Niche Marketing: Becoming a Real Estate Expert in One Area Can Reap Big Rewards

Byplusroi

Niche marketing dovetails into the secret for success in real estate—focus. When you choose a niche for yourself, you identify a geographical area, a client profile or a property profile that helps you concentrate your knowledge and target your marketing activities. Creating a niche business and marketing system to go with it offers multiple rewards.

Lower Marketing Costs

By definition, having a niche means that your marketing can be more focused and targeted. This can reduce the number of printed marketing pieces like postcards that you need to send, since you aren’t mailing the phone book. Furthermore, having a niche can make it easier for you to get free marketing that’s tied to your niche. Whether you’re getting word of mouth within a concentrated pool of clients or free press in a local newspaper, all of these tools help to spread your niche marketing message with less out of pocket cost on your part.

Higher Marketing Effectiveness

Lower marketing cost is meaningless if it brings lower effectiveness. However, a niche marketing strategy should be highly effective for three reasons:

  • The reduced size of a niche marketing campaign makes it practical to send out highly targeted materials that reference a client’s name or property more specifically and, as such, are more likely to both receive the prospect’s attention and to get the prospect to review and consider them.
  • These campaigns can include information that’s of specific interest to the prospect. While a city-wide campaign might have to be generic, one targeted at cottage owners could contain tips on maintaining this style of home that could drive more interest and, more importantly, more inbound calls.
  • Targeted niche materials are more likely to be remembered. Repeatedly delivering marketing messages that get the prospect’s attention doesn’t just build one-time conversions. It also creates a linkage between you and your brand in your prospect’s mind. Instead of being one of many real estate agents, for example, you become the local cottage expert, and as such, the only person to contact for questions about buying and selling log houses.

Niche marketing also opens up new marketing opportunities. For instance, pay-per-click advertising usually works best with highly focused keyword searches. Someone looking for a “real estate agent” might not be a good lead for you, while a search for a “cottage agent in metro Detroit” is likely to be bringing in a probable buyer. That potentially makes the ad more effective. It can also reduce the competition, making the ad less expensive.

Greater Referral Business

As you build your niche marketing campaign, you also make it easy for people to refer you to business. This is especially true if you focus on a niche that’s likely to have a closely-knit pool of owners. Tight geographical niches are good examples of this. While many agents serve Los Angeles, a very limited number would focus on a small L.A. community like Topanga. Building that niche makes it easier for clients to remember and refer you.

Improved Transactional Metrics

Finally, a niche business doesn’t just have marketing benefits. It also makes you a more effective agent. Your specialized knowledge allows you to price listings more accurately, identify likely buyers, write offers that are likely to be accepted by local appraisers and lenders, and turn contracts into paychecks. In the end, you end up sending out a different type of niche marketing piece—thank you gifts for your clients!

Halo Programs helps real estate agents build targeted niche marketing campaigns and specializes in client follow-up and lead generation programs. Contact us to learn more.