Online Lead Generation for Motivated Sellers

Mike: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. Really excited to have my good friend, Brian Driscoll was today. He is an online marketing expert, primarily Facebook and pay-per-click and SEO. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today.

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Hey, Brian, [00:01:00] welcome to the show.

Bryan: What’s up, man. Glad to be here.

Mike: Thanks for, yeah. Excited to talk about it. It’s funny because you run an agency, it’s all digital. I run an agency. That’s not digital. And uh, so the funny thing is, is that we’ve got limited time to record this show now because you and I have been talking for like 45 minutes or something a half hour about.

Talking shop, you know, so, um, I guess we should have hit the record button and just recorded all that and then when we’d be done, but, um, Hey man, before we get jumped into this, why don’t you give people a little context for your background? Like how you, cause you’re a real estate investor yourself. So how you got into this space?

Bryan: Yeah, sure. So I got into digital marketing. 2005, somewhere around there. I got involved with that. It was called oDesk back in the day, which is now Upwork does a freelance, right. I just got on there. I was really good with SEO and I made a whole business. I started an agency. I dealt with like more national and international, like big e-commerce type of companies.

And then about eight or nine years ago, I bought my first property, like a investment property off. I saw the wholesale fee on my keys. I may have [00:02:00] 15 grand. So what I did is I slapped up a carrot website and put some ads I’m behind it. I’m like, I’m just going to see if I can get my own leads and we crushed it.

So we started doing that for awhile, uh, generating deals there. And then, um, I was talking with my buddy, Chad, Chad Keller, and we’re like, dude, we need this. There’s a, there’s a big opening in this space and there’s a big need. So that’s where we transitioned the agency into, uh, like going after motivated sellers.

Mike: That’s awesome. Yeah. It’s funny how. Have all of a sudden have like a service business, not all of us, but you and I, and a lot of other people that we know, um, it was because we tried to solve our own problems first and then we’re like, Hey, other people could use this too. Right. Exactly. Yeah. That’s hilarious.

So we’re going to talk today a fair bit about paid lead gen online lead gen. Uh, I should say online lead generation, um, and primarily Google and Facebook. And you guys do some SEO stuff. Well, let’s just kinda lay out the case for why people, if they’re not, should be generating

Bryan: leads on. Yeah. So there there’s multiple ways to generate leads.

Like you have [00:03:00] online, you have mailers, you have texting email, all that kind of stuff. All marketing is good. Like if you do any of it consistently, you’re probably going to get results. The thing that I like about digital is you can get in front of a ton of people for pennies, like, like on Facebook, for example, it might cost you 20 bucks to get in front of a thousand people.

So the reach you can get in front of so many people online for a very affordable. It’s like having a digital billboard and that’s, that’s one of the reasons I say digital is huge, just because the, the value you get for that dollar, if you run your campaigns properly, it can be very lucrative for you.

Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. Mostly it’s you know who doesn’t, who doesn’t. Go look online for things. Cause these days like there’s, I even I’ll even be in a physical store and about to buy something. I’m like, let me just check and see how much it is on Amazon or, or maybe they’re out at the store. I’m like, let me just see if it’s even available on Amazon.

Oh yeah. It’s going to be there like, oh, it can be delivered by five o’clock today. Yeah. Boom. You know, so I don’t know who doesn’t make a major decision these [00:04:00] days without doing some online, um, online.

Bryan: Yeah. And you know, what else is interesting with digital too? Is the algorithms like Facebook and Google they’re they’re, uh, tracking people based on behavior.

So like, say for example, you’re talking about on Amazon, you’ve got to look at a pair of shoes. You don’t buy them. And then for some reason, your Facebook feeds filled with shoes for the next week. So they’re able to target people based on the actions that they’re taking online, which is really beneficial if we’re marketing, because we can target people a very efficient.

Yeah.

