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Takeaways:
- Trying to service everyone can get tricky and costly when it comes to marketing.
- Creating a niche market doesn’t mean you can’t take clients outside your niche.
- The seven rules for establishing your niche.
You can’t be all things to everyone, so don’t try. As a real estate agent, you should focus your attention and valuable time on a specific market.
Trying to service everyone can get tricky and costly when it comes to marketing.
Your marketing budget has the potential to go a lot further when you create a niche. Even large manufacturers choose a carefully targeted market segment to go after and will produce different products to meet different needs.
This strategy is a highly cost-effective one. Why waste marketing dollars on a market that is all wrong for you?
A real estate niche could be geographical, but more than that, it should be based on a particular type of home or home feature. Perhaps you specialize only in oceanfront condos, while another real estate agent focuses exclusively on oceanfront estates.
People often ask me, “Does this mean that I can’t take clients outside my niche?”
No. You can absolutely take on listings or buyers that fall outside of your niche, but you should not be marketing to them.
Do not stress because a few people might be put off by the fact that you do not target them. In all honesty, the majority won’t be deterred by the way you market yourself.
Below are some rules for establishing your niche:
1. Meet the unique needs of a market segment
If you plan to focus on country club estate homes, be more knowledgeable than other agents in this area. The benefits you offer should exceed those offered by competitors or other agents who lack knowledge in country club sales.
2. Speak your market’s language
You should understand your audience and the things that are important to them. As an agent, if you decide to focus on entry-level single-family homes, reach your audience by understanding what is important to them.
What is it that matters to them? They’ve never bought a home, so it is likely they require more hand-holding. They need an agent who is sensitive to their monetary concerns or constraints, as well as a good negotiator.
3. Maintain your focus
It can be easy to want to change your focus at some point, but don’t. Make sure you have your niche written down, as well as the reasons why you should stick to this particular market.
Your niche should arise from your experience, as well as your interests. Trying to service everyone can be overwhelming, and it can take your focus away from the audience with whom you can enjoy the most success.
4. Be patient
Marketing success doesn’t occur overnight. Be patient. Don’t give up after a month of marketing to your niche. If you do give up, your marketing investment will have been wasted.
It is reasonable to expect that professional marketing could take anywhere from six to nine months to yield results — a time frame that is well worth it. Once you establish yourself in this niche, the results will be great.
5. Strengthen as you go
It’s OK to expect minor adjustments as you continue to market your niche. The key is to ensure that you aren’t moving too far from your long-term vision.
Perhaps you missed something essential in your messaging — go ahead and add it. Though you carefully planned your niche, it is natural for it to evolve without losing sight of your core business.
6. Test and evaluate
Despite your best intentions, you might have missed the mark. Did you invest enough marketing dollars? Did you focus solely on your niche? Did you make careful plans?
Perhaps you were hesitant to take the risk; hence, your marketing didn’t pay off. It is important to take a step back and analyze why something isn’t working.
If you feel there are areas that need improvement, go ahead and work on those; if you haven’t already gotten help from experts, do so.
7. Just go for it
After you’ve carefully considered everything, don’t be afraid to take the plunge. Go ahead and implement your marketing niche. If you’ve done the research, the risk will be considerably reduced.
The benefits of establishing your niche are endless and span all the way from more efficient networking to more business. Once you determine your niche market, you should feel liberated and begin enjoying success in no time.
Laura Ure is the CEO of Keenability, a marketing agency specializing in lifestyle marketing that targets the affluent buyer. Follow her on Facebook or Twitter.