One of the things I have not been good at to date is taking the time to create a full marketing plan for the next 6 months. I currently just go from week to week and come up with what I want to do on the spur of the moment. This is not very efficient and also causes me to be a bit scattered in what I’m sending out and how often.
Falling Behind
For instance, I just started sending out the second mailings for my out of state owners lists. I should have done so 2 months ago at the 3 month from first letter mark. I just plane forgot and got carried away sending out letters to new towns. Not good and I am now behind and don’t have the funds to catch up at the moment. Better planning and a schedule to look at would have alerted me to when to send out what.
I have the ability to do this in SI Lead Manager, but I didn’t take advantage of it. This probably means the feature is not well implemented and I’m going to work on fixing that.
Financial Planning
One of the biggest benefits of creating a long term marketing schedule is that it will help me budget better. Keeping a better budget will help me notice when I have extra money to spend in an upcoming month. I can use this extra money to try out new marketing ideas or increase my mailings.
Right now I’m kinda spending $250 a month on direct mail, but I”m not completely sure. I can get away with this now because of the small number of mailings I’m sending out. However, when Lance and I expand our efforts this is going to cause major problems. I’ll either run out of money or I’ll have extra money that could have been used to bring in more deals.
This is all a learning process, actually it’s more of a training process. I have to train myself to be more disciplined. That’s why I wanted to finish p90x (only 1 week left!!!!!), it has increased my will power 10 fold.
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Comments 11
Scott,
I agree 100% on a long term marketing plan. It will also allow you to better tweak the plan as need be. Big question,do you plan to roll your profits from the wholesale back into the business or pay yourself?
For this first deal I plan on rolling about 80% of it back into the business.
I’m glad your not putting 100% back into the business. You must reward yourself. I do think a good steak dinner is in order.
The reward will probably be put in a savings account until I can decide what to do with it. 🙂 Eventually I will want some electronic gadget.
Hey Scott –
Congratulations on your first deal. The next one will come easier.
I completely agree with putting the money from this deal back into your business; hopefully you will put it all into marketing.
I am a big fan of technology, but this is one time when you need to be using an oversized one year wall calendar.
If you really want to stay on track, nothing beats having this thing hanging over your desk, staring you in the face day after day. Plan your marketing out at least 3 months. If you fall behind one week then you know exactly what you have to do the next week to catch up.
My actual campaigns are in the database, but my tasks are right up there on that big calendar where they can’t be forgotten.
Sharon,
That’s great advice on the wall calender.
Jason
Jason –
I can tell you that it really works. Give it a try.
Hi Sharon,
Thank you very much!
The reinvested money will most certainly all go into marketing. That is how i’m going to get more deals.
That is a great idea about the giant wall calendar, I will have to look into that.
Scott –
I know how tough it is having a full time job. I had one for about 10 years after I first started investing in real estate.
Having that big Office Depot calendar staring me in the face, really help keep me on track and take away some of the feeling of overwhelm.
One of your next goals should be to increase the number of mail pieces you send out (which would increase your leads), and to have someone help with your mailings. With that off of your plate, you would have more time to work those leads coming in which is where your money is.
That is my next goal for sure. I’d like to increase the number from 100/w to 200/w. With the additional funds from the last deal I should be able to do this no problem.
I’m going to go get that Office Depot Calendar this weekend and start my plan. Thanks again Sharon for the idea
I totally agree with this post. Having a marketing budget allows one to say on track and adjust their marketing efforts based on the responses.