Digital marketing is becoming one of the key methods to attract motivated leads when it comes to real estate. But how do you make the switch from cold-calling to Facebook ads? Here to tell you the ins and outs of digital marketing is Bryan Driscoll. Bryan is a real estate investor and the co-founder of Motivated Leads, a digital marketing agency that helps investors expand their real estate portfolios quickly by generating quality, motivated seller leads. Tune in as he shares what you could be doing right and wrong when it comes to attracting sellers online. Get practical and easy tips to boost your business by tuning in!
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Real Estate Digital Marketing Made Easy With Bryan Driscoll
Our guest is Bryan Driscoll. He is a real estate investor, digital marketing and SEO expert, and Cofounder of Motivated Leads, a digital marketing agency that helps investors expand their real estate portfolios quickly by generating quality motivated seller leads. Bryan, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
The pleasure is mine. This is going to be a fun conversation, seller leads, finding motivated sellers. That’s something that everybody needs. They need deals and money. You are covering 1 of the 2 key components in getting a real estate transaction done. I’m looking forward to jumping into that. Can you tell us the same three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show? Where did you start? Where are you now? How did you get there?
I started back in the early 2000s. I hopped on a website called Upwork. I started freelancing in a digital space. I started charging $20 an hour, messing around on SEO. It was oDesk, and then it evolved into Upwork. I started getting good at the digital marketing space. Years ago, I’ve got involved with real estate. I picked up a deal off a wholesaler on Craigslist and got the deal solid. I paid off the wholesaler fee. I was like, “I can do this marketing myself.” I slapped up at the Carrot website. I started marketing and crushed it, and then I saw there was a big need in that space. That’s how we ended up here.
There’s a lot that went on there. You do win one of the top awards for the fastest quickly, how did you get their answers. That’s great. I appreciate that. You slapped up at the Carrot website. You say, “I know about SEO and marketing.” Help our readers craft a plan. Let’s say somebody lacks a plan or is struggling in the motivated seller lead space. What are some things you would tell them? Where do they start? What can they do now that’s helpful?
If you are going to start from scratch, number one, you need to determine who is your audience like, “Are you going after motivated sellers with distressed properties and single-families? Are you going after commercial buildings or multi-units?” You need to find out, “Who is this person we are trying to buy properties from? Who do we want to get in front of?” You need to think, “Where are they hanging out? What will they engage with?”
For example, Facebook has an older demographic that works well for motivated sellers because it’s older people, they generally have equity. They are scrolling things like that. If you are looking for multifamilies, that’s a whole different audience there. For example, if we talk to single-families, we would create an ad that says, “Sell your house fast. We are cash home buyers.”
If you are targeting multis, those are savvier investors. It has to be like, “We can make a convenient sale. We will purchase it.” They don’t care about selling it fast most of the time. If you are looking for a storage unit, you have to have direct messaging and creatives. The first thing you need to do is think about who you are trying to get in front of and think of, “How can we get in front of them?”
On that front, you are mentioning a lot of things like using online tools and resources. In my little mind, I say, “I’m old school. Pick up the phone, find your phone number and call them.” Tell me what are some strategies that you find. You said Facebook has an older demographic. How do you find motivated sellers of commercial assets on Facebook? That’s foreign to me.
Here’s what we do on commercials. Number one, it comes down to the ad, like the actual creative. People are scrolling. They are looking for their grandkids or whatever they are looking for. You want to have, “We buy multifamily or commercial buildings.” You want to have pictures of the types of properties you are looking to purchase. If you are looking to purchase multifamily units, have a picture on that with the word saying, “We buy commercial or multifamily units.” If they see it, then they click that ad, and you need to send them to a website.
I use the website as a pre-qualifier. I want to send traffic there but I want the website to disqualify people and only let the people through that are what I’m looking for. The website needs to elaborate on, “Here’s who we are. Here’s what we are looking for. Here’s what we can do.” If you are interested, have a strong call to action like, “Fill out this form or give us a phone call.” That’s what I would recommend on that side. You also have Google pay-per-click too but that’s a horse of a different color there.
What do you mean by that?
On Facebook, we are bidding based on an impression. What we are doing is we are saying, “Facebook, I’m going to give you $20 and show my ad to 1,000 people.” Facebook doesn’t care how many people click it. Their job is to show it to specific people. They are good at that. They have a strong algorithm so they can get into people’s behaviors and we can target based on that.
Google pay-per-click is targeting based on keywords and cost per click. Google is like, “We might only show your ad to three people but if one of them clicks, we want $25.” It’s a different strategy there, and they both worked because Google is very high intent. If you have someone that searches, “I need to sell my house fast or sell a house for cash,” they are intense there. If we are giving them Facebook, we are more hitting them based on creative and messaging there to find that right person.
Talk to us about your business. You discovered you had all these leads. How did you monetize that by selling these to other investors?
I have a couple of different approaches. Number one, in Pittsburgh, I only invest in one ZIP code. On Facebook, we can’t target due to discrimination based on ZIP codes. We used to be able to. Now, we have to target the whole county or city. I get a whole influx of leads coming in Pittsburgh. I cherry-pick the ones I want. I have a buddy, Dustin. He is a wholesaler.
