Target Marketing for Realtors: How to Identify & Attract Your Dream Customer
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The world is full of options. Head online, and you'll find over a billion websites and about 4 billion active social media users. There's a website for everything you can imagine and somebody scrolling through social interested in that same info. And when we think about real estate, it can be a saturated industry as well. There are about 1.5 million Realtors in the U.S. today, and they're all looking for more business. So, if you approach your online marketing with the wide net of simply "looking to attract any & all buyers & sellers," it's going to be challenging for you to stand out.
But if your website and social media are targeted, then you're no longer one in a billion. You're THE agent your dream customer can't wait work with.
When it comes to digital marketing, you need to have a targeted strategy. Whether you're focused on attracting new customers through social or your website, it can be challenging to gain momentum if you're hopping from one idea to the next. While online marketing for real estate can start to feel overwhelming, there's a basic principle you can rely on. The more you talk about something, the more you'll be known for something.
I can't tell you how many times I've had this same conversation with agents over the years. I'll ask, "Who are you currently working with, and what type of customer are you looking to attract?" While the answer varies for where their current business comes from, nine times out of ten, I get this answer for who they're wanting to attract - "I'm looking to attract sellers and buyers..."
This answer might make perfect sense because you want to sell more homes at the end of the day! However, this type of generic strategy is tough to implement, and it's even harder to attract customers outside of your sphere and referrals. The reality is the more specific you can be with your online marketing, the more effective it will be.
What Are Target Marketing and Target Audiences?
Let's start with the basics. Target marketing is simply choosing an ideal audience (in our case, a specific type of real estate customer) and tailoring our marketing to attract said audience.
A target audience is a pre-defined type of customer and is more specific than a home buyer or seller. A target audience, or customer persona, includes demographic information, behavioral patterns, and internal desires & beliefs. So, instead of thinking about your customer as an age range and income level, you're thinking about the entire individual. What makes them who they are? What are the challenges they're facing? How can you, in turn, use this information to help them with their real estate needs?
Once you've established WHO your target audience is, then your target marketing works to attract them. From where you advertise to the content you create, your marketing will be valuable and relevant to your next customer.
So before we dive into all the details of target marketing, be sure to grab your copy of my free Target Marketing Workbook, where I’ll walk you through exactly how to identify your ideal target audience and, from there, how to curate a marketing strategy that increases your sales! Click here to download your copy.
Why Target Marketing Works for Real Estate
Targeting an ideal customer makes your marketing more impactful, more meaningful, and more personal.
Because when you better understand your customer, your marketing will speak directly to your next buyer or seller. This strategy does wonders for your real estate marketing. It allows you to:
Attract more customers: It's a common misconception that you'll lose out on business if you're too specific or choose a niché. When in reality, target marketing creates stronger connections with more potential customers. We want people to not only find you online but want to work with you.
Position yourself as the go-to expert: Whether you choose to focus on a geographic area or a type of customer, you establish your credibility and expertise in that area. This not only helps with your agent branding but also builds trust. Think back to when I said, "the more you talk about something, the more you'll be known for something."
Shift your approach from sales to value: When you know exactly who customer is and how you can help, your marketing can come from a place of value. Instead of trying to convince someone to work with you, you can focus on creating content that will help your customer.
Stand out from the competition: There is a lot of competition in the market and online. Choosing a target marketing strategy reduces the noise and empowers you to connect with more (specific) customers.
Show up on social: Target marketing can be your answer if you ever struggled with what to share on social. By choosing a specific type of person to target, you can create consistent content designed with them in mind. This takes the guesswork out of social and always gives you something to share.
Still focus on other strategies: If you choose a target marketing approach, it doesn't mean ALL of your business has to come from it. Target marketing can complement other strategies. For example, if 60% of your business comes from referrals, then the majority of your marketing can still be to engage your sphere. However, you can add target marketing into your social media, email, and online strategy to attract a new sector of customers without discouraging those you already work with. In fact, you can shift your perspective to include "referrals," in this case as another avenue of your target marketing.
Agents often struggle with their real estate marketing because they don't have a consistent plan. For target marketing to truly work, it has to be consistent.
The good news? Target marketing can give you the framework to create content and marketing campaigns that are meaningful to your dream customer. We just need to identify who they are first!
My Hybrid Strategy of Target Marketing & Geographic Online Farming:
There are two traditional approaches for real estate target marketing.
Customer Focused: You choose a type of customer such as a "first-time homebuyer" or a profession like "doctors, nurses, and firefighters." In this case, you'd create content to help each type of person and maybe even offer incentives when buying or selling if the customer matches the criteria.
