As Susan Friedmann states, the riches are in the niches.  I think most of us are familiar with the concept of riches, or at least the idea of it.  But how about the idea of a niche.

What is a niche?

 

For our purposes we can boil niche down to: 

A real estate service that appeals to a small section of potential home buyers or sellers.

 

Another way to think of it is your Target Market, defined as:

a particular group of consumers at which a product or service is aimed.

 

Yet another way to think about it is Buyer Persona, defined as:

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. When creating your buyer persona(s), consider including customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. The more detailed you are, the better.

 

'If everybody is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.' ~ Sam WaltonClick To Tweet

 

My point is, there are many ways in marketing to explain that you should be focusing your energy on a small detailed group of people.

One of the first questions I ask a new client when I start to build their website is who their target market is.  And most of the time the answer I get is, I don’t have one.  Or, anybody that wants to buy or sell real estate in their city.

via GIPHY

This website is a great example.  My niche is Real Estate Agents that need help with their digital marketing.  My audience would be much bigger if I simply focused on anybody in the world that needs help with digital marketing, and even bigger if I focused on anybody in the world that needs help with marketing.

However, if I did that I would be competing with more businesses, it would be harder to rank on Google, it would be harder to get people to my site, I would not be able to connect on a personal level with my audience, and would have taken longer for me to start building a client base.

As a benefit of becoming visible as a digital marketing consultant to real estate agents, I get many inquiries from different demographics asking for my services.

Ok… so now you may be saying what are some real estate niches that I could target?

 

50 Real Estate Niches You Could Target

 

 

YOU COULD TARGET A PARTICULAR DEMOGRAPHIC

  1. Millennials
  2. Generation X
  3. Baby Boomers
  4. Newlyweds
  5. Divorcees
  6. Widows/widowers
  7. Single under 40 (50, 60, and so on)
  8. Married
  9. International clients
  10. Single parents
  11. Economic status
  12. Employment
  13. Military

YOU COULD TARGET A PARTICULAR REAL ESTATE EXPERIENCE

  1. Renters
  2. First-time buyers
  3. First-time sellers
  4. Empty nesters
  5. Move-up buyers/sellers
  6. Move-down buyers/sellers
  7. Foreclosures
  8. FSBOs
  9. Expired listings
  10. Probate
  11. Investors

YOU COULD TARGET A PARTICULAR HOME TYPE

  1. Commercial
  2. Fixer-uppers
  3. Luxury properties
  4. Lofts
  5. Condos/townhomes
  6. Oceanfront
  7. Ranch style
  8. Lake house
  9. Gated communities
  10. Farms
  11. New construction
  12. Smart homes
  13. Single-family homes
  14. Vacation Homes

YOU COULD TARGET A PARTICULAR LOCATION TYPE

  1. Downtown
  2. Beach
  3. Park or outdoor feature
  4. Lake or river
  5. School district
  6. Neighborhood
  7. Golf course
  8. Subdivision
  9. Zip code
  10. City
  11. Suburbs
  12. County

With so many choices how could you possibly just choose 1, 2, or 3?  Good question and one that most if not all real estate agents struggle with.

 

CREATE A BUYER PERSONA

 

 

Remember above I mentioned that another way to describe a niche was with Buyer Personas? You should create a few buyer personas that represent the groups of people that you would like to target or do business with.

The easiest way to start developing personas is to review the customers with whom you’ve had past successes.  If you are a brand new agent find an agent that you admire and watch who they do business with.  You will want to choose about 6 clients that you have worked with, sold, and presented to that you maintained a good relationship.

Questions to ask yourself when developing a your clients persona:

  • What is their demographic information?
  • What is their level of income?
  • What does a day in their life look like?
  • What are their pain points (problems)?
  • How can you help solve them?
  • What do they value most?
  • What are their goals?
  • Where do they go for information?
  • What experience are they looking for when seeking your services?

 

You Have A Few Buyer Persona Profiles Now What?
 

Where to Market To Your Target Market

 


 

Congratulations you know who you want to sell to!  Now you need to start selling.

Wait did I say selling, I meant start creating content to attract the clients you want to work with.  Time to get your Marketing on.

How do you want to attract potential clients?

This is where we decide how to spend that marketing budget and where we should be putting our valuable time and effort.

 
Choose 2 or 3 of these marketing platforms to use to attract your target audience.

You have an audience, you have a platform, now all you have to do is create the content.

 

Content Creation

 


 

This could be, has been, and will be again a whole blog post.  As a matter of fact many people have written books about this subject.

What is most important is that you are creating the content to address your persona’s goals and needs.  Whether it is writing copy for your ads, creating eye catching postcards, writing attention grabbing subject lines, engaging social media posts, entertaining videos, etc.

Again, if we use this website as an example… my readers have a goal of generating more clients by using world class marketing techniques.

+  I have identified my buyer persona:  You

+  I have chosen my marketing platform:  Blogging, SEO, Social Media

+  I have created my content to address a need or goal of my buyer persona:  how to use marketing to generate more clients

 

Content creation is hard.  It takes time.  But I am not going to apologize for this.  You are a business.  And as a business you require a marketing team.  Chances are, you are your own marketing team.  So put on your marketing hat and start creating content.

I would suggest that you create a video for your client database and run them ads on Facebook.  You can learn how to do that here:

Send a Video To Your Sphere of Influence Using Facebook Ads

This will require having:

  • Database of emails
  • Facebook Ads Manager account
  • Hosted video that addresses a need or goal of your buyer persona
  • Small budget
  • Your time and effort

 

Call To Action

 


 

Ok, lets recap.  We learned that our marketing is more effective if we focused on a niche.  We identified our buyer personas.  We picked a few marketing platforms to focus on.  We created content to meet a need or goal of our buyer persona.

So far so good.  Now that we have the attention of our preferred client, what is next?  We need to create a call to action.

A call to action allows you turn visitors into referrals.

It could be asking potential clients to call for more information, to click a link to download a guide, to complete a form for more information, or to email you for more information.

Again, if we use this website as an example you will notice that a pop up comes on the screen and asks you to subscribe to our email newsletter.  I also ask you become a member to our site.  Where you will find the “largest collection of Marketing ebooks, guides, templates, and checklists on the internet”.

Become a Member of Jason Fox Real Estate Marketing

 

Conclusion

 

Take the time this week while business is slow and you can dedicate a few hours to picking a niche or 3, creating your buyer personas, identifying what marketing platforms you would like to utulize, and start creating some content.

Ask your readers, viewers, and potential clients to take some kind of action.  Then follow up with them.

 

Start your 2019 off with a BANG!