The first thing you need to do is think about who you’re trying to get in front of and then think about how you can get in front of them.
I shoot them over to him. We JV and split the profits on this. On the business side of motivated leads, what we do is, we do marketing for investors, we will find out, “Who is your target audience? Are you looking for single-families or multis?” We will create the brand and the sites if you don’t have them and handle the entire marketing. We design all the ads and all that stuff.
What do you see are some common mistakes that people are making on their marketing side?
On the marketing side, there are a couple of different ones. Let’s say we are talking back to Facebook. I see guys try and do Facebook lead forms, which is different. I like sending traffic from Facebook to a website for people to fill out a website and their information. Facebook also has an option where you click the ad. It opens up a form right on Facebook, and it pre-populates the people’s info. A lot of people do that. They get cheap leads but they are garbage. If they don’t go to the web, they don’t know who you are. They might be looking to rent a house, for example. That’s one mistake I see. Don’t get me wrong, if you are going to test this out, A/B test and find out what works for you.
The second thing I see is a lot of people are trying to do Facebook and Google pay-per-click, and they don’t have the proper tracking on a website. There are specific scripts you need to put on there. I send traffic from Facebook to my website. I have a code on my thank you page that tells Facebook, “This person became a lead.” Once we get enough of those people going through, Facebook can look at their behavior and demographics and say, “This is the type of person you are looking for.” They will try to put our ads in front of more people like that. A lot of people don’t know that and put the regular Facebook pixel one but not the event and it hurts. That’s a huge factor on Facebook.
It’s small stuff like that that would move the needle. It’s stuff like that for the rest of us who are knee-deep in the business like, “I don’t have the brain space to go. What about pixels, tracking and websites? My body temperature goes up thinking about it.” You are filling a need. I’m not the only one in the world who doesn’t have the space mentally to track that thing. Other than coming straight to you, is there a way to simply break that down or is it, “Turn the keys to this over to somebody else like yourself?”
It depends on your personality. Most of the investors I deal with are busting hump. They don’t want to focus on anything digital like, “Shoot me leads and qualified people. We want to go out and crush it.” There are other people out there that do want to go down in the trenches and learn this stuff. Hop on Google. All the answers are on it for free and on Facebook. You’ve got to take your time like, “What’s your time worth versus learning something that you may make mistakes versus what you are already succeeding in? Where do you want to spend your time? What do you want to do?”
We have got using lead forms. Maybe you will get some garbage leads that way. We have got people not tracking where these leads are coming from, which sounded like a big mistake. What else are you seeing that people are doing that’s either ineffective or a complete waste of resources?
I see people bidding on getting page likes. They are paying Facebook to get page likes. On Facebook, you have different choices. Facebook asks you, “What are you targeting? Are you targeting conversions, which will be leads?” You can say, “I want link traffic, video views, and people to like my page.” Whatever you tell Facebook, they know who will do what. If you say, “I want video views,” they know which people will watch videos or click a link and do nothing else.
When you are targeting that, make sure your event is set up and then tell Facebook, “I want to target the conversion leads. I want leads to my website.” They will give you that. You don’t need to build, “I need to get people to my website, retarget them and then get them back.” Go for the job when you are setting up your ads. Otherwise, you are going to waste some cash.
The third thing there is people targeting page likes, which sounds like another ineffective thing to go for. What else we’ve got?
Retargeting, set that up. Retargeting is, say, you go on Amazon. You are looking at a pair of shoes, and then those shoes are following you all around the internet. We want to do the same thing here. Say you are doing Google pay-per-click, for example or Facebook, and you are sending cold traffic to the website. A lot of these people are still in research mode. They are looking, “If I want to sell, who can I sell to?”
What you want to do is you want to make sure you have the tracking on the website. Once they hit there, set up a retargeting campaign, so then your ad is going to hammer these people. They are going to see you every day. By the time they are ready to purchase or sell things like that, you are a known person in front of them now. That’s a huge one, too. You can pick up a lot of leads really cheap that way.
Those are wonderful and also annoying. At times, you see retargeting of stuff or even you don’t understand why you are getting that out at all. Those are the funny ones to me. You are like, “Why is this on my feed here? This is hysterical.” People are not setting up retargeting. It sounds like there’s a step-by-step process here that you are following that says, “We do this and this.” Is there any time you deviate from that where you say, “This is a unique situation. Let’s do something a little bit differently?”
Whenever someone is looking for some very specific, we will have to go out and start thinking. For example, we had someone hit us up that does hard money. It’s like, “It’s the same audience. We are targeting the same people but the message is different.” We have to start looking at the creative things like that.
Was this person a hard money lender wanting to find borrowers?
Correct. It’s still in the real estate space. Every once in a while, something like that will pop up where someone is like, “I want storage units.” It’s things like that, so it deviates a little bit. We have to do a little bit of research and change the messaging but it still follows the same format. We have to take a step back because we don’t have as much data on those.
A/B test and find out what works for you.
