Advertising Help Needed!! - Posted by Wayne (MD)

Posted by Wayne (MD) on March 13, 2001 at 12:23:26:

Nate –

Thanks very much for the detailed suggestions. I definitely will check out the Post and possibly the Sun as well. I think that perhaps you are correct in that I appear to be limiting my scope too much. The Capital has only about 50,000 “claimed” circulation. The Post or Sun most likely would be much better.

Do keep in touch. Perhaps we can be of mutual benefit sometime.

Wayne

Advertising Help Needed!! - Posted by Wayne (MD)

Posted by Wayne (MD) on March 13, 2001 at 07:10:29:

I?ve been running two ads in the local paper for the last two weeks. One, under Real Estate Services, reads:

CASH FOR HOUSES ? Settle in 5-10 days! Fixers OK ? Any area! Strictly confidential! 410-xxx-xxx.

The other ad, under Houses For Rent, reads:

WANTED 2-4 BR House. Cash buyer. Any area, any condition. Fast settlement. 410-xxx-xxx.

The only call I?ve had so far has been a wrong number.

I?m thinking of leaving the first ad in as is and replacing the second under Real Estate Wanted with:

RENTAL PROPERTY WANTED! Any condition. All cash, fast settlement! 410-XXX-XXX.

Or

CASH INVESTOR WANTS 2-4 BR house, any cond., foreclosure OK. Will finance working partner 410-XXX-XXX.

I?m looking for any kind of feasible deal, including partnering and/or putting out some hard money. Perhaps I?m being too skimpy on the ads. They?re about $18 each per day run. I?m running Wednesday and Saturday, the two big real estate days in our paper.

What do you think? What else can I do to get the phones to ring?

All the ads are variations of those I found in the archives. Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Wayne

Thanks Everyone For Excellent Guidance! (NT) - Posted by Wayne (MD)

Posted by Wayne (MD) on March 14, 2001 at 08:03:24:

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Re: Advertising Help Needed!! - Posted by JR

Posted by JR on March 13, 2001 at 19:43:45:

Here is what I run.

I place this ad in Homes for sale and Realestate Wanted

We BUY HOUSES
555-5555

I place this in Money to Lend
AVOID FORECLOSURE
I can help
555-5555

They are cheap ads and they stay in the paper 365 days of the year

Hope this helps, it KISS ( keep it simple and Stupid)

JR

My experience - Posted by Ron (MD)

Posted by Ron (MD) on March 13, 2001 at 14:15:21:

Wayne,

I read below some of the papers you’ve advertised in, or considered. I’ll tell you what my experience has been.

I tried the Pennysaver for a few weeks. It is surprisingly expensive (I think) and I got virtually zero response. Also, they do not have a “property wanted” section, so your ad is in with “RE services”, or something like that. I was very disappointed.

I also tried the Sun (every day for several weeks). I got a fairly steady flow of calls (I’d guess ten per week). Obviously, this paper covers a fairly large metro area. However, the large majority of my calls were city, and inner city at that. They tended to be junkers in boarded up blocks. A lot of phone calls to get to a decent prospect. I didn’t like wading through these sad stories.

I did not buy anything with these couple of tests. I’m sure I would have, eventually. I don’t mind investing in advertising, but I do too well with rehabs to be spinning my wheels answering these calls. Having said that, I’m sure others are getting rich doing what seems like a waste of time to me.

A couple of comments about your specific ads. Like I said, I don’t mind spending money to make money. I think you’re wasting you dollars on some of your words (“two to four bedrooms”, etc.). I think the key terms are: I/we buy houses. Cash. Any location. Any condition.

As I said, Wayne, classified ads weren’t real productive for me so I’m no expert. Thought sharing my own experience in your area might be of interest.

Ron Guy

Re: Advertising Help Needed!! - Posted by SueC

Posted by SueC on March 13, 2001 at 13:09:13:

Wayne, you should give it more time than two weeks. Sellers may not see your ad right away; they may be on the fence; they may be under an agent agreement; they may not be ready just at the moment. You want more to be in the same place week after week, so that when the seller needs you, they know where to look (“I remember seeing that ad…”). You should also be doing other advertising, flyers, business cards, direct mail, etc., maybe list a website along with everything, so that you are coming at your market from different angles. You want people in your farming area to think of YOU when they need to sell. It might take a few weeks, or more, but when they’re ready, you’ll be there.

