I ran an ad in one of the smaller newspaper publications. It started running on April 19, 2009 and ran for 30 days. Overall, the ad resulted in 78 phone calls. Out of those 78 phone calls, I was able to collect information from 38 of these buyers regarding their contact info (including email address), their monthly payment budget, how much they have for a down payment, and what they’re looking for in a house.
The prospects are driven to a phone number where a live person answers (between 9 am and 5 pm), or a recorded message (after hours) telling them to leave me their name, phone # and email address.
Once they do this, I add them to my buyers database and begin marketing to them, sending them to my website so they can check out the homes that I have for sale.
Below is a screenshot of my actual email inbox, showing you only a list of the people that have left messages after hours. (Click on the image to see it larger).
This ad really did the trick!! I have 38 more people to sell my houses to, and it only cost me about $2.00 per lead. I think I’ll run that ad again………
Here’s what my ad said:
“OWNER FINANCING
THREE NICE HOMES TO CHOOSE FROM
24 HOUR RECORDED MESSAGE
(904) 555-5555 ”
Of course, the ad has my real phone number for buyers. I chose a smaller publication newspaper to keep my marketing cost low. I I had run this same ad in the Florida Times Union, it would have cost me nearly $500 for a month. Instead, I only paid about $80. Not too shabby…… Now I gotta go…Ive got to get to work on selling some of these houses I have for sale!!
