Content Marketing

Mike: Welcome back to the FlipNerd.com REI classroom, where experts from across the real estate investing industry teach you quick lessons to take your business to the next level. And now, let’s meet today’s expert host.

Duncan: Welcome, everyone, and welcome to another episode of REI Classroom by FlipNerd. My name is Duncan Wierman. I’m your host today for this short, five-minute segment. Guys, this is key because what I’m going to be talking about today is content marketing to increase more traffic to your website to get more leads and do more deals.

Mike: This REI Classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by UglyOpportunities.com.

Duncan: Guys, so many people are just out there saying the same old thing, being “me too” marketers. Nothing else is unique. They’re not standing out. And our clients, our prospects are looking for specifics in the industry and this is where you’re going to set yourself apart with content marketing. It takes some thinking and it takes action, but it will increase your business successfully.

Content marketing is the act of creating content with a goal of using the content to attract the people that have a need for the service or good that you provide today or sometimes in the future. When you focus, first and foremost, on the creation of this content for the good of the reader, not just saying, “Hey, you buy houses,” you’re going to give yourself a boost out there.

I write a blog. I write at least one thing every week, if not two to three times a week. And I’m thinking about what are the people out there in distress thinking about? What are the questions they’re asking? Because this is how I’m going to find potential clients and also get the search engines to love me and to serve up my website when people are searching for their answers. That’s why they’re on the Internet.

The big buzz word in marketing right now is blogging. And I know some of you have heard the word a million times, and you should be blogging, and using social media, and doing SEO, and some of all these big marketing words that you’re hearing about all over the place. The purpose, really, of blogging is to become a thought leader and the people view you as the authority, the expert in your niche.

I want to stress to you that blogging is not about the services you offer and how you can help them and how I can sell their home. We’re not going to ask for anything from people in our content marketing. What we’re going to do is we’re going to create and share content. So we’re going to share what we know, what our expertise is at and why we’re good at it and what is the knowledge that we have that people in our industry do not have, like all those other wannabe investors. You’re the expert.

My idea is that when I post content, I’m not saying it’s easy, but I’m basically telling people about everything I know. I put everything I know on my blog, the good, bad, the ugly. I tell people what tools I use, what kind of services I use, how I do it, why do it, and where to get it and all that sort of stuff.

At first, I’ve got to admit, I was a little bit scared about doing this con thing because if I put everything on my blog, why would people need me? Why would they want to contact me? What I found is the more information I put, the more people came to me. The more transparent I was how things work, wasn’t trying to hide things from people. I was really trying to be helpful, both sides of the coin.

The search engines love this sort of stuff so you’ve really got to become okay with this. You’ve probably heard of this guy called Seth Godin, and he’s a very popular blog author and he’s a marketing genius, like myself, I should say. He only does these short little blog posts. Three hundred words are about all you need. The longer it is, probably the less people stay with you because their attention is only so long. But 300 or 400 words are really a good amount. And that’s like a page. You just want to make sure when you’re blogging that it is easy to read, easy to skim, and in addition, make sure that you’re staying consistent on topic and you’re providing a decent amount of content.

So remember people’s eight-second attention span. You don’t have a lot of time to catch their attention so it’s got to be great. You just don’t put a great big old block of text out there with a lot of white space. There’s a format for blog posts. You could check out my own blog, see what I’m doing at DuncanWierman.com blog.

I really suggest that this is a task. If I had to build my business all over again from scratch, the number one marketing technique I would use for online marketing would be blogging about my business. There’s other marketing that you should do offline and networking and that, but I’m saying my number one online strategy, if I had to start my business again, is blogging.

Add that to your website and you’re going to start becoming that authority, you’re going to start demanding attention and people are going to give you a lot of things. I just want to remind you a couple of things, just focus more on quality, less on quantity, and when you promote, and you’ve got to promote because, “Without promotion, something terrible happens: nothing.” P.T. Barnum said that.

So that goes for content. You spend this time thinking about it. You’re going to spend more time creating it, but you’ve got to go out and promote it. Then it’s very easy, once you have a blog, that it will go out and syndicate it to all these other social media sites. So it’s very, very worthwhile. Just get the ball rolling, guys, and you’re going to see pay-offs. Stick with it. Like anything, it’s uncomfortable when you’re new. But even us gurus began, it sucked and we just got better at it. So start blogging, guys, and best of luck. That’s it for today’s episode of REI Classroom and lead generation. My name is Duncan Wierman and check me out, again, at DuncanWierman.com/blog or just Google me.

Mike: HomeVestors, the “We Buy Ugly House” folks, is a franchised system of hundreds of real estate investors that have purchased over 65,000 houses. If you’d like to learn more about the most powerful real estate investing system in existence, whether you’re a pro or looking to take your business to the next level or whether you have no experience at all, but a burning passion to be successful in real estate investing, please visit FlipNerd.com/ugly to learn more.

Please note, the views and opinions expressed by the individuals in this program do not necessarily reflect those of FlipNerd.com or any of its partners, advertisers, or affiliates. Please consult professionals before making any investment or tax decisions, as real estate investing can be risky.

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