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Cold Texting for Real Estate Investors
Generate Off-Market Seller Leads Via Outbound Cold Texting (Strictly for Investors ONLY!)
REVAS provides fully-managed specialist Virtual Assistants who are experienced at running Outbound Cold Texting Campaigns in all the popular software (Launch Control, Batch, Lead Sherpa, Smarter Contact, etc). Click below to learn more.
Goal:
The goal of Outbound Cold Texting Campaigns for Real Estate Investors is simple:
Generate a steady stream of Off-Market Motivated Seller Leads.
How It Works:
Cold Texting Campaigns are relatively simple.
There are essentially 3 main components, which — while having their own unique complexities & learning curves — ultimately are straightforward once you understand the basics.
Component 1: The List.
In many ways, your List is the single most important component of a Cold Texting Campaign:
If you can’t actually get responses from the right Homeowners / Decision Makers, you literally can’t succeed!
Texting is powerful, because many people check Text Messages more than Voicemails or Emails.
However, if your Text Message was sent to the wrong person (who doesn’t own a home you’re targeting), or was bounced undeliverable due to targeting a dead number or landline… then there is no chance your effort will work.
You need a high-quality List, targeting the right Properties for your investing strategy, and you need high-quality Skip Tracing to ensure you’re getting maximum coverage on accurate Homeowner Mobile Numbers (since obviously landlines cannot receive texts!).
Component 2: The Texting Software.
Since there are both technical hurdles & regulatory compliance issues related to sending outbound cold texts, it’s important to pick the right software tool for the job.
While the marketplace is always changing, some of the main players to consider are:
- Lead Sherpa
- Launch Control
- Batch
- Smarter Contact
- DealMachine
There are probably other tools suitable to the job, but it’s important to be sure you’re using a Texting Software from a provider who understands the nuances of Cold Texting for Real Estate Investors.
Component 3: The Texting Virtual Assistant.
Finally, unless you’re going to be sending & replying to texts manually yourself (or you have a salesperson on your team who can devote significant time to it)… chances are you’ll be using a Real Estate Virtual Assistant for the job.
It’s important that you hire a texting specialist: after working with hundreds of VAs for Cold Texting and Cold Calling, we’ve been able to recognize that both require somewhat different personality types. Just because someone is good at one, does not mean they’ll be good at the other.
Fortunately, Cold Texting for Investors has been around & popular for long enough that you should have no problem finding Overseas VAs from places like the Philippines or Central & South America who already have experience in these exact types of campaigns.
Pros:
By far, the greatest benefit of Cold Texting for Investors is the volume of Leads you can generate, at a relatively low Cost Per Lead (CPL).
It might not be the lowest cost Lead Source, especially when you factor in the costs of the Lists and Texting Software, but it tends to be cheaper than a majority of options (like Direct Mail, Pay-Per-Click, and Display Ads).
Plus, if you’re in a major metro area (or investing in one), the size of the type of Lists you can create are gigantic, fueling large-scale Campaigns on a practically never-ending basis.
Cons:
There are three big downsides to running long-term Outbound Cold Texting Campaigns:
#1. Minimum Carrying Cost. While your CPL might be lower than other channels, Cold Texting has a high carrying cost due to the fact you need an expensive Texting Software to keep it running. Even if you just want to “dip your toes” into testing it out, this monthly carrying cost just for the software alone can be prohibitive ($500 – $1,000+ per month).
#2. High List Usage. Due to the fast pace of sending Outbound Texts, you are going to go through a LOT of Lists when running your Campaigns. If you’re in a smaller market, you might exhaust the entire potential target List in a matter of months! Even in a larger market, or if you’re in multiple markets, building & Skip Tracing new Lists is going to be a constant battle to keep up with your Texting Campaign requirements.
#3. Technical Learning Curve. While the underlying technologies are not difficult to learn, the overall Cold Texting marketplace is. That’s because new regulations, and new rules from the major cell networks, make your necessary approach to success a constantly moving target. From adding new requirements to even get a phone number to text from (10DLC rules & regulations), to constantly expanding the list of “banned” (automatically filtered) words that you can’t use in Cold Texts… keeping up with the changing sphere is a never-ending burden that you’ll need to take into account.
Work Estimate:
The main efforts required for Cold Texting (outside of an initial setup process of 5 – 10 hours) will be the daily grind of sending & replying to Texts.
For this, we recommend budgeting at least 2 – 3 hours per day, ideally spread out between the late morning & early evening (so you can have a gap between sessions, allowing messages to filter in, while you come back later to catch up).
In a best-case scenario, you should be budgeting a full-time Virtual Assistant to your texting requirements. Considering the cost of the Texting Software and Lists, the actual cost of a specialist Overseas VA is not that significant (maybe 1/3 of your total hard costs). By devoting a full-time Virtual Assistant to the requirement (or two part-time VAs, working a morning 4 hour shift and an evening 4 hour shift), you’ll ensure maximum coverage & fast replies to incoming texts during the greatest amount of time during the day.