Mike: Yup. And I think even if you’re, you know, I still very much believe in, you know, obviously we were probably one of the largest done for you solutions for direct mail. We use some really unique data and everything that we do, but it goes hand in hand. Like I, I. You know, it’s very common for people to get a postcard go online and research that company, maybe still not take action.

You have the ability to retarget them and stuff like that. So it’s really, it doesn’t have to be one or the other, like these, these things are layers, right? That work together

Bryan: a hundred percent, your right to cause someone make it, you know, how people hold. [00:05:00] And sometimes you’ll get a call from someone in a year and I go, yeah, I’ve been holding on to this, but they’re definitely, I don’t want to say definitely, but most likely going to look you up online to see if you’re reputable.

Right. And then you’re retargeting them and building that credibility for the whole time. They’re like, oh yeah, this guy must be pretty good. I see him again. Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. So we’ve kind of laid out the case here for why people should advertise online. Obviously everybody’s online. See, my grandparents are online, they have Facebook accounts and stuff like that.

Right. So they have honestly for a long time now, but why wouldn’t, why wouldn’t somebody want to advertise online? Like who’s a real estate investor that just doesn’t make sense to advertise online.

Bryan: So it, it, it depends. There’s a couple types, like if you’re just getting into. Online advertising. You need to have somewhat healthy budget.

Like if you’re going to put $5 budget, like an average lead cost in the United States on Facebook may cost about $150. So you can figure out the math there. If you want to get 10 leads, that’s 1500 a month. So you have to have a couple of dollars if you’re just starting out, might driving for dollars, might be good.

Things like that are the [00:06:00] more cost effective ways because you’re either going to trade sweat or you’re trading dollars. You’re looking at leads. Yeah. So some, it depends where you’re at. If you’re to the point where it’s like, you know what, I can handle as many leads as com or you can get me and. I can scale it and I have good processes and I have a budget that’s where digital would fit in.

And also other types of marketing. If you’re beginning drive for dollars, text messaging, things like that might be, it might be a good.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. And you just get to a point where things like online advertising, direct mail that we do for people is like, those are things that are, especially if you’re working with an agent, somebody that can handle it for you, like scaling is easier.

Like if you want to scale driving for dollars and double it, well, you have to double the amount of time you spend on it. Right? If you want to raise your, your online advertising budget and your mail budget, you just tell whoever you’re working. Send him a text and say double my budget and you’re, you’re done.

Right. But yeah, that’s cool. And at the end of the day, you know what I tell, I think I believe this, even though I own an agency, I believe this with every ounce of [00:07:00] my being that most real estate investors are trying to wear every hat in their business and they tend to like, not do anything really good, and they’re probably best at acquisitions or doing deals, maybe the dispo side, like, you know, buying and selling houses actually, but you don’t have to be good.

Scrubbing your toilets and you don’t have to be good at, you know, doing marketing and lead gen. And by the way, you’re never going to be as good as somebody that does this all day long every day for hundreds of people, like you’re just never going to be able to compete. And so, you know, why not just outsource those things that you can’t be good at in the first

Bryan: place?

Yeah. And that’s a good point too, cause I’ve heard from new. So Google paper clicks extremely expensive per click in this. Um, and I’ve heard from a lot of people are like, you know what? I tried setting on myself and I just ate my money. So a lot of times, like if you have to kind of at least do some research and know what you’re doing, especially when you’re paying $30 a click or however expensive it is in your area.

Um, yeah. But yeah, that’s one of the things there, cause you can blow through thousands really fast. Yeah.

Mike: So that’s kind of, let’s talk a little bit about. Do it [00:08:00] yourself, they do it on their own, or they would outsource it to an agency because you’re right. If you’re not going to have a healthy budget, it doesn’t make sense to pay somebody, an agency fee or a management fee to do those things.

