Even with social media dictating the pace of how people are messaging each other these days, people still read their emails because it is still the best way to communicate to people from a business standpoint. Your database is your number one tool for marketing if you’re a real estate investor or entrepreneur and sending out emails consistently to your database is the key to success of closing deals and winning. You don’t have to be a social media guru to pull it off, but you do have to invest time and money because in every dollar spent on email marketing on a regular basis, results to 44% ROI.
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Do You Send Emails To Your Database?
We have a great topic to talk about. One of the biggest keys that we see on a regular basis is people love coming to Note CAMP because of the networking. One of the things that we do every time we have Note CAMP is we launch a survey. It’s an attendee survey. The survey is 30 questions. It asks things like your name, your address, your LinkedIn handle, what is your focus, what’s your biggest strength, weakness, what are your top three markets, do you have an IRA, who’s it with, who have you learned from, what’s your biggest goal for the year. It’s an in-depth thing. One of the questions we asked was, “Do you mail out to your database on a regular basis?” I’ve never asked this question before, so I probably shouldn’t be surprised by the responses to it. It’s always interesting to see what’s going on with everybody.
Sometimes it’s surprising, sometimes it’s not surprising. We’re way too early with the fill-up. We only have 58 people fill out the survey so far, which is okay, there’s nothing wrong with that. What is amazing is seeing the stats and stuff that people aren’t doing the simple things to help their business grow. I’ll give an example. We’ve got literally for the first time around, over half of those 60% are repeats, which is great. 85% are focused on first liens, which is no surprise. I don’t know what the biggest needs, biggest weakness, empathy, fearlessness, which is great. 68% have an IRA. We have a total of 87% are looking to joint venture with somebody, which is great and it would be considered maybe. A lot people have a website, which is great.
When I get down to the questions I asked, social media is great. I always ask the question, “How often do they email out to their database?” That is one of the biggest questions. What is concerning is that 44% of those that answered the survey have never sent out an email to the database. 26%, so one out of four people, send it out once a month. 14% send out twice a month and 16% send out once a week. That’s the focus for that. That’s just to their database. I also asked if they reached out to the asset managers at banks and stuff like that, too. It’s concerning. That’s the number one tool in your real estate business or as entrepreneurs that most people are sloughing off on. It’s the fact that they don’t email after the database. You don’t have to be a social media guru. You don’t have to be a Facebook expert or LinkedIn expert, but the biggest tool that most people slack off on is email to their database. They don’t have an email service provider. I’m not talking like Comcast or Roadrunner or Google or Gmail or Yahoo Mail, that’s not what I’m talking about. Everybody has an email address. I’m not talking to send a mass email out through Gmail. That’s the worst thing you can do because it’s invisible. You can’t see who clicks on it. You can’t see who opens it. It’s not an effective tool.
Send Emails To Your Database: Your email is still the best way to communicate with people.
Having an email service provider like MailChimp or AWeber or even the worst two: Constant Contactor iContact, those guys hate real estate investors. Having something that you can measure your responses, measure the emails that you send out, measure the open rate, the deliverability rate, that’s still the best bang for buck marketing-wise that you can use because for the most part it’s inexpensive. There are some that will give you so many emails a month. If you have under 2,000 connections, you will have over 2,000 connections quick if you’re any type of real estate. If you connect your LinkedIn connections and are reaching out to asset managers on a regular basis, you’ll have over 2,000 connections. Some people get upset, “I need to pay to have an email?” Yeah, you should. I’ve seen people literally say that on their profiles, “I should pay for my email?” I’m like, “Yeah, you should because for every dollar spent on email marketing, if you do it or if use it on a regular basis, it should return roughly 4,300%, 4,400% ROI on every dollar spent on email marketing.”That’s not me. That’s the AMA, American Marketing Association. They talk about how that is still the number one because people read their email, yet we see a transition going to a lot of Facebook messages and text messages. I’m not going to argue with that. The way Facebook is changing their algorithms, they shook up the world with the Messenger bot, putting a pause as they figure things out.
Your email is still the best way to communicate with people. People change emails. It goes to spam. The idea is if you start marketing, by marketing you send an email out to your database on a regular basis, you’re going to have success. If I had only one tool available to me being as good as I am, even they took away my podcast, they took away Facebook Live, they took away YouTube, it still comes down to email and you can still do a lot with email and communicating with people. It’s a simple thing. You don’t have to be an expert. I know you all can type out an email. I know you all can spend a little time putting your logo and your header and some links to your LinkedIn profile. What is concerning is a lot of people aren’t doing the things that they need to do on monthly basis.
When I see the 44% of people surveyed, that’s still a drop in the bucket of the hundreds of people. It’s less than 10% total of those that have signed up. That concerns me. A lot of people will use the excuse that they don’t know what to say, and I get that. Sometimes it’s hard to come up with content but we’re talking about an email at least once a month. Once a month, once a week is not hard because you look at your lives as a real estate investor. You have four weeks in a month. You can come up with something to say four times a month. That’s only 52 weeks a year. Two of those weeks you’re probably going to be on vacation. “Merry Christmas” is one of those. “Happy New Year” is another one. You’ve got to come up with 50 pieces of information to provide a good quality content to email your database.
