Politics are micro-targeting their business, or in their case, voters in almost every election cycle. They are analyzing billions of bits of data to target potential voters that are willing to vote in their direction. They are very actively making sure that that person votes on the day of the elections. Soft drink companies plaster their branding all over the points of sale like gas stations, restaurants, etc. In real estate, I target sellers by going after the people who own homes.
Why do you want to micro-market your business? The best reason I can come up with is that I can’t afford to effectively market my business to EVERYONE. If I can cut out the people who don’t need my service and in addition, remove the people I DON’T want to work with, I can reach more potential A+ clients. I read an article that said prospective clients need to see a message 7 times before they will start to trust the message. Andrea Stenberg illustrates how in marketing you need to “touch” the person 7 or more times in a consistent way for them to start to “trust” your product or service. Narrow your marketing down into micro-markets, find out the cost for contacting them 7 times, and expand that to as many people who will comfortably fit within your marketing budget. Keep in mind that your 7 touches per potential client should be significantly less than what you would profit from a successful transaction. That should be talked about more in marketing plan budgeting.
How do you define your Micro-Market. The idea here is to find out the who, what, when, where, and why of a potential client of yours. Then try to find places where these people go, in particular, right before they would need your service. In my business, everyone needs a place to live or work so anyone could be a potential client, but I want to market to my most ideal client. DON’T MARKET TO PEOPLE YOU DON’T WANT TO WORK WITH. This is another part of micro-marketing and exactly what politicians want to do as well. They don’t want to encourage voters of the other party to go vote, just like I don’t want to spend money targeting people outside of my target fields, areas, or price ranges.
Defining the who in my real estate business plan. Anyone looking to buy or sell real estate around Mystic CT who I don’t want to work with would be other real estate agents or their clients, large commercial business transactions, low price leases and rentals, or people who can not afford to buy a house but want to look anyway. In theory, anyone “could” be in the market to buy real estate so that is a very broad market. The internet is a great place to target potential buyers by finding people interested in market trends, prices of particular neighborhoods, or investigating different schools for their family. Sellers are a little easier; anyone who owns property may one day need to sell that property. Again, this still remains a very broad database.
The “what” is the area of real estate I want to focus on. You can choose to do all real estate, commercial, residential, land, rentals, or even vacation homes. Determining the specific market you want to be in will help to define where you will spend your marketing dollars. Unless you have a large amount of funds, you want to narrow it down so you can saturate your market enough to have a real impact. As you grow, you can broaden your scope.
When do people buy and sell real estate? This seems to be linked closely with the why people sell real estate. The easy answer is that their current situation no longer meets their needs. So what are those needs? Size and layout are the most common reasons for moving in our area. Either they are a growing family/business or shrinking business/empty-nesters/divorce/death. A job relocation is another common reason. If you wanted to target a growing family, look for places to advertise where there would be babies or young children. Orthodontists, pediatricians, and dentists may be an opportunity.
People who have already raised their family and have less need for multiple bedrooms may be looking to downsize. Possibly targeting families with 16-20 year olds may be a good market. High school sports and after-school activities may be a good place to brand yourself.
The point of this article is to realize that you want to maximize your marketing potential by minimizing your waste. If every dollar you spent was toward A and A+ clients in the exact areas you want to focus, you would be happier and more profitable in the long run.