If your, if your budget, if your budget is half your budget is going to management fees or whatever, it doesn’t make sense. Right. But, um, let’s talk a little bit about. When it makes sense. And when it doesn’t, uh, for a real estate investor. So let’s talk about first, we’ll start with, when does it not make sense or when, when does it make sense to do it yourself?

I guess? Sure.

Bryan: So there’s different types of people. I think that it will do really well on doing it themselves. Number one, the guys that are real tacky that just want to learn and like learning how things work you can run. Say if you wanted to run Facebook ads, you can start with really small budgets.

You might not get. The ton of results, but you’re learning what works. So you can even start with like a five or $10 a day budget, learn how Facebook works. And if you have the time to tinker and you understand technology that will work normally the guys beginning, [00:09:00] uh, have the extra time and they can figure it out.

The guys that are running businesses and doing tons of deals, most of the people I talk to either number one, don’t want to think about it. They don’t understand it, or they’re just too busy. Like, you know what? I don’t even want to learn this. I just want to pay someone that already knows how to do it because I’m focused on, what’s making me thousands per hour.

Mike: Right. Right. And the reality is, is it changes all the time. Right? So you, it’s not like you can just learn it. It’s not like riding a bike or we were talking the other day. Uh, I’ve seen a couple of jokes about millennials and stick shift cars like this, a theft prevention device. You know, I don’t know about you.

I grew up, my first car was a stick shift and I haven’t had one for a long time, but I could get in one and drive it right now if I need it to no problem. Right. Cause it doesn’t change much. And I don’t know where I’m going on that path with that analogy. But the truth is, is it changes all the time, right?

Like you’re, if you learn something, if you don’t stay up on it, you might get left behind.

Bryan: Yeah. And the thing is too, like, even like I’m always testing, like we were talking before the show. And we spent a lot of money because we needed to see what ads work like. For example, during the [00:10:00] election. Uh, back when they were doing a presidential elections, we had one ad that was crushing.

It, it looked like a political type of ad. And then when elections are done, boom, that thing doesn’t do anything. So you always have to be saying, uh, constantly testing and staying ahead of the curve in technology change in like some of these platforms might not be here tomorrow.

Mike: Yeah, that’s true. That is true.

Um, so where do you think with S. Kind of paid lead gen is going, obviously, you know, the Internet’s not going away. Um, people’s problems aren’t going away. Like they still have, you know, people are still dying and there’s death and divorce and inheritance like problem rentals, like all those problems that create opportunities for us as real estate investors, which we don’t wish on anybody, but they’re just, life are going to continue to happen.

Like where is, where are the platforms like Facebook lead gen, uh, Google. And I mean, obviously there’s a whole bunch of other social media platforms. Are constantly coming into play as well. Like where do you, where do you think the scene is going?

Bryan: Yeah, that’s a good question. So there’s like, [00:11:00] even like tick talks out right now.

Some people are crushing it on Tik TOK. I know a lot of the guys doing courses, things like that, I’m talking and I’m like, yeah, we’re crushing it. So like, what I think about is with digital marketing in this space, you always want to think, where are the people hanging out? Do you want to get in front of right.

Like you’re saying, Facebook is an older Democrat. Parents grandparents are on there. Young kids aren’t on Facebook anymore. Right. But the people we’re trying to get in front of right now are on Facebook, but at some point they’re going to transition to somewhere else. Sure. Google is a pretty heavy player there.

They don’t really have any competition. Duck, duck goes getting into it a little bit on the organic side from all the people that are paranoid. Rightfully so with all the tracking. Um, but Google is. I don’t know anyone that’s, who we’re going to compete with M and a, in a new space, but they’re not really a social platform.

It’s more intent-based people searching for words. Um, I don’t know. Tic talks the biggest one I see right now, but it’s a bunch of 12 year olds. So I don’t know where the, uh,

Mike: older demographics really, as we speak, [00:12:00] I just created an account here recently and I went up, we’re gonna start to put some content out there, but I, I refused.