What are some challenges that you see between the single-family side of things, which most of us may be at least have a pretty good understanding of? What are some skills that translate over on the marketing side once that lead comes in that helps to get the deal done from single-family? Over to the commercial side, what are some skills you see that people have that make this all work?
Here is one of the biggest tips I can give you. Whenever a lead comes in, it goes through a website. I ask for the name, phone number, and address on the first step. I ask ten additional questions like, “How fast are you looking to sell? What kind of work?” Once that’s done, an automatic text message is sent out to the lead that says, “Thanks for filling out a form on my website. Here is a link to our calendar to book a time for us to come and give you an offer.”
We probably get 30% to 40% of people to book an appointment. It could be [2:00] in the morning. The reason this is beneficial, though, is you are on Google pay-per-click. You are spending your $20 to $30 per click. Normally, people go to the 1st website, 2nd website, 3rd website, fill them all out and then they wait. Once you book that appointment with me, I have found that it cuts the competition out. They quit looking because they feel like, “Now, I have someone coming out, so it cuts that down.”
That’s a fact. I think about that in my own behaviors when I’m looking for a contractor or whatever it is, you name it. If I have got a couple of pending fillers out there on something, I’m done. I’m sure there are certain personality types, which have the clarity and persistence to go maybe 10% deep on it but I would say 90% of us don’t.
Especially the motivated ones, the ones we are looking for, they are looking for quick results.
That makes a lot of sense. Even when people are downloading a lead magnet on your website, that’s something that if you have got people. For us, on the commercial side, there are two things we are looking for. It’s deals and money. For me, we are on your side looking for sellers but also looking for investors to come along and put place capital with us. That’s my “motivated lead.” We’ve got follow-up campaigns and drip campaigns but they are very slow. They are not like, “I can help you. Here’s a retargeted. Here’s a link texted to their phone number.”
What you should do, too, even on your stuff, is put it on your thank you page. Whenever they fill out the form on the lead magnet, embed the HubSpot or whatever type of calendar you use. Say, “Thanks. Book your call,” because then you are building that relationship immediately to your first one in. A lot of people have a different idea of what you do. You can hop on the phone, clarify all that stuff, answer their questions, and then you build the relationship. Even if you don’t do anything immediately, you know each other now.
Let’s talk a little bit about your personal investing. I know you have got maybe twenty or so single-family homes that you hold for rental property. What does the future look like for you on the investment side?
On the investment side, I’m trying to figure out how to scale it up. I only invest in a 2-mile square radius. I invest right in my ZIP code. The primary reason is remodeling a house sucks, and you have to go there a lot. I’m trying to be efficient with my time. Now, I get to start getting them all ties. I wanted single-families. It’s a lot of effort versus you can buy one property with 10 or 20 units in it. It’s a little bit more effort but you get a lot more bang for your buck. That’s where I’m looking at now. I’m getting into the bigger stuff. That’s what 2022 is going to be for me.
I have enjoyed this, Bryan. I learned a lot. You’ve got some nitty-gritty but yet actionable things to look at. It feels like this is maybe a never-ending black hole of like, “Tweak this and that.” You have got a process that says, “These are the things you should be doing. If you are not, you are probably paying for it in one way or another.” I enjoyed that you are breaking this down for us. Let’s jump here into the final few questions. If you could help our readers avoid one mistake in real estate, what would it be? How would you avoid it?
The number one mistake I see with people in real estate is to do it. A lot of people are looking around. They want to keep learning versus jumping in and doing stuff. Another one is I see a lot of guys, too, pull all their equity out. If you go in, another stop, I see a lot of guys that I know are overleveraged. It’s one mistake I see that you could avoid.
When it comes to investing in the world, what is one thing you are doing now to make the world a better place?
One thing I’m doing now is I keep pushing. I push hard, and then I never quit. I get beat up a lot. The main thing I could see for people to make the world a better place is if anyone has ever seen the movie, Pay It Forward, go watch the movie if you haven’t. Go out and help people. Help them and don’t ask for things in return. Ask them to help others as repayment for you. It’s like Pay It Forward like, “If I help you, you help three additional people.” You put that positive energy out there. It helps you and also, it does positive stuff.
If our readers want to get in touch with you or learn more about your business, what is the best way to do that?
My website is Motivated-Leads.com. If you want to connect, fill out a form on there or give us a call. The number is on the site.
Bryan, thank you so much for your time. I do appreciate it.
Thanks. It was fun.
Important Links:
- Motivated Leads
- Upwork
- Carrot
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/bryan-driscoll-seo-real-estate-expert/
- https://www.Instagram.com/motivated_leads/
About Bryan Driscoll
Bryan Driscoll is a real estate investor, a digital marketing and SEO expert and Co-Founder of Motivated Leads, a digital marketing agency that helps investors expand their real estate portfolios quickly by generating quality motivated seller leads. Bryan has over a decade of experience doing both SEO for both large and small companies, but after investing some of his agency profits into rental properties, he and his business partner realized that true wealth comes from real estate investing. Now, in addition to investing real estate, Bryan uses his experience to help investors find quality leads.
