Ready to make 10s or 1000s of dollars? Understanding key marketing concepts for real estate investors drives real profits and Don Costa breaks them down as he launches the Watch Me Scale Challenge. In this no-nonsense episode, Don reveals why most marketing fails—it’s either deployed poorly or managed improperly once leads come in. He dives deep into the hard truths about marketing investment, explaining that consistent and significant spending unlocks predictable results. Don also stresses how you must build infrastructure for each marketing channel to truly maximize your efforts. He shares exactly how to find the sweet spot in your marketing spend and avoid spreading your resources too thin. Tune in now to get the insights you need!

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Understanding This Will Make You 10’s Or 1000’s Of Dollars

Everybody, welcome to another episode of the show. I am here to talk to you about some really cool stuff and talk to you about the watch me scale challenge. That is something that I am very excited about. We’re launching this thing. I talked about last week, and we’re going to be diving into all things scaling in your business. I’m going to be scaling a brand new real estate investing company side by side.

I’m actually in the momentum of doing that. I’ve actually deployed some marketing. We’ll get into that in other episodes. What that marketing channel was and what the results were. What I want to talk about is marketing. I want to talk about marketing in general, of just some thoughts behind it. Before we get into all the different marketing channels and the resources out there and the exploration that I did in order to choose what marketing channels I was going to deploy in the beginning and why, I want to talk about marketing and marketing concepts as a whole. I don’t think this is a discussion that gets dived into enough, or at least deep enough.

All Marketing Channels Work… But Deployment Matters

We all know that there are so many different marketing channels out there as a real estate investor. Everything from cold calling, text messaging, SEO, PPC which is Pay-Per-Click, PPL which is a Pay-Per-Lead. We have direct mail. We have door-knocking, driving for dollars as a marketing activity. There’s TV, there’s radio, there’s Facebook ads. There are so many different marketing channels. The one thing that I have learned in the last twenty-something years of this business and definitely in the last about thirteen years is that all marketing channels work. Every marketing channel works for the most part.

I think that’s an important thing to throw out there. Obviously, your budget is going to play a role in the marketing channel that you’re going to go ahead and deploy. Your availability, your infrastructure. All those things are going to come into play. Now, when we’re talking about marketing, one of the things that I learned past the all marketing channels work is that usually marketing is broken in two places. One is at the point of deployment. It’s not deployed properly, or it’s not deployed enough.

I’ll get into that in just a second. The second place where it is broken is at the point where the phone rings. I want to break both those two points down for you. On the first point, it’s not deployed properly. It’s not deployed enough. On the it’s not deployed properly. Let’s just take direct mail, for instance. It’s not deployed properly. In other words, there’s not enough thought that goes into how we’re going to go ahead and make sure this thing works.

 

What phone number are we utilizing? Are we tracking that phone number for results? Is the list that we’re using a good, clean list deploy for direct mail? Does it have enough either pain points on it? Is it a distress list, or did we do a proper search? Has the property been owned long enough? Implementing in that way, obviously, if you’re going to use Pay-Per-Click, you want to make sure that you’re utilizing the right keywords, having the right negative keywords, so on and so forth.

Is it being deployed properly? Do you or whoever is deploying that marketing channel understand enough about that marketing channel to make sure that you have all the pieces in place to truly be successful when that thing hits? Is it enough to put into it? Is there enough when it’s deployed? On that aspect of it, one of the I’m going to say the hard truth. No guru is going to tell you. That hard truth is that a lot of these marketing channels require investment like PPL, Pay-Per-Lead, Pay-Per-Click, and even direct mail.

The Investment Truth: You Must Spend Enough

These marketing channels that require an investment, when I say they’re not deployed enough, you’re not sending enough or spending enough, or whatever it is. If your average cost per deal in a specific marketing channel, let’s just say that your average cost per deal is $3,500 in PPC, Pay-Per-Click, or its average year average cost per deal is $3,500 in direct mail. Spending $3,500 a month doesn’t guarantee you a deal.

You’re almost throwing money away in that instance, in some cases, because you’re not deploying enough. You’re not putting enough into that effort for it to get traction, for it to take off. That’s something that I want to say it out loud. From the years of marketing, one of the things I’ve noticed is that I have been successful with direct mail and made a lot of money with direct mail, but I was able to do it at scale.