Dance like a monkey or anything like that. Like it’s not going to happen. I’m just going to kind of talk the way I’m talking here, essentially. And if it attracts people, that’s great. And if not, that’s okay. My goal is to take them off of there and try to push them to other platforms or push them in my website.

It’s not to, you know, it’s not necessarily cause I don’t, I want to be way more of a, of a content creator than a consumer, especially

Bryan: on Tik TOK. Yeah. You got to do the dances. Yeah. Yeah, no,

Mike: not me. So, um, but at the end of the day, I mean, you just look at, you guys, look at. Each of those platforms is just, it’s just like a hose, right?

Like that’s traffic, how do we connect to it to get them back to our website ultimately. Right, right.

Bryan: Yeah. So, and you have to think about it like a funnel also. So say, say even YouTube, like where we messed with YouTube, Google SEO, Facebook, Bing, uh, what you’re looking at, say, someone comes to your website through Google pay-per-click you spend $30 to get them to come to your website.

[00:13:00] If they don’t fill the form. And you don’t have retargeting going. You just wasted that money, right? If you have retargeting going, you’re standing in front of those people and get a scoop them up when they’re ready, because they might still be in research mode. So you want to look like what’s the entire process, because if someone wants to sell their house, So people aren’t just Googling, how do I sell my house fast?

Because they’re ready right now. They’re trying to see what are my options. They come to your website and then they’re gone. They’re looking to the next thing. Yeah. So yeah, it’s important to make sure everything works together. Even like mailers, things like that. Um, like what you do, Mike, and, uh, like even texting, like try to interlink them all together to build that credibility and be in front of the people in and deliver it, like help them out.

Mike: Yeah, I th I love what you said. They’re all funnels. They’re all. Look, they’re just, they’re all like, you know, they’re all traffic sources, right? And I think the more real estate investors and all small businesses look at these platforms as just sources of traffic, and they’re going to continue. Some will go away.

Some will deteriorate, some will improve with time and you just have to constantly be [00:14:00] looking at, is there another place I could hook my funnel up to you? That’s going to bring me traffic. And then obviously, You know, be able to convert them when they get to your site. Um, but I think if, if real estate investors could just look at it that way is Facebook is not Facebook.

It’s just a traffic source. Like these are just sources and you have to test them against each other and see what’s working now. And you’re, you know what, I think one of the things that people struggle with a lot on social media, me included is that I try to create one size fits all content, but the way that people consume content on different platforms is very different, right?

Bryan: Big time and the type of content you need to create, even just on the specific parts of the funnel, say you’re doing Facebook ads. If you’re showing to a cold audience, meaning people that have never seen you before you need a strong direct message, like sell your house fast. We buy houses, we pay cash, things like that.

Right? If we’re retargeting people, we probably want a video because now we’re trying to build credibility and let them know who we are. Not really not necessarily what we do, but let them know. Hey. [00:15:00] I’m a local guy. I buy houses. I’m not a big bank. And to come in and pound you so different content for even different stages of the funnel is really

Mike: impatient.

Yeah. Yeah. So if folks do want to, and I would advocate, um, I mean, I, you, you own an agency and I’ve owned it. I owned an, as you were talking about that now. I don’t want people to think this is just a pitch, but I really want people to be successful. And I know people really struggle when they try to do things themselves.

I get it as a real estate investor, cause we’ve always tried to be cheap and do stuff ourselves and just like move, I’ll handle it. Some guys are getting in there and doing their own rehabs and stuff like that. And that’s not really what we signed up for. So I think the best part of this business is, you know, getting better at buying and selling and deal-making and you know, God forbid enjoying your life.

I know. We talked about an entire year. Cause you have something going on with your kids. Like that’s how life should be spent, not figuring out how to do everything and working like 24 hours a day. Right. But if folks, um, you know, I think the other side of that is people have hired agencies in the past and, um, I’ve done this for sure that I feel like they did a way better job [00:16:00] of selling me on what they could do for me than actually doing for me what they said they were going to do.