Some people are like, “I don’t want to spam people.” Everybody’s used to getting emails. If you share what you’re doing and the whole spam rules, “I don’t want to spam somebody.” Sent out an email, “It was great meeting you at Note CAMP. It was great meeting you at NIS. It was great meeting you with the Note Expos, meeting you at the meetup group with REI club.” Those are simple introductions. You’re not spamming them. You’re simply saying, “I mentioned here it was great meeting. Let’s continue the conversation.” It’s not that hard to do because if you’re going forward, you’ve got probably deals you’re working on or hopefully working on. You’re probably going and attending a meetup group or a real estate investment club. You can invite the people out or tell them a little bit about what you’re doing. Third, do a case study. Four, you make a little about yourself.
The emails that people love are when you share a little about your personal life. You share a little bit what’s going on in your life. You share the journey, your trials and tribulations, the good, the bad, the ugly, the wins, the losses. Those are the things that people really love to see. It allows people to start seeing you in a different way. I know many of you are still working. You don’t want the boss man to see what you’ve got going on. I get that. I understand that. I can respect that. It doesn’t mean you can’t remove them from your list. That’s what’s so great about an email service provider ESP or like a CRM. I use Infusionsoft. I have too big of a database. If you have less than 25,000 connections, you should be using MailChimp. It’s easy use. It tracks your LinkedIn. Plus, they added some cool features for landing pages that you can use straight to Facebook and then also Instagram ads. It’s very easy to use plus you can create Facebook ads straight from MailChimp now.
It’s a couple of new features they’ve got that’s great. Infusionsoft is more of a customer relations manager. I have people that are tagged differently. They’re assigned different tags when they sign up or when they are getting in our database and are getting different email posts, they can know what tag they’re in, what group they’re in. The thing to keep in mind is that it’s okay to share what’s going on. If you’re not going to send a simple email or simple electronic handshake, “Hi, it was great meeting you. What are you focused on? Here’s what I do. Let’s network,” I can’t really help you. You’re not going to find any type of success in anything you do.
If you think about this, we get bombarded with ads from Starbucks. I bought something from Neiman Marcus at Christmas. I get probably two emails a week from them with different discounts on things. I get an email every week, almost every day from DSNews, Default Servicing News, HousingWire. Those are two emails that I read every week. Social Media Today, I get email from them. Those are the things I love to read. I get spammed by a lot. I get email notices from Meetup.com and all the groups where we are but you can adjust those filters. That’s important. People are emailing me whether you like it or not. You might as well be using that same tool to get the word out on what you’re trying to do. Get the word out in the deals that you’re trying to do. If you’re afraid to sending an email out to your database, you have bigger problems than what I can help you with. You have to start doing things and taking action. The easiest action, easiest thing to do is to send an email out to your database and just tell them, “I’m online. This is what I’m working on.”Those are some of the best things you can do to really drive.
Send Emails To Your Database: The emails that people love are when you share a little about your personal life.
If you’ve got direct sources and you’re working full-time, your email, most of your CRMs or your ESPs, Email Service Providers, you can write your emails and then schedule them to go out if you’re working a full-time job. Sunday night is one of the best times to send an email out. Sending it out in the middle of the day, it’s often not going to be seen. You don’t want to wait until Friday to send an email out because email sent out after 2:00 on a Friday is not going to get read because people are going to be too busy headed to happy hours or getting home for the weekend. The things you have to focus on more than anything else in your real estate business is building a database and communicating with them on a daily basis, weekly basis. Once a week at the least, you should be emailing your database. People start emailing me, “Scott, I haven’t got an email from you this week. Is everything okay?” I have to chuckle a little bit like, “Yeah, everything’s okay.”
One of the things that you’ve got to keep in mind is we’ve seen even fewer numbers of people emailing out to their banking context. One of the biggest things I’ve discovered early on in my note business and career was that I would not be able to talk to everybody on a daily basis or weekly basis. I had to, and you have to do this, too, start putting your contacts into lists, your friends, your LinkedIn connections, the people you meet at events. The more you can niche it down, the better you can communicate. You can talk personally on that list. I have a big general database that would be very generic in a database that I send out. Inside of that database, I have everybody cut down and tag appropriately for where they are at. Some people have 40 different tags because they’re part of 40 different groups into my database. That’s okay to use.
You want to communicate on a regular basis. What’s sad is most people, and honestly it doesn’t surprise me, in the world, most people aren’t communicating. Most people aren’t doing the things that they need to do to find success. It’s very, very sad. It aggravates me but makes me feel very sorry because I see all these people that are going to event after event and coaching. They’re paying for conferences, they’re traveling and doing all these things, but they are failing on the simplicity of doing something that will help their business better than anything else will. What is that? It’s communication. It’s communicating with their database on a regular basis. That’s talking to their connections. That’s talking to their tribe. Whether you believe it or not, you are the master of your own tribe.
