Jessie has 6 years of social media and digital marketing experience with a focus on Facebook pay-per-click ads. Jessie shares what type of message you should be marketing out during this pandemic and also some general advice that helps investors find more leads.
Jessie Neal Real Estate Background:
- 6 years of social media and digital marketing experience
- Expert in Facebook pay-per-click ads
- Creator of “Attacking The Stack”
- From Fort Mitchell, Kentucky
- Say hi to him at: https://swiftreileads.com/attack
- Best Ever Book: Copywriting Secrets
Click here for more info on groundbreaker.co
Best Ever Tweet:
“Consistency, be consistent with your message, with your postings, however, you’re helping people, be consistent. ” – Jessie Neal
TRANSCRIPTION
Theo Hicks: Hello, Best Ever listeners, and welcome to the best real estate investing advice ever show. I am Theo Hicks, and today we are speaking with Jessie Neal. Jessie, how are you doing today?
Jessie Neal: I’m good. As I said, I haven’t had a haircut in six weeks, but we’re trucking along.
Theo Hicks: Yeah, I’m sure everyone listening can relate to that. So today we’re gonna be talking about marketing – social media marketing, digital marketing – and some of the things that are changing with it during this Coronavirus pandemic, as well as long-lasting digital marketing techniques you guys can apply once all this is over.
Before we get into that, a little bit about Jessie – six years of social media and digital marketing experience. He’s an expert in Facebook pay-per-click ads, creator of Attacking the Stack, from Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. You can say hi to him at swiftreilease.com/attack.
Jessie, before we get into the Coronavirus stuff, do you mind telling us a little bit more about your background and what you’re focused on today?
Jessie Neal: Yes. I went to school for computer programming and web development, and learned really quick when starting my own business as an entrepreneur that websites didn’t matter unless you could get them traffic. So real quick I had to learn what are the best traffic sources out there; I bought a million courses online and tried to figure it all out, and eventually I ended up getting trained from Facebook themselves six years ago. I got really good with PPC ads for traffic. They did better and were more affordable than your Google ads, your Google PPC. Over the years, that’s changed a lot, and here recently, with the new housing category, all real estate ads have to fall into, we really had to get creative around October and November, to figure out how in the world are we gonna supply leads for our clients and for our own in-house wholesale company the easiest way possible, without really breaking the bank.
We developed a custom software and a system we call “Attacking the stack”, so what we focus on right now is how do we get around the housing category. Our software has API access to Facebook – hopefully nobody from Facebook hears this… [laughs] But our clients send us a [unintelligible [00:05:09].04] that’s been skip-traced, with all the motivation in the list, obviously. We upload it in our system, Facebook hashes out that list as potential clients, and then we’re able to run whatever ad we want to those people.
We know there’s motivation, it gets us around the housing category, we know we’re targeting very specific people that we’re looking for. But at the same time, we wanna pull all of the low-hanging fruit out of a list, because sometimes Facebook can take some time, and it’s expensive. So what we do is we also do text and RVM through our custom software, and then after that whatever doesn’t come from Facebook, text or RVM then goes into a long-term email sequence for follow-up, until they’re ready to become a lead.
So our goal is how can we affordably for any investor just starting out that only has less than $2,000 of ad spend to spend on marketing, period – how can we get them anywhere between 80 and 100 motivated seller leads a month. So that’s what we do. It’s really effective. We kicked that off at end of November, and we’ve picked up quite a few clients. It’s killed in-house. We’ve got over 721 motivated seller leads in our own in-house, at [unintelligible [00:06:15].12] CRM right now, from using the exact same strategy… So we’re doing pretty good.
Theo Hicks: Nice. So we were talking about this a little bit beforehand, but how are the leads that are being generated by these Facebook advertising campaigns changing, or how have they changed during the Coronavirus pandemic, compared to six months ago?
