Are you tired of reading this multifamily success story? The one about how “so-and-so” genius syndicator raised millions of dollars. Then, when you cut through the fluff, you understand that this “genius” just borrowed the investment dollars from rich relatives.
In this article, I am going to show you how to start building relationships with accredited investors that are not your rich relatives.
In the United States there are more than 10 million accredited investors. That’s more than 10 trillion dollars that you can tap into.
I’ll show you a step-by-step way to do this using a simple digital marketing funnel, so that you can put your investor acquisition on autopilot!
Video – How To Automatically Multiply Your Capital Raising X 1,000’s
This video interview is with Adam Gower. Adam is an authority in content marketing for the real estate industry.
Adam shares his inside knowledge on:
- The power of a digital marketing funnel or pipeline
- How to maximize your content output to attract more investors
- How to create a social media “bait plume”
- How to make the most of tracking tools like Google Analytics
Click here to watch the video and learn how to put the amazing power of a digital marketing funnel to work in your capital raising.
Get The “Fill Your Funnel Toolkit”
Attract investors 24/7 with these tools that will help you put your investor acquisition on autopilot
Now let’s address the elephant in the room…
What Exactly Is A Digital Marketing Funnel?
If you do a Google search for “digital marketing funnel”, you’ll find hundreds of variations and different ways to illustrate it. In this article, we’ll focus on the marketing funnel for sponsors / syndicators and try to make it as simple as possible. We’ll also break it down into actionable steps.
Funnel – Demystified
A funnel is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. You use a funnel to pour liquid from a wide vessel into a narrow one.
In a marketing context the word funnel is used only to help us picture a process:
Getting accredited investors from somewhere out there (wide top of funnel) to the point of becoming an investor in your multifamily deal (narrow bottom of funnel).
The “Funnel” is just the process they move through to go from not knowing who you are to being willing to invest with you.
You may have heard of the need to get people to know, like and trust you. We’ll add a final step to that process of: commit. Because it doesn’t do much good to get people to know, like and trust you if they never take any kind of action – to commit to investing.
This process is really about building a relationship.
Let’s compare it to a romantic relationship.
If you see someone you’re interested in who doesn’t know you at all, would you go up to them and ask them to marry you?
I hope not! That’s not likely to get a good response.
Relationships go through several phases. Typically it might go something like this:
- Know – Meet the person, establish at least some interest, exchange contact information
- Like and Trust – See each other regularly. Build fondness and trust.
- Commitment – When the time is right, and a level of trust and fondness is well-established, ask for a commitment
It’s very similar with getting someone to invest with you:
- Know – Make contact with a potential investor, establish some interest, get their contact information
- Like and Trust – Make regular contact with them in some way so they come to like and trust you
- Commitment – When the time is right, and they like and trust you to a reasonable degree, ask for a commitment.
Why Is A Digital Marketing Funnel So Powerful?
In the offline world (face-to-face), building a relationship with a potential investor takes loads of time and effort. Even after all that there’s no guarantee that they will become your investor.
But here’s why having a digital marketing funnel is so powerful.
With a digital marketing funnel your efforts are magnified 100’s, 1,000’s and even 100’s of thousands of times over.
That’s because you’re not just building a relationship with one person at a time, but you can be building a relationship with many at a time.
From your perspective, you’re producing content that will start and build a relationship with many people at once. But from each potential investor’s perspective, it’s like a one-to-one relationship. The relationship-building process is largely automated once it’s put in place.
Not every relationship will turn into a loyal investor but many will.
Now I want to show you…
How To Build Your Funnel
What To Do
In the infographic below you can see what to do at each part of the funnel:
Let’s break this down further into actionable steps.
How To Implement The Steps
KNOW & TRUST – Produce & Publish Quality Content
Potential investors will get to KNOW and TRUST you if you produce and publish good content that involves these 2 elements:
- WHAT – topics that will make potential investors curious about the opportunity to invest in multifamily
- WHERE – publish in places where potential investors will find it
Producing Content
For a more complete understanding of the What, Why and How of producing authority-building content see our previous article entitled, “Build Authority As A Multifamily Syndicator To Attract Passive Investors.”
Examples of types of content that you can produce:
- Engaging social media posts
- Blog articles
- Ebooks
- Podcast interviews
- Videos
- Infographics
Repurposing Your Content
It might seem overwhelming to have to produce content for many different platforms (like the ones above). However, the good news is that it doesn’t all have to be unique.
You can take one piece of longer content you created (like an article or video) and break it up into smaller pieces that can be posted on social media.
Where should you start?
While you might want to work on most of these forms of content eventually, you’ll need to prioritize them based on your goals.
If your goal is to get new investor leads, this would be a good sequence:
- Set up a way to capture investor leads on your website. Typically this would mean having some sort of free report the potential investor can sign up for. So you need something to give away and a way to sign up. (Some of our websites come with a free report.)