Location-Based or Geographic Farming: Just like traditional "real estate farming," where you choose a neighborhood or smaller community, you can go local online as well. Instead of focusing on a type of customer, it might be "sellers in XYZ neighborhood" or "buyers looking at XYZ communities."
Instead of choosing customer or location-focused, I recommend a hybrid approach.
Real estate is local, and this is a significant opportunity for your marketing! If you simply target "first-time home buyers," you'll be competing online with all of the sites and social accounts geared towards helping first-time homebuyers. From Realtors to lenders to even Zillow, many people are trying to get new buyers' attention.
However, if you put a local spin on it and did "first time home buyers in (insert smaller area)," you're going to attract actual buyers in your market.
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This approach makes it easier for you to be found online and further establishes you as the local agent to help. The same can be said for location-based marketing. When focusing on "real estate in XYZ area," think about a specific type of customer in that area. When you do this, your marketing will become more personal and relatable to that potential customer.
And it's easy to do! Instead of sharing "10 tips for first-time buyers," change it to "10 tips for first-time buyers in Orlando." Likewise, instead of sharing "neighborhoods in Orlando," try incorporating more tailored content such as "the best neighborhoods in Orlando for golfers or (insert customer type)."
Aim to keep your content relevant to your ideal audience and your geographic area. For local real estate, it's much easier to keep it targeted because you're already specific about the area. However, look for opportunities to entice particular types of customers when possible. You don't have to force the two together for everything you do or share, but let this concept be a guiding principle for your marketing.
We're getting specific with the goal of attracting more buyers and sellers to you, establishing your branding, and getting results from your marketing! So, let's begin by identifying that dream home buyer or seller.
And to help you do that, I’ve created a complete Target Marketing Workbook! In it, you'll dive even deeper into the content I'm covering here and find the exact steps to identify and attract your ideal customer to increase your sales! You can download your free copy here.
Identifying Your Target Customer:
Who is your dream home buyer or seller? Where are there opportunities in your market? Where are you already seeing success? Identifying a target customer is one of the first steps of target marketing. To narrow it down:
1) Analyze your past business. If you're an experienced agent, where has your past business come from? Create a list of your past transactions and look for trends. You might be surprised to find out that you are consistently already working with a target audience.
2) Look for opportunities. Opportunities might come from market conditions (consider our seller's markets due to Covid) or in your community itself. For example, new construction might be popular in your area, or a new industry creates jobs for those relocating. On the other hand, you might have joined a team or a brokerage that offers specific services & incentives designed to attract certain types of buyers and sellers. There's always opportunity if you look for it!
3) Consider your competitive advantage: Who you are as a person can also help you attract like-minded customers. Whether you're a busy mom with a career or interested in gardening, what makes you unique, also makes you relatable. You also have room to lean into your own interests and passions to identify customers. And of course, make a note of any particular type of customer you're passionate about serving or looking to work with.
4) Do the research: Take a look at all of your ideas and choose your most promising. Then, determine if there's an actual real estate demand from those types of customers by checking market stats, analyzing transaction history, and even speaking with industry peers & leaders. Some target customers might be obvious for your market.
However, if you're not sure, head to Google and pretend to be your ideal customer. What would they search, and do results come up? You can take it one step further and use tools like Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, or Moz. If nothing comes up, you might be too specific or have chosen a target audience that's not popular. If too much comes up, you might have chosen a competitive target market. While there is still opportunity in competition, be mindful of finding your sweet spot.
And lastly, don't forget to consider social. Would you be able to target this person with strategic content, hashtags on Instagram, or even find your profiles? Social media is a HUGE opportunity for target marketing. In fact, it's my favorite use for REALTORS. If you can establish that your target customer has a real estate need, you can connect with them through social media!
Once you've done the research, you can narrow down your target customer to your best 1-3 ideas. You can always add more later, but it's better to focus on one and go from there. That way, you'll get into the habit of tailoring marketing materials specifically for them and showing up consistently on social.
Creating a Target Customer Profile:
One of the main reasons target marketing works so well for real estate is because it makes the customer feel special. You're not selling them. You're there to help them. And you create this feeling of trust by being the answer to the challenges they face and having the answers to their questions and concerns.
It's essential that you truly understand who they are. From there, you'll be able to create marketing materials, content, and social media posts that speak directly to them. So, when they see your marketing, it makes them stop and engage with you.
It's worth taking the time to make a target customer profile. In it, you'll include information such as their demographics, goals, challenges, objections, and values. From there, you can determine where you're most likely to connect with them, and the type of content you need to create.
