Posting Ads To Find Buyers
I am often asked about how to build a buyers list using CraigsList since I am actively building my real estate investor buyers list at a rate of about 4,000 people a week. Of course, I was not adding about 600 new investors to my list daily the first day I started and neither will you. So, what is a reasonable rate to grow your own real estate investor buyers list?
Well, I grow my list, on average, by about 2 to 3 investors per day for each city that I am building a list of investors in. If you set your goal to be in the 2 to 10 people a day range, I think you will be at a good pace for getting a decent size list of investor buyers for selling your own deals quickly. If I was focusing on only one city, I personally would want to see my list growing at about 2 to 10 people per day.
So, exactly how to do grow a real estate investor buyers list using CraigsList (and other classified ad websites)? Well, here is a step by step procedure that you can use to grow your own buyers list. Please be aware, that I originally wrote these steps to help my wholesaling clients grow their own buyers list with our system, so if you are not using our wholesaling system, you may need to make some minor adjustments, skip a step here, add a step or two there. Go ahead and do what you need to in order to make it work for you.
Before you begin, I am going to assume that you have a way of storing and contacting your buyers like a legitimate e-mail blasting service (not spam people that never asked to be contacted, but a way to blast an e-mail out to your list that requested deals from you). If you are using our wholesaling system, we do manage the list using our e-mail blast service, but you need to have an account with us at Analyzed Deals.
For this example, I am going to demonstrate how to build your list by placing an ad in the “Free Stuff” section to give away a free real estate course and a list of real estate deals. You could adapt what I am telling you here to run variations of these ads in real estate for sale (if you are selling a property) or real estate services (if you are offering a real estate service).
Step #1: Decide what ad you will be running.
In this example, I am going to be running the following ad:
Free Real Estate Course and Fort Collins Distressed Property List
Have you been tempted by the TV infomercials about making money in real estate? Me too. E-mail me and I will send you my real estate course and I’ll throw in a list of Fort Collins distressed properties (a current list) to help you find your first deal.
You’ll like the free course and the list of properties is good too.
Got to be quick when its free:
http://FortCollinsRealEstateResources.com/free-course/
I strongly recommend that you do not just copy and paste my exact ad. Why? Besides it being copyrighted material and you not being allowed to do it, there are other practical reasons like the fact that if I post the ad and then you try to post the exact same ad right after mine, you could possibly be blocked from posting because it is an exact duplicate ad. You are better off taking the basic idea of what my ad says, tweaking it a little and using your own version.
Should You Provide a Link or E-mail?
You will notice in my sample ad above, I provide a link to my website: http://FortCollinsRealEstateResources.com/free-course/
If you are part of our wholesaling system, you may be asking if you should you be linking to the same page using your tracking code to build your list and earn points or should you NOT include a link and use your e-mail.
If I could find a way to use e-mail, I would because it will drastically improve your response to this type of ad. Unfortunately, since I have people helping me with these ads and I don’t want the real estate investor buyers to inquire to their e-mail address, I use my link instead.
Here’s another reason to NOT use the link and to use e-mail. Do you remember a moment ago when I discussed why you should not just copy my ad? Well, all the same reasons apply to why you should not use the same or very similar website links in numerous ads.
So, for you, my first choice would be to have them e-mail me and my second choice would be to purchase my very own domain name and use that. I do NOT recommend using my domain names. I am already using them and over using my domain name will cause you nothing but problems and frustration.
Step #2: Post the ad.
If you have never posted an ad on CraigsList before, you will want to create an account. Once you have an account, you can select the option to “Post a New Ad” by selecting the city you want to post your ad in. In almost all cases, this will be the city you are working in and want to find a real estate investor buyers list for.
Select the category you want to post in (real estate for sale, real estate services or in this case for sale: free stuff).
Enter in a title for your ad. In this example my title would be something like:
Free Real Estate Investing Course and Distressed Property List
But feel free to experiment with different titles over time to see which one gets you the best response.
In the field for specific location, put in where you are located.
In the posting description field, enter in the ad you wrote. Again, do copy and paste my example. It will only cause you problems if you do.
Make sure you use the e-mail anonymizer to cut down on spam to your e-mail account and then submit it.
That’s really all there is to posting an ad.
Step #3: Dealing with responses.
So, you’ve posted your ad and waited about 15 minutes. Unless your ad had a problem and was not actually posted, then you should start getting responses pretty quickly–at least with the free course ad. Response rates differ significantly from ad to ad.
Your ads may also be flagged by users. Some users may not like you, your ad or believe that your ad is an appropriate or legitimate ad to run. Everyone has an opinion and in almost all cases the free course ads I put up end up getting flagged and removed. That’s part of the system and I can live with it.
If you used a website address in your ad, the responses should go to that website and if you are using a sign up form there, they will be signing up to receive the free real estate course and distressed property list. When people do this on my system, they are automatically e-mailed a link to the distressed properties on Analyzed Deals and a link to download the real estate course OR have it shipped to them.
If you are having them e-mail you, then you will need to send them the real estate course and get them into your system. Depending on how your system is set up, this can vary quite a bit. If you are part of our wholesaling system, you can then send them the link to the free course page with your referral tracking code in it at this point. This will allow them to get signed up to receive the free course from us, get a link to the list of distressed properties and have them on the buyers list we maintain for that city.
Step #4: Repeat as needed.
As your ad drops off the classified ad website, you may want to repost it. I strongly do not advise you to post multiple copies of your ad in a row one right after another. This is a great way to get your account blocked or shut down. I typically repost my ads that stay up about once every 3 days. If it is removed, I will consider reposting it more frequently, but I do not have a set rule about that.
If you have any questions, corrections or want to add clarification to it, please let me know.
Until my next post,
James