Target Market

It may seem counter-intuitive, but not all prospects make good clients. Sometimes it’s best to turn away business, rather than deal with energy draining clients who don’t value your services and will never refer business to you. Have you identified which clients are ideal for you?

By identifying and clarifying the characteristics of your ideal clients, you define the types of people that make your work purposeful and a pleasure to serve. Why would you want to do business with people that clash with your personality, always complain about something, or suck the energy out of you? read full entry

A common concern many real estate agents have when considering choosing a target market is narrowing their focus. They don’t want to turn business away or leave money on the table or put all their eggs in one basket. They want to cast as broad a net as possible and do business with whoever comes their way. read full entry

How can you tell if a market segment will be profitable? There’s no hard and fast rule that will tell you “yes, this is profitable” or “no, it isn’t”. However, researching the data on your target market can be useful.

Here’s a quick way to analyze a market if you have a geographic focus. (Note: you’ll have to do some research and crank some numbers. Most of this stuff isn’t something you’ll find just by searching the internet.) read full entry

Narrowing your focus to a real estate niche is one of the best marketing strategies you can use. Here are five characteristics to consider when choosing your target market. read full entry

When many real estate agents get into business, they take on any clients they can find. Later, when they start to consider specializing for a real estate niche, they realize they have a hodge-podge of past clients who may or may not share similar characteristics.

To start narrowing your focus, look at your current and past clients and identify characteristics and motivations that they share. Once you analyze your client base, you can group those clients with similar traits into groups. read full entry

Choosing a real estate niche and positioning yourself as a specialist is fundamental to your marketing success. By choosing a niche, you can focus your resources on those people who are most likely to do business with you.

If you haven’t worked with many clients, you can choose your target market by narrowing down your focus from the overarching market of “home buyers” or “home sellers.” This method breaks those categories into smaller, more manageable subgroups. Here are some ways to segment your market. read full entry

Narrowing your focus by choosing a target market is the first step to creating a successful real estate marketing plan. Your time and money are limited, so you must find a way to reach the right prospects affordably. Trying to target “anyone who plans to buy or sell a home in the next six months” is too broad and vague – where will you find these people and how will you reach them affordably? It’s very difficult to do on a limited budget. When you narrow your focus, you can focus your resources on specific people who are more likely to have a need for your services. read full entry

Before you can start marketing to prospects, you have to know who you’re marketing to. That means uncovering the types of people that are inclined to buy your service, what their motivations are for buying, and why they might buy from you or your competitors.

At any given point, only a small percentage of the population will have a need for your services. As a licensed real estate agent, you’ll have to narrow that down further to doing business in the states you are licensed. But simply picking a geographic area isn’t specific enough in most cases. read full entry

A national survey by Wells Fargo Home Mortgage finds that first time buyers are picky. Here are some interesting stats. read full entry

This month’s Realtor Magazine had an interesting article on the demographics of women homebuyers. These single women make up 21% of all buyers – that’s 1.7 million, making them the second largest home buying category next to married couples. And these women aren’t just single moms or divorcees, but now include a younger crowd of women in their 20s. Some are even buying second properties to rent out as additional income. And the median price that women spend on property is very close to what single men spend – $139,000 vs $142,000.

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