We all have tribes that surround ourselves. If you ever want to read a good book, read Tribes by Seth Godin. It’s a phenomenal book, one of my favorites. Seth is one of my top two favorite authors. All of his stuff I try to read, I probably got twelve of his books on my shelf. In his book, he’s talking about how everybody is looking for leaders. We’re all looking for somebody to help lead us out there. If you want to do things, you’ve got to start being a leader, not only in your own life but in your circle, in your tribe. There’s a great line from American President, Michael Douglas, “In the true absence of leadership, people will listen to the loudest person.” I’m not talking to be the loudest person, but there are a lot of people out there sharing information or being allowed that have no experience, that don’t know nearly what you know.
They don’t have the knowledge, the experience, the case studies that you have or the network that you have. That’s half of probably what I share about is the network that we do, the network we have, “There’s an event we go to. Here’s where you can go network. Here’s an event up coming. Here’s what we learned. Here’s a webinar on something that we learned.” It’s so important to keep that in mind when communicating. It’s not always about you. Sometimes it’s just sharing, “Here’s something good, here’s something that I learned.” There’s so much negativity out there. People are so busy jumping on Facebook and bashing everything that happens out there. Take the time to share something good. Share a win. Share a success, “I’ve been in twelve assets. Here’s a map of what we’re focused. Here’s what we’re trying to do.”
Some of the easiest things that you can do is all about collecting databases. We’ve got a lot of people that I’ve run into that have podcasts or they’re launching podcasts or they’re trying to drive listeners and downloads. They throw it up on something. It’s like having a website that people throw in their site up and they expect for people to find them. Those days are long gone. You have to realize that you have to start marketing out in the database and start collecting people’s contact information so you let them know when a new episode, when a new offering comes out, when you have a new deal, a new funding potential. I’m totally loving what our good friend, Katie Moton, has been posting. Eric Hyde has done the same thing, too, and they got on our JV list. They go here to the website and opt in to our JV funder’s list.
Those are people that are like, “I want to fund deals. I want to fund your deals.” Why would you not want to send an email out to them at least once a week? When you start thinking about why you should be doing this versus, “I don’t know what to say.” What’s really sad is when I see people that have their kids or other family members that are more technically savvy and they still aren’t sending emails out to the database. That drives me bonkers. I get, “I’ve got to learn a new software. I’ve got to learn how to do it.” Yeah, we’ve got to learn. It’s going to take an hour to send your first email out to your database but it would be the most valuable hour because if you think about that, every time you send an email out, you’re probably going to raise $25,000, $30,000, $50,000 in funding. You’re probably going to gain 30 to 50 listeners.
Send Emails To Your Database: If you want to do things, you’ve got to start being a leader, not only in your own life but in your circle, in your tribe.
We’ve got to start communicating with our database. If you’re not communicating, you’re choosing not to communicate, you’re choosing to be a cow on the way to the slaughter block. I guarantee it, if you’re not marketing to your database, somebody else is. Won’t you rather have them fund your deals versus them fund mine or fund somebody else’s deals? The biggest travesty in life in real estate is not sharing what you know. If you had a best friend who was the founder of Google or the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs is your friend and he never told you about what he was launching. Then he became this multi-billionaire and you never knew. Would you be upset? The answer to that is, “Yes, I would be upset that he didn’t offer me the opportunity. He didn’t think enough of me to offer me up that opportunity.”That’s what you have to keep in mind. It’s not begging for money or begging for deals or, “Pay attention to me.” It’s all about what you can offer them, “Let me help you in a form or fashion.”
Cody Cox is going to be speaking. He will spend some time on his marketing at NoteCamp.live, which is great, awesome stuff. Thanks, Cody. Cody will be speaking as the breakout session. For the first time in Note CAMP, he was on a panel. This time around, he’s got his own session. He’s done a great job, while also working full-time. Cody does a great job of that delicate marriage you have to have between wanting to chase your passions and then also still having a full-time job and employment. One of these days, hopefully we’re going to be chasing his passion full-time. He’s not too far off from there.
Use email service providers, use MailChimp, upload your list to it. Start sending stuff out in a regular basis. It will get easier. You’ll get better at it. Honestly, the people around you will start looking at you in a different way verses the guy or the gal that works that does one thing. Please take action. Go do something. That’s the way I got to the top. I started making a name for myself, “I’ve got on your email list.” I had that literally happen in an event. A guy’s like, “I’m on your email list. I’ve never met you before, but I love what you share. I love what you do. I love that you send it. I love reading your emails because they always make me laugh. I love watching your videos.” Just be yourself. That’s the most important thing. You don’t have to be like me. Don’t be like Mike. Go be yourself and trust me, the more you communicate, the more you share, the faster you’ll get to the top.
Go out, make something happen. Hold onto your seatbelt, hold on to your shoes because we’re going to rock. See you all at the top.
Important Links
- MailChimp
- AWeber
- Constant Contact
- iContact
- Infusionsoft
- DSNews
- HousingWire
- Social Media Today
- Meetup.com
- Tribes
- Katie Moton
- Cody Cox
- NoteCamp.live