Jessie Neal: So we’re actually seeing an increase in leads, and we’re actually seeing an increase on the investor side. Obviously, when you’re using an absentee vacant list you’re looking for out-of-state owners who own multiple properties in a local area that you’re trying to pick up… So now we’re seeing a lot of nervous newer investors who may have only been doing this for a couple of years, that maybe own 4, 5, 6 properties, even as much as 13 properties all throughout Ohio, that are looking to liquidate, because they don’t know what’s going on. So we’re actually getting a lot of those leads coming in… And a lot of normal leads. People who are like “Hey, we’re done with this investment property” or “Hey, we can’t finish this flip”, and are willing to negotiate to liquidate right now.
The only problem that we’re seeing in all of this is leads are increasing, but with banks and hard money lenders having all kinds of problems, and holding on to money, and then your title company is slowing down, and you can’t get enough done on the backend. So it’s slowing everything down, even though we’re seeing an increase in leads. We’re still waiting to see whether or not that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
On the lead gen side I think it’s freakin’ great, but obviously, if a lead goes cold because you can’t close on it in 14 days, or three weeks, or whatever, then that can cause a potential problem.
So that’s the main good and bad that we’re seeing during the Coronavirus… But we’re still doing business in-house. I’m still doing lead gen, and we’ve actually seen an increase in clients coming on board since all of this, so it doesn’t really scare me at all.
Theo Hicks: So you mentioned that these Facebook ads during this time are better targeted towards out-of-state owners, right?
Jessie Neal: Correct. So if you’re doing any kind of marketing, I would focus on out-of-state owners that own properties in your area. Find people that own more than 30%, 40%, 50% equity, that own the property for more than five years… More than five properties, more than five years, more than likely they’re probably looking to liquidate.
Theo Hicks: Is that something that I can target on Facebook?
Jessie Neal: No, you can’t. That’s our little trick – you can do ListSource, you can use Propstream, whatever software you wanna use. I’m not trying to put a plug for another company or whatever, but… You download your list, get it skip-traced, and pull your motivation from your list. Then we actually target that list on Facebook. Facebook has the ability — because we have API access, we can actually run Facebook ads just to people on the list. If you were doing this on your own, you probably won’t be able to do it from Facebook; you might be able to get away with it once, but your best bet would probably be to pick up a texting platform or an RVM platform and reach out… Or if you’ve got a cold call team, I would start cold-calling those types of lists immediately. You’re gonna have really good luck with them.
Theo Hicks: Perfect. Out-of-state, five years, more than five properties – that’s kind of the major things you target, using the listing services you mentioned, correct?
Jessie Neal: Yeah, Propstream, ListSource… There’s a ton of ways you can get property data. You can go to county records if you don’t wanna pay for a service. I’m a big fan of paying for a service; it saves time.
Theo Hicks: Since you mentioned that you’re in the wholesaling business yourself, I wanna shift gears slightly a little bit and ask you — first, for some context, are these single-family homes, duplexes, 100-unit apartment communities? What types of properties are we talking about here?
Jessie Neal: Yes, we’re talking single-family homes, smaller multifamily, two-units; on the occasion you might get somebody with a smaller apartment package… But I would focus on single-family homes. You get a bunch of investors that 2, 3, 4, 5 years ago bought 5-6 properties in the area, have been using them for rentals, and now with the whole “Hey, we can’t charge rents, so this is all done”, people are getting scared, so they’re dropping everything.
Theo Hicks: That was my question… So if I’m in the market to buy a single-family rental right now, how am I creating my rent assumptions?
Jessie Neal: I don’t do rent assumptions… [laughs] So I wouldn’t know. On the lead gen side – I can help you there. But I guess if you’re gonna buy some rentals and hold on to them, you’re probably gonna wanna make sure that you’ve got enough cashflow to be able to keep your current tenants in there until this is all done.
Theo Hicks: So you flip them?
Jessie Neal: I’m a part [unintelligible [00:10:26].05] They’re the ones that actually do the wholesaling, and then Freedom Real Estate group, which is our umbrella, has their own turnkey company and has their own property management company. So I don’t know a whole lot about how that works; they’re the ones that actually got me into the real estate game, out of the medical field.
