We all know that developing an effective marketing strategy is essential to getting any business off the ground, especially as we roll into this changing market.

Educating yourself and discovering how to locate and motivate potential sellers to contact you is a must in making your real estate business a success. You must be able to locate prospects who want to do business with you.

You must find the sellers who need to sell, not just want to sell their properties. This is essential to your success as a real estate investor in any market, but will also determine how your next 12-18 months look: will you get lots of good deals in this softer market, or waste the opportunity?

Know this: marketing is also a numbers game. The more leads that come in, the more opportunities you will have to make deals. You won’t buy every deal that comes your way, but when you develop a “marketing machine” that brings in quality leads, you will be able to pick and choose the deals you want to do.

Let’s talk about QUALITY leads. You cannot afford to waste your money-making time on unqualified leads! Using a shotgun approach such as signage, business cards or generic letters will bring in a lot of leads, but very few of them will be qualified, motivated sellers.

Using a highly targeted approach to locate motivated sellers will bring in fewer leads, but they will be much more highly qualified leads and bring you a much higher number of profitable deals. One is not necessarily better than the other; you need to integrate both types of marketing in your business in order to bring you the highest number of deals.

The best way to do this is to develop between three and five different marketing techniques that work the best for you in your area and then integrate both the shotgun approach and targeted marketing into your business plan.

If you really have a marketing STRATEGY, you will be consistent in your marketing. Remember, you want to reach your marketplace in as many ways as your budget will allow, since not every motivated seller will see every type of marketing you do.

For example, an out-of-state owner won’t see your bandit sign, your car sign, or your business card. You will need to send this person a letter using a quality direct mail campaign designed to bring in highly qualified sellers, and one with a response mechanism built in so the deal is prescreened for you when you get the response from the seller.

Try various marketing techniques and see which ones give you the best results and capitalize on them. However, do not keep changing the way you market. Develop a marketing strategy that works well for you and stick to it. This will “crank up your buying machine” like nothing else can.

Make sure you give the market a fair test before deciding on a strategy that doesn’t work. This period of time should be at least sixty to ninety days. Be sure and track the source of your leads by simply asking the sellers how they heard about you. This is imperative to create and tweak your long-term marketing strategy.

As you are marketing and you begin to purchase properties, you will also want to consider the cost per lead as well. How much is each deal costing you and what marketing technique did you use to acquire it? Continue to test and track as you go to make sure your marketing dollars are being used in the most effective way possible. This is how you build a successful business

Also remember that as the market continues to change, your marketing should change in order to continue to bring you the highest number of qualified leads possible. For example, if pre-foreclosures are suddenly at an all-time high, you’ll want to target pre-foreclosures along with the other types of marketing you are already doing.

If you are a beginner in the real estate business, there are many ways to get motivated sellers contacting you even if you are working on a limited budget.

If time and finances create a challenge for you, there are many techniques that require very little time and almost no cash to implement. Using signs, direct mail, Facebook, running ads, distributing flyers, or using other people to “spot” properties for you are samples of some of the types of marketing techniques you can use in your business to generate leads.

Some other ways to use people to “spot” properties for you would be to talk with your mailman, pest control person, a moving company, delivery person, or friends and relatives. These people see properties you would never otherwise come in contact with and can generate many leads for you at virtually no expense.

Once again, the most important thing to remember is to be consistent with your efforts. Remember that there is no single formula that works all the time.

A successful investor has a network of people and strategies at their fingertips at all times.

Get your plan in place and get started.

Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned investor, developing a specific marketing strategy is an invaluable tool to generate leads and buy more properties. The more leads you generate, the more opportunities you will create to deal with highly motivated sellers. This will cause you to do more deals, make more profits and set you on the road to financial freedom.

What are you waiting for? Develop a Marketing Strategy TODAY!