Right. They just, they weren’t great at doing what they said they would do. I talked to the owner and next thing you know, my account rep is, is, uh, somebody halfway around the world that can’t even speak the language, like the way that I can or whatever. And we just kind of get sold a bill of goods or whatever.

So when people are looking at agencies, like what should they look for in terms of, uh, who would be the right fit for them?

Bryan: So in the real estate investing space, I highly recommend dealing with an agency that specializes in real estate investors. The reason being. All right. Say on Google paper, click the difference from somebody searching, sell my house to sell my house fast is a totally different audience.

And a lot of digital guys don’t know the difference. So you want to find someone that number one. Knows the space like knows what a motivated seller is, things like that. And then check her ammonia was things like that. That’s very important. And if you can find somebody that’s an investor, that’s [00:17:00] huge because they understand they see it from their side too.

Like the marketing and we do. The marketing we offer is what we do for ourselves. Right. Because we can find things like that and not saying we’re there, there are other agencies out there that do the same type of thing. Do your due diligence and mainly find who you fit with as well. Like some people want to have weekly calls.

Like I’m not the guy that’s going to have a weekly call with you. We’re more results. Right. Some P some guys out there too, they want to have weekly calls and all that kind of stuff. And there are people out there for you to like, just fine. Who do you jive with and is going to deliver what you need. Yeah,

Mike: that’s awesome.

Well, in terms of people that you might jive with, um, you, you guys are members of, uh, in the investor, fuel mastermind, you’ve added a ton of value to our members there. I know a lot of your clients are there as well. Would you mind just, just take a moment and just kind of share your experience of being a member of the investor fuel.

Bryan: Yeah. So I, I really do like investor investor fuel. I like the meetings because everyone there is super down to earth. Uh, everyone’s given value and everyone’s [00:18:00] sharing. Um, so that’s one of the main things I like about coming to fuel events because, uh, a lot of times, like you have to, a lot of guys are trying to keep secrets and, uh, don’t want to, don’t want to share what’s working everyone.

It feels kind of sharing. So it’s one of the top things.

Mike: Awesome man. Thanks for that. So if folks wanted to connect with you and they learn more about your agency, we didn’t really talk about today, which you’ve got a podcast. You’ve got a lot of great information out there. Where can they go to connect with

Bryan: you?

Yeah, just go to motivated-leads.com and then yeah, if you want to connect, just give us a call, fill out a form and we can not settle.

Mike: Awesome. Brian. Thanks. Thanks so much for your time today. Thanks man. Yeah. And everybody, thanks for joining us today. Hopefully you got some insights there on what to look for and what to not look for or what to look for and what to look out for, I guess, uh, when you’re doing online lead generation.

So appreciate you guys a ton. If you haven’t yet checked out investor fuel, our next meeting’s coming up. Uh, we meet quarterly plus a couple of other travel trips in there as well around the year. You can just go to investor fuel.com. You can learn a little bit more about us. Actually. We have a lot of information on our website, a lot of testimonials from our customers [00:19:00] and our members.

And all you do is schedule a call with us to learn more. If it’s a fit for you, whether you’re a single family investor, which is most people in our group, we actually have multi-family groups. Now, for those of you that are looking to transition in to multi-family or people that already own thousands of doors, even.

So just go to investor fuel.com to learn. Ryan. Thanks again, my friend. Good to see ya. Hey, thanks

Bryan: man. Thanks for having me. We’ll talk soon,

Mike: everybody have a great day. We’ll see you on the next show.

Are you an active real estate investor? If so, and you want to latch onto the power of surrounding yourself with over a hundred of the nation’s leading real estate. All committed to building stronger businesses and living richer fuller lives. You should jump on a call with us to learn more about investor fuel.

Simply visit investor fuel.com to get started.[00:20:00] .