- Post on social media. Generate interest in your business, and ideally, in the free report you’re giving away on your website. Include a link to the page on your website with your free report. Do this regularly to keep generating new leads.
- Do podcast interviews. Find podcasts that are listened to by potential investors & get on them. This is free exposure and can generate new leads. Just be sure to mention your website on the podcast, and ideally, also mention your free report, which gives potential investors a reason to visit.
- Post articles or videos on your website. You want to create content that positions you as an expert in multifamily investing. This content could later be found by people searching online for that topic, but that’s more of a long-term strategy. In the short term, you just want to show you know what you’re doing and provide quality content to your potential investors. Be sure each post includes a call to action to join your investor list.
- Email your potential investors. As you’re building a list of potential investors from your social media posts and podcast interviews, it’s important to stay in touch regularly. Use an email marketing / CRM platform like ActiveCampaign to send a regular newsletter-type email to your potential investors. Include a call to action in each message, asking the reader to join your investor list.
Keep Moving People Through the Funnel
Every point of contact, whether an email, a video, or a blog post, should include a clear call to action to take the next step.
When people are at a point that they like and trust you enough, they’ll want to move forward to investing with you. You should make this process as easy as possible. There should be a link or button in each communication for them to join your investor list or network (call it whatever you like, but be sure to use consistent phrasing in all your communications and website).
This would normally go to a form on your website where the potential investor can let you know they’re interested in investing. They’ll provide their contact information, how much they want to invest, and whether they’re SEC accredited.
Now you’re ready to move them to the next phase of the funnel…
COMMIT – Send The Deal Information & Show Them How To Invest
The potential investor, by signing up for your investor list, has indicated his intention and desire to invest with you. He has moved toward the BOTTOM of the funnel.
Look at the table below to see what needs to be done and how to do it at this stage of the funnel.
The insights below are based on a post on Joe Fairless’ site: https://www.bestevercre.com/blog/5-step-process-securing-passive-investor-commitments-apartment-syndications
What To Make Available & How – For The COMMIT Stage of The Digital Marketing Funnel:
At this stage you should invite prospective investors by email to a webinar discussing the merits of your deal.
The invitation to the webinar should contain:
- A link to the webinar
- An overview of… ‘the reasons why we love this deal,’
- Some pictures of the apartment complex
- A summary of the value-add opportunity
- Investment highlights
Along with text that follows a similar pattern to the sample below:
Next Steps to Invest:
We will accept investments on a first-come, first-served basis with completion of the investment packet and wiring of funds.
The investment packet containing the offering documents (PPM, Subscription Agreement, etc.) is available through the “Invest Now” link below.
Wire investment funds via banking instructions before (X Date) or until fully subscribed.
If you prefer to bypass our investor portal, reply to this email to express interest along with the amount of your investment.
We will accept IRA Funds, Solo 401K, QRP, etc.
Invest Now (Large button containing link)
The Final Step – Complete Required Documentation
The last step is for your passive investors to make their investments official by reviewing and signing the required documentation.
There are five main documents that you need to prepare (with the help of your real estate and securities attorney):
- The Private Placement Memorandum (PPM)
- The Operating Agreement
- The Subscription Agreement
- The Accredited Investor Qualifier Form
- The ACH Application.
Your investors need to sign these in order to make the investments official. These can be made available via an e-signature service such as Adobe Sign or DocuSign. Some investor portals also have the option for this to be done online.
Bottom Of Funnel Steps Simplified
- Announce to your investors that you have a deal open for funding, usually via email or webinar
- Hold an investor webinar, where you can give more information and allow investors to ask questions
- Confirm your investor’s spot in the deal and send the PPM (private placement memorandum), which includes details of how to wire the funds
- Confirm with the investor that the funds have been received.
- Notify your investor once the deal closes.
Get The “Fill Your Funnel Toolkit”
Attract investors 24/7 with these tools that will help you put your investor acquisition on autopilot
Congratulations! The potential investor has now become your actual investor.
(Once you acquire an Investor, they will repeatedly invest with you if you know how to keep them happy. This is a subject we have covered in depth in our article, ‘Keep Your Investors Happy So That They Will Invest Again & Again.’)
We Put Our Money Where Our Mouth Is
At Apartment Investor Pro we have designed our service around the art and science of the digital marketing funnel.
Our turnkey websites for multifamily syndicators incorporate all the essential elements that you need in order to implement the steps we’ve discussed.
Apartment Investor Pro Sites:
- Your AIP site includes a place for your regular blog articles which are easy to upload. Some plans include pre-written blog posts.
- Certain plans include a lead magnet for you to help you capture leads on your site.
- All sites can be connected to a third party automated email software platform or CRM software.
- Most plans include an investor portal so that your investors can access deal information and all the necessary documents connected with the process of onboarding your investor.
There are three types of people in this world:
- Those who make things happen
- Those who watch things happen
- Those who say “what happened?”
Are you ready to make it happen?
Build your funnel and put your investor acquisition on autopilot.
Visit us at ApartmentInvestorPro.com