To create your target customer profile, be sure to download my target marketing workboook that walks you through the entire process. In the end, you'll have a fully defined customer profile that you can use to attract more business! Get your free copy here.
Choosing a Target Customer Based on Location:
Another option we have for target marketing is through location. Unlike other industries with a store in a location, you are actively selling the lifestyle and real estate! So, you can make areas part of your target customer strategy. However, it still has to be specific!
"Buyers in Orlando" is not a specific target customer. Orlando is a vast area full of smaller communities and thousands of neighborhoods. Not to mention, thousands of other agents want to target "buyers in Orlando." It pays to be specific.
Instead, you could focus on "buyers in smaller communities" or "move-up buyers in a specific neighborhood." And just like earlier, we'll want to use research to ensure we're choosing lucrative areas. In addition to researching what content you can find online and on social about a local area, you can also look at market data. Determine how many homes there are in the area, the average price point & potential equity, and the turnover rate. (You can find this information using tools like Remine through MLS).
You might have your heart set on a luxury neighborhood along the water. However, after further digging, you find that this neighborhood only has 50 homes, and the turnover rate was 2 percent. This data means that only one home was sold in that community in the last year. It might be best to target a larger area that includes that neighborhood or target "luxury waterfront buyers in XYZ area." In fact, "luxury waterfront buyers in XYZ area" is a prime example of how to do my hybrid approach of target customers and online farming.
How to Use Target Marketing to Attract Your Next Customer
Once you've established who you are looking to attract, we can actively incorporate target marketing into your overall marketing strategy.
Take a look at your customer profile and community research. (At this point, you should have narrowed it down to one to three target audiences.) What type of content would they respond to or find value in?
Often, the most effective approach is to provide education. What tips and information could you share with this specific type of customer?
For example, suppose you're targeting "luxury waterfront buyers in XYZ area," from the previous example. In that case, you can create social media posts, blogs, videos, website pages, and marketing collateral specifically for them. Some of the topics might include: "the most luxurious waterfront communities in XYZ area," "the complete guide buying luxury real estate on the XYZ coast," or "3 tips for buying your dream XYZ area waterfront home."
To get started, make a list of questions or concerns this type of customer might have. Next, jot down what are some tips or takeaways that you can share. Finally, note if you have related past testimonials or sold properties you can reference. All of this information can be incorporated into your marketing strategy. You can:
Answer their specific FAQs as posts on social
Go live every week on social and discuss a topic your target customer would care about
Create a video series geared towards helping your target customer meet their real estate goal
Create Instagram Reels with tips and entertaining content they would relate to
Create content on your website specifically to help guide them
Write email campaigns to engage them
Share similar customer testimonials
and continue to "talk" online, on social, and on your website about what matters to your ideal customer!
Remember, for long-term success, you'll want to be consistent.
So, our next step will be to determine the frequency at which we want to create marketing with your customer in mind. I'd recommend adding a target customer to your strategy, to at least begin with once a week. So, once a week, you share a post on social geared towards them. From there, you can increase the frequency and the type of content and campaigns you create. Get into the habit of creating target marketing and grow from there!
Target Marketing in Agent Branding
If you're looking to be known as a go-to agent in real estate, then target marketing could be just the answer you're looking for!
The more you focus on your target customer, the more you'll be known for helping this type of customer. The more you focus your own marketing on a specific area (city, community, or neighborhood), the more you'll be tied into this area.
Both of these strategies help you grow your brand as a real estate agent and be more memorable. But most importantly, it enables you to connect with more customers.
When people feel like you genuinely understand them, then that's the start of a great relationship!
You are there as a resource to help them, not to "sell" them. You know exactly what they're going through and are there to help guide them through it. Best of all? You don't have to convince anyone of your intentions. If you focus on a target marketing strategy, people will start to find you online and on social. They'll see what you're sharing and stop and take notice while you're building trust. And those people you're speaking directly to could be your next home buyer or seller.
So, be sure to grab your target marketing workbook that accompanies this episode. That way, you can fully implement the best practices we talked about today and relate them directly to your business. You can click here to grab it!
UP NEXT:
I’m Heather Colby, host of the “Ideas for Real Estate Podcast.”
If you like what you read here today, I’d encourage you to take a listen to the episodes. :
It's time for seasonal marketing! Fall-themed real estate content and marketing on social media is not only trending, it also works in your Instagram Reels, posts, carousels, and more. The secret is to customize this content with photos and videos of you. So, in today's episode, let's plan an easy fall content shoot for you as a REALTOR to use in your marketing strategies this season!