Theo Hicks: Okay, perfect. So you’re the marketing guy.
Jessie Neal: Yeah, totally marketing. Anything that has to do with lead gen, social media promotion… But I can speak highly on the in-house portion; it doesn’t just work for our clients, we actually use it ourselves.
Theo Hicks: Perfect. I actually talked to someone earlier today about Facebook advertising as well, so I don’t wanna repeat the things that he talked about. I wanna change it up a little bit. Let’s talk about not paid advertising, but just content that people are pushing out as real estate investors in general. What type of messaging should they be using during the Coronavirus?
Jessie Neal: Messaging that’s actually going to keep people calm and help people. As an investor, you need to be showing solutions in how you’re actually helping people, and letting them know that you’re not in this for the dollar. Obviously, we’re all business owners, we’re all entrepreneurs, we’re trying to make money, but we do that by providing real solutions for real people, that are struggling with real problems.
So I would show “How are you doing that”, and go live with it; get as many testimony videos as you can surrounding that topic. It’s probably gonna help you… Especially when all this calms down, people are gonna realize that you’re genuine, and it’s gonna help you long-term for your business.
Theo Hicks: What about just general digital marketing advice for once all this passed? What are some things that from your perspective you see that investors are doing that are really big mistakes, that are holding them back from getting more leads using online marketing?
Jessie Neal: Consistency. Be consistent with your message, be consistent with your postings, whether you’re doing paid ads or not. If you don’t have enough money to do paid advertising and you’re just posting on a page and posting in groups, whatever you’re doing, whatever your message, however you’re helping people, be consistent. Be in there every day. And if you can’t be in there every day, then you need to hire a virtual assistant or have somebody that’s going to help you be consistent.
It is really hard in today’s atmosphere, with everything being social and mobile, to really stand out in the crowd. The only way you’re gonna do that is by being consistent. You may not see results 4, 5, 6 months down the road with some organic traffic, but if you’re consistent over the other guy, then 8 months or a year from now people are gonna remember who you are, because you’re still around.
Theo Hicks: What types of posts do the best? Video? If so, how long? Pictures with caption?
Jessie Neal: It depends on your strategy. Realistically, in today’s market people would rather watch a video that’s entertaining and educating and helpful, than a post. But in the manner of consistency, do both. It’s really hard for some people to hop on a video and think of something to say every single day. If you can’t, at least do a video once or twice a week and then post something. Post anything. I don’t care if it’s text, I don’t care if it’s image, I don’t care if it’s a podcast, audio… But do something, every day.
Theo Hicks: Okay, Jessie, what is the best real estate investing advice ever? You can answer that, or you can do your best social media marketing advice ever.
Jessie Neal: Hm, best social media marketing advice ever… Facebook is complicated. Learn it. If you don’t want to hire somebody, Facebook has a bunch of free training that you can take. Learn it. Learn their groups, learn their social postings, learn how to run your business page correctly, get on there and learn paid advertising… It will highly impact once you figure it out and learn it correctly; it will highly impact your business.
Theo Hicks: Perfect. Are you ready for the best ever lightning round?
Jessie Neal: Let’s go, come on!
Theo Hicks: Alright, first a quick word from our sponsor.
Break: [00:14:06].10] to [00:14:54].10]
Theo Hicks: Okay, Jessie, what is the best ever book you’ve recently read?
Jessie Neal: Best ever book… Obviously, I’m in marketing, and I’m real big on not spending thousands of dollars on copywriting, and hiring a copywriter. I like to learn that kind of stuff myself, best headlines and stuff… So there is a book right now “Copywriting Secrets” by Jim Edwards. Anybody who’s an entrepreneur on Facebook – I’m sure that Russell Brunson and all of them have targeted you… But I’ve just picked it up, I’m three-quarters the way full, and I’ve paid for copywriting courses, and I’m telling you, for a free book (I’ve paid $7 for shipping) it has some of the absolute best advice that I’ve ever read. So I hate to do a plug for Russell Brunson and Jim Edwards, but it’s a fantastic book, man. I’d say pick it up, seriously.