There are a lot of marketing channels where you have to commit to a decent amount of spend and do it consistently for them to work. Share on X

In this business, there are a lot of averages. Those averages play out based on certain X, Y, Z factors happening. In this business, there are a lot of averages, and those averages play out over time. In other words, if we say that you’re going to average $3,500 per deal, that doesn’t mean that spending $3,500 is going to get you a deal. Sometimes the spend of $5,000 will get you a deal. Sometimes a spend of $7,000 will get you a deal. Sometimes a spend of $2,000 will get you a deal.

Over time, over a year, over six months, the average is going to start to fall into line where it becomes predictable that if I maintain this pace of marketing spend, that my average cost per deal is going to be X. I think that’s what gets lost in this business is the factor of you got to build that momentum. You got to have that money being deployed in a way that you hit the sweet spot of that marketing channel so that you can start to build those consistent deals and you can start to average out over time.

One of the biggest things that I want to say here, one of the biggest takeaways is to scare people who are newer is there are a lot of marketing channels where you got to commit to a spend and you got to commit to a decent amount of a spend and you got to do it consistently for them to work. Now, will they work on a small budget? They can work on a small budget. They can work on a small budget when deployed consistently, and you start to get specific and niche with your list and so on and so forth.

Again, a broken clock is right twice a day. Of course, you may get a deal on a $500 spend or a $1,500 spend. It can happen. The reality is can a lot of averages say that we have to deploy consistently over time, and we basically have to outpace what we think our average is and spend in order for us to build enough momentum to hit those averages? Hopefully, that makes sense to everybody.

With that said, that is a very important takeaway. You’ve got to be willing to commit to spend. The reason why most people don’t get PPC to work or direct mail to work are some of these more expensive marketing channels. They’re not spending enough in that marketing channel for it to live and breathe and get traction and get momentum and really start to average itself out and maintain that and gain that predictability.

 

Infrastructure: Each Channel Needs Its Own System

Going to the point where marketing works or is broken at the point where the phone rings. Every single marketing channel has somewhat of a different infrastructure needed to make it work. They don’t want to overcomplicate by saying that it has to be. It’s not a completely different infrastructure, but just how the infrastructure functions is different for each marketing channel. Cold calling, for instance. One of the cheapest marketing channels needs some specific and aggressive follow-up for that to work.

The average time between the first call to a close on a cold call can be upwards of six months. Now again, a broken clock is right twice a day. Sometimes you can have a one-call close on a cold call, but that is very rare. You have to have some aggressive and systematic, and consistent follow-up processes in your organization. Direct mail is absolutely best if the phone is answered live. Having a lead manager on your team is hugely important to the success of direct mail. Of course, PPC, being able to have that speed to contact.

That PPC comes in, that lead comes in, that Pay-Per-Click lead comes in, and you want to be able to contact them within 30 seconds to a minute for them to stop what they’re doing, stop looking for the fix to their problem, and talk to you, and hopefully determine that you are the fix to their problem. Understanding that each one of these marketing channels has its own niche thing trigger that makes it work is important.

If we are sending all of our direct mail leads to voicemail, we’re not getting back to them right away, or our PPC leads are coming in, and they’re sitting for a day or two if we get back to them. We’re sitting here saying, “That channel isn’t working.” That’s one of the reasons why it’s working. Having your operation dialed in in an effective manner that allows that marketing channel to gain traction and live and breathe is another component to making sure your investment works.

For marketing investments to work, ensure your operation is effectively dialed in, allowing each channel to gain traction and thrive. Share on X

Ultimately, after the phone rings conversation, how is your sales process? Are you having the right conversations? Are you able to actually negotiate properly? All those things come into play in making the marketing channel work. We’re going to be diving into and breaking down, and talking about marketing with some of the different industry leaders in the marketing space.

We will be going through all of the things from TV, radio, Facebook, SEO, PPC, PPL, direct mail, you name it. We’re going to be diving in, breaking down, peeling back down on each one of them. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been very successful in direct mail. I love direct mail as a whole. One of the things that, again, I’ve learned about direct mail is to be successful in it to get that $1 spent, $3 back, $1 spent, $5 back type of return, or better, you got to be willing to commit to a consistent spend in direct mail.

For us, our first drop going out, we use DataFlik data, and it is going out to about 27,000 plus homeowners in the area. We just deployed it. We’re talking, this is being recorded in April of 2025. We literally had our first batch. We broke that up into a couple of different drops. Our first batch went out a few days ago, and we will be deploying that out consistently.

