Using Meetup To Generate House Flipping Leads
How can investors leverage Meetups to generate more leads for house flipping?
Home buying activity hit a new 10 year high in January 2017. Investors of all types appear incredibly bullish on the market, and are looking to seize on all the opportunities they can. They want to grab the remaining motivated sellers still holding on from 2008, the want to secure positions in suburbs which are expected to boom again, and to lock up prime deals as builders fuel price rises in dense urban areas. This demands that many real estate investors expand into new ways of generating house flipping leads.
Real Estate Lead Generation
Social media, Google ads, real estate blogging, and obtaining direct mail lists for cash buyers and motivated sellers are all channels which can still work. Use them. Yet, also consider trying out some of the newer mediums coming online, while continuing to grow offline connections.
Meetup.com is one of the new and fastest growing platforms which is enabling house flippers to generate both on and offline real estate leads. Used well it can be a great tool for finding online buyer, seller, and lender leads, while building local referral partners and key relationships. So, how can you leverage this and similar tools to get more deals done?
Meetup
Meetup.com is an online platform which enables organizers to connect groups of individuals around their interests. If you can imagine it, you can have a meetup group for it. The idea is to connect locals who share interests, and then to regularly get together in person.
There are yoga meetups, foodie meetups, small business meetups, and a whole variety of real estate meetups. You could set up your own to direct connect with local home buyers, struggling home buyers, private money lenders, landlords, or real estate professionals. Or you could indirectly connect with prospects by building a group of your ideal prospects around another interest. For example; golf, boating, fishing, or cycling.
It costs around $20 per month to host a meetup group on the site. Additional costs will depend on how you organize your meetup. You decide whether you will cover the costs of getting together, or if you will have members chip in, or just charge them entry.
To get the best results give some thought to who your prime prospects are, and their routines. Are they more likely to have time to connect during the day, at night, or on weekends? Be sure to know your meetup spots and check if there may be any conflicting events before inviting your group.
Generating & Nurturing Leads
Most people don’t want to come out to a regular meetup just to be sold. So, give some thought to how you will nurture those leads and make calls to action. Will you have handouts? Will you gather email addresses for drop campaigns? Will you offer referrals or something of value first, before asking for something?
Depending on how you organize your meetups you may get instant leads and sales. In other cases it may be a longer nurturing process. For example; helping to position first time home buyers to take the leap. In other scenarios you may pass around live leads every time you get together.
Leveraging Other People’s Meetups
Organizing and operating meetups can be expensive and time consuming. It’s not for every house flipper. If you don’t want to make that type of investment then it may be easier to leverage this platform by using other people’s meetups. You can attend other meetups and network or speak. Or you can sponsor them and get your info and website link on their meetup pages.
If you don’t have good meetup groups in your area, consider other similar ways to connect in-person. This can be local mastermind groups, real estate seminars, investor associations, mortgage and Realtor tradeshows, small business expos, and even local festivals and Chamber of Commerce events.
You don’t just have to stick with your area either. Look for regional events, national, and even national gathering where you might connect with leads and referral partners. It’s a great way to get out and travel, and make money while you are doing it.
