estate in front of eyes.

Want me to do your Facebook ad for you to save you the hassel? 

Want a real estate investor website that ties your customers into your social media accounts? www.REItheme.com allows you to do just that and more! www.REItheme.com has a members only section that is constantly updated and hooks you up with social media tips just like this one to help you succeed. REItheme.com literally shares all of our knowledge that we use in marketing and social media with you for no extra charge. It comes with simply purchasing one of our websites that we will set up for your own real estate investor company.

We will even set you up a killer Facebook page, Twitter account and more at a very low cost if you’re an REItheme.com member. Shoot, if you want us to do your Facebook ad for you to save you the time and trouble, REItheme will even do that!

>>>Check Out REItheme Here<<<

The post Social Media for Real Estate: Facebook Ads appeared first on OnCarrot.com.