We use REI print mail for our mail house for this particular drop. They will be doing our drops for the near future as we test some of their pieces. One of their pieces, I don’t remember the name off the top of my head, but it’s a soft offer postcard. That’s what I chose to go with. I’m a big postcard proponent. I generally prefer those over letters. That’s what I’m using.

We’ll also be testing out Pay-Per-Lead, and we’ll be testing out PPC and a few other marketing channels along the way. Direct mail was the one that we went with first, because it’s the one I know, love, and understand. We’re breaking down our results from that in the next coming weeks. If you want to know more, if you don’t want to wait for us to have these conversations on the show, you can always go to WatchMeScale.com and you can sign up, and get into our private community, and you can watch along as this thing unfolds in real time.

Operating in fear, pulling back, or closing off will hinder your marketing success. Share on X

Focus on One Channel: Mastery Before Expansion

There will be a lot more daily and every other day updates on our results and what we’re doing, what we’re deploying and so on and so forth. Marketing, hopefully, this conversation helped you on marketing. You hear a lot of noise out there about people deploying seven marketing channels or eleven marketing channels. The one other thing I would say about marketing and just to that point is I am a big proponent of starting one marketing channel, figuring out what makes that marketing channel work, understanding it to its core, or in fuel on the fire to the sweet spot.

You got to do that enough effort to get it going. You have the law of diminishing returns in marketing. Now, the law of diminishing returns just basically says that no matter how much more money I spend in this particular marketing channel, no matter how more often I do it, I’m not going to get a greater return than I’m getting when I hit that sweet spot. I believe in really focusing on a marketing channel, hitting that sweet spot, dialing into its maximum profitability, and then going to marketing channel number two.

Now, why do I believe that? Why do I believe that instead of just following some of the gurus out there and doing five or 6 or 7 or 11 marketing channels right out of the gate, especially when you’re trying to scale? I believe that wholeheartedly because you only have so much resource. You only have so much time or money. If you take that resource and you split it into multiple different fragments, you’re going to split it and spread it too thin. Again, we go back to, are you spending enough? Are you investing enough in that particular marketing channel to get growth, to get sustainability, to get consistency?

How can you answer that question? I don’t know how many people come to me and they’re like, “I got my money spread between these five marketing channels and nothing’s working. It’s because you’re not spending enough money in any one of those things to get traction.” The other thing, the mindset thing, is really important in marketing. When you start operating in fear and you start pulling back or closing off, that will hinder your ability to have success in your marketing channel.

When you start operating in that fear mindset where you’re afraid to deploy the marketing or put the pedal to the metal, nothing will kill your business faster. I believe in making sure that you build that sustainability in one marketing channel. You build that predictable income. With that predictable income, that predictable result, now you can invest in the marketing channel number two. I do believe that you should not put all your eggs in one basket.

 

I do believe that you should have multiple marketing channels. I just believe that the way you do it is important. What kills my soul is watching people see some guru say, “Go fifteen different ways,” and they go fifteen different ways, and then they’re not making any money, and they’re desperate, and they’re scared, and they’re operating in fear.

Connect & Watch The Journey: WatchMeScale.com

Get one plate spinning and get it splitting effectively. Go to plate number two, get that one spinning effectively. Check plate one, go to plate three, so on and so forth. I think that’s really important. Those are my thoughts on marketing. I’m going to keep this one a little bit short and sweet because we’ve got a lot of information coming at you. If you want to make sure you’re in the know when things are happening, follow me everywhere on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram @TheRealDonCosta.

Also, you can go to WatchMeScale.com as we start to peel back the onion even bigger in some of these conversations I’m having with some of these incredible marketers and just amazing businesses out there. I’ll also show you the details that we’re doing. WatchMeScale.com, make sure you check it out. Always go to FlipDocs.com for everything going on in the FlipDoc universe.

Just for the sake of making sure I throw it out there, this episode is brought to you by Forefront CRM. That is the CRM we are using for this exercise. Make sure you go to ForefrontCRM.com, use the code ICE30DAY, and get 30 days free of Forefront when you sign up using the code ICE30DAY. I will see you on the other side again. Always looking forward to you winning. Have a great time, and I’ll talk to you again soon.

 

Important Links

• Don Costa on TikTok
• Don Costa on Instagram
• Don Costa on Facebook
• Don Costa on YouTube
• Watch Me Scale
• Forefront CRM
•  FlipDocs