Re: Advertising Help Needed!! - Posted by Nate

Posted by Nate on March 13, 2001 at 08:45:06:

Wayne,

Which paper are you running them in?

Nate

Re: Advertising Help Needed!! - Posted by Wayne (MD)

Posted by Wayne (MD) on March 13, 2001 at 10:23:49:

The Annapolis Capital. The Baltimore Sun and Washington Post cover far more territory than I think I need. They also are quite expensive . . . or is that perhaps a flaw in my thinking and marketing plan? I’ve thought about The Pennysaver but am not sure it would be worthwhile.

Aren’t you working in the Baltimore area?

Wayne

Re: Advertising Help Needed!! - Posted by Nate

Posted by Nate on March 13, 2001 at 11:12:04:

I’m actually located in DC but do most of my work in PG County. Admittedly, PG County is not Anne Arundel, but hear me out.

When I was investigating newspapers for classified ads, I checked into the Washington Post, Washington Times, and the Journal (local PG County paper) and ultimately went with the Post for reasons I’ll explain here.

If you call up the classified ad departments of the papers, they should have figures as to their total circulation (daily & Sunday). Some even break it down by jurisdiction (the Post, for example, has all this stuff on their website, and showed that more people in PG County read the Sunday Post than the PG Journal).

Basically, what it came down to was that although the Post was slightly more expensive than the Journal or the Washington Times (really NOT much more - maybe $35 instead of $25 or something like that), but the far greater number of people reading it made up for that. My cost per “impression” was much, much lower than in the Times or the Journal.

Now, this was mainly for ads to sell houses, not to buy them. But if you are targeting a similarly small area, I don’t see why you could not do something similar. Check out the Post Sunday zoned real estate classified rates (I can point you to the right place on the web site if need be). You can specify which “zones” (DC, PG, N. Va., etc.) you want the ad to appear in. And you only pay something like $3-4 per line per zone, with a 10% discount if you do multiple zones.

The only thing I’m not sure about is whether Anne Arundel is a zone or not. I don’t know if enough people in Annapolis get the Post for them to bother.

A couple of other thoughts:

  1. As far as the Pennysaver - call up their classified ad people and ask about circulation. They should be able to give you numbers to allow you to do a “cost-per-person” comparison to the other papers.

  2. Is your market area too small? I dunno…that’s really more a matter of your personal preference. If you have a fairly well-defined market area that you want to stick with (say, Annapolis, or southern Anne Arundel County, or however you define it), I would suggest calling up the classified people at the papers you’re considering and see what data they have on their circulation in their target area. Then you can do the comparison directly.

Good luck, and let me know if I can help in any other way.

NT

Re: Advertising Help Needed!! - Posted by Nate

Posted by Nate on March 13, 2001 at 23:16:04:

Wayne,

Absolutely! Always good to have another set of eyes looking out for me & I’ll do the same if I find any deals in your neck of the woods.

Anyway, I dredged up this webpage:

http://adsite.washpost.com/classified_ads/partrun.shtml

which details the circulation for the various zones.
Looks like for the Sunday real estate classifieds, Anne Arundel circulation is 26,859. That page is slightly out of date in that it shows only 3 zones for the Sunday real estate classified. Actually there are 9 as shown on THIS web page:

http://adsite.washpost.com/rates/realest2001/partrunclass.shtml

which also tells you that that Anne Arundel ad will cost you a whopping $1.28 per line to run on Sunday. And the best part is it runs only in Anne Arundel, and that’s all you pay for, if that’s all you want.

That’s what I use and it’s very effective. I generally do PG only, or PG/DC. PG only is $3.06 per line, and PG/DC is ($3.06*2)-10%=$5.51 per line, to reach 257,320 households. For a 3 line ad that’s 15,567 households per advertising dollar. By comparison, the Post web site claims that the PG Journal’s circulation is 27,845. So for that same 3 line to have the same cost effectiveness in the PG Journal, it should cost only $1.79, or about $0.60 per line. Not bloody likely!!

Nate