Theo Hicks: Okay. If your business were to collapse today, what would you do next?
Jessie Neal: On the real estate side what would I do? I don’t see lead gen ever collapsing, but let’s say that it does… I would go and open up my software system that I own and I would pick another niche, and I would run $1,000 in Facebook ads and pick up clients tomorrow for whatever the new niche is.
Theo Hicks: What is the best ever way you like to give back?
Jessie Neal: Okay, that’s a good one. We’re obviously in Fort Mitchell, KY, and I’m actually from the Cincinnati, Dayton area, and I’m part of a group called Hope Over Heroin… And we have a drug rehab for men called Heritage House. So all through the summer I donate quite a bit of time, being their media and marketing director. I show up on site, hook up LED screens, and do all their media, all their on-site marketing – lights, sound, everything. So anyone who’s hearing this, it doesn’t matter if you’re nationwide, everyone knows somebody who’s struggling with addiction, you can go to HopeOverHeroin.com, or you can go to Cityonahill.com and look for the Heritage House link, and we take guys for free; you don’t have to pay.
So that’s how I give back, by helping both of those organizations financially and with my time.
Theo Hicks: I typically ask what the best ever or the worst deal is, but I’m gonna change it up a little bit – what is the worst marketing campaign you’ve ever seen?
Jessie Neal: Oh, Lord… I’m friends with a guy out in California by the name of Billie Gene. He has some courses called Billie Gene is Marketing. And back in the day, when we were both kicking it off, he had the worst ad I think I have ever seen in my life. It was back when the “Got Milk?” commercials were going on, and it was a picture of his face on a cow, and it said “Got leads?” And it bombed. It did horrible. But it was funny. Big ol’ black dude’s head, Billie Jean as marketing, “Got leads?” on the head of a cow. He ran it for probably three weeks, spent a few thousand dollars and didn’t get anything from it. No traffic, no engagement whatsoever. So by far that’s probably the worst ad I have ever seen on the internet.
Theo Hicks: Alright, and then lastly, what is the best ever place to reach you?
Jessie Neal: Best ever place to reach me – other than my cell phone, you can find me on Facebook. You can go to Swift REI Leads on Facebook. Just search us. Reach to me on messenger. Or you can go to the website that I think you have posted, the swiftreileads.com/attack. I reach out to everybody who fills out that lead forum personally.
Theo Hicks: Perfect. Jessie, thanks for joining us today and giving us some of your best ever social media and digital marketing advice. A lot of practical things that people can do right now during the Coronavirus pandemic, but also things that people can do in the future, once all this passes.
Just to recap, some of my biggest takeaways – number one, if you are looking for leads right now, the best person to target are out-of-state owners who’ve owned the property for more than five years and have more than five properties. You mentioned for your service you’re able to take a list of motivated sellers and actually target them on Facebook, as opposed to me having to send them direct mailers, or cold-call them myself.
We talked about from a content perspective during the Coronavirus, making sure that you’re providing messaging that’s keeping people calm, and actually trying to help people, so providing solutions to people, and kind of how you’re going through this from what you’re doing, as well as doing as many testimonial videos as you can
We’ve talked about general mistakes that people make when it comes to advertising on social media, and it was really just a lack of consistency; inconsistent posting frequency, inconsistent messaging… You wanna make sure that you’re there, doing something every single day. The best types of posts really vary on what you can do, and the industry that you’re in, but you mentioned it is good to post a few videos every single week, but overall, you just need to do something every single day.
And then your best ever advice is that Facebook is very complicated, but you need to learn it, and there’s a lot of free training that you can find on Facebook to make sure you’re taking advantage of their marketing as much as possible.
Again, Jessie, thanks for joining us today. Best Ever listeners, as always, thank you for listening. Make sure you check out Jessie’s website, SwiftREIleads.com/attack. Stay safe, have a best ever day, and we’ll talk to you tomorrow.
Jessie Neal: Thanks, guys.
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