Marketing Plan

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

In recent articles, I’ve talked about how to Define Your Goals, Know Your Clients, and Evaluate Your Competitors. The fourth pillar of a solid marketing foundation is to know your business environment. read full entry

Conducting a competitive analysis means looking at who your competitors do, what they are offering, and how they market themselves. The bulk of your competition probably comes from a combination of other local real estate agents, the internet, and FSBOs. But how much do you actually know about how your competition does business?

Do some competitive research to learn who their clients are, any new listings they’ve received, new hires, home turnaround times, and any press releases and articles they’ve recently published. read full entry

When planning your marketing strategy, it’s important to understand why clients might hire you as their real estate agent. When you uncover their specific problems, concerns and frustrations, as well as what they liked and disliked about working with you, you can improve your marketing materials and your services considerably.

Your clients are a wealth of (usually untapped) information that can offer an outside perspective of your firm. Take them to lunch or send them a letter asking them to evaluate your performance and how satisfied they are with your service. After all, your clients know what your strengths and weaknesses are because they’ve worked with you and have seen your processes first hand. They can tell you areas where you excel and areas that need improvement.

They can also give you insight on why they chose your firm initially. This is especially good to know when clients switch from a competing real estate agent to you. Happy clients don’t switch, so learning why they switched can give you real insight into your clients’ expectations. read full entry

Setting goals and planning is the first step to creating your real estate marketing strategy. Goals help you clarify who you are and where you see your business in the future. In Brian Tracy’ book, Goals, he writes “The number one reason for failure is action without planning. People who say that they are too busy to plan in advance must be prepared for unnecessary mistakes and great losses of time, money, and energy.” read full entry

Have clear and concise goals that you’re excited about achieving

The first step to any marketing plan requires setting measurable goals and objectives. Ask yourself – where are you now, and where do you want to be in a year? In 5 years?

Now that you have a vision of the gap between where you are and where you want to be, ask yourself what has been preventing you from accomplishing those goals. Are you closer to achieving them than when you first started or do you feel that you have a mental block – perhaps they seem too overwhelming or impossible? Do you believe they are possible to achieve? Honestly ask yourself if you are strongly committed to making those goals a reality.

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