I suggest you start a marketing campaign to potential sellers in your area.

It captures their email when they log into my WiFi and from their I can run email campaigns in the future.

Network with wholesalers, market to off market distressed properties, and don't sleep on the MLS (be sure to screen what you're sending first, don't just set up serious investors on drip campaigns unless they ask).

The #1 reason most fail is that they quit too soon.I currently have at least a half dozen KW clients running successful campaigns across the Country.

It is supremely difficult to get any traction on a shoestring budget because all the success stories sound like "well we dropped $7k in this marketing campaign and $7k in that other marketing campaign and after spending about $750k total we made over two million last year." 

If you're wanting to do it on your own, you could try blanket mailer campaigns in areas you find worth investing.

Tried a direct mail campaign and oversubscribed on it, didn't work.Rather than quit altogether I'm working on getting a day job to keep this going as a side hustle. 

Probably because they are receiving a lot of calls, texts, emails, postal mail, marketing campaigns etc from all sorts of people and companies asking them to sell their properties. 

I want to spend at least $10k to start up a marketing campaign and then $2-3K per month.

I've recently used a cold calling service to help with my marketing campaign and a potential seller wants to speak with me.