Scratch that niche
Targeted marketing goes beyond farming.

by Mark Nash  Ask yourself this question: Before you were in real estate sales, how many of those fliers, newsletters, recipe cards, and calendars that you received from a real estate agent “farming” your neighborhood went straight into your wastebasket?

Studies indicate that return on direct-mail advertising is somewhere below 2%. Wouldn’t it make more sense to direct all that time, energy, and money formerly spent on developing a geographic farm into building relationships or a niche with potential clients? Now ask yourself: How many other agents in your community are also marketing to the same geographical farm that you do?

With your farm saturated and do-not-call rules, what’s an agent to do? Consider niche or target marketing, also known as relationship selling. Niche marketing was the success story of consumer-products advertising in the 1990s. Consumer-product manufacturers realized that generalized marketing was expensive and was not generating response or sales, because companies were attempting to reach too broad a market. Targeting specific groups, or niches, and building a relationship with them brought manufacturers increased sales from a more-focused message to a group that has shared goals, beliefs, or history. The message wasn’t “buy now”; it was, “We understand you have specific needs, and we want to build a relationship with you.”

This new marketing strategy paid off because manufacturers took the time to study and survey their potential consumers on how they developed an affinity for a product or service.

You can utilize the same strategy to develop a niche in your real estate business. First, you must have a sincere belief and interest in the niche. Second, you have to give back to the niche with your time or financial support (or both). If you look at a niche only with dollar signs in your eyes, you will likely fail to make a connection with that group.

Some examples of niches are community interests, political and professional organizations, spiritual interests, sports, and gender. Here’s an example of how to take one of these niches and develop a more focused sub-niche to market to:

Niche: Women
Sub niche: Women single heads of household
Sub-sub niche: Women single heads of households who are first-time buyers
Sub-sub-sub niche: Women single heads of households who are first-time buyers in Deerfield.

From my own experience, this is an under-served niche. A referral client of mine never thought she could afford to buy a home as a single head of household. After conditioning herself that she would be a life-long renter, she cried the day she closed on her own home. She went to her single-mothers support group and shared her homebuying story. Other single mothers from her support group are calling to begin their home searches. A mortgage broker and I have proposed to sponsor and host a quarterly homebuying seminar for that client’s support group.

To further explore the niche of female single heads of household who are first-time homebuyers in a particular area, you could perform an Internet search. Use a search engine, such as Google, to locate support groups. You might also inquire about support groups at your branch library or with social services provided by the city or other organizations. Daycare centers and neighborhood associations might also provide you with resources.

What niche will work for you? Explore your interests, talk to people about theirs, and keep your ears and eyes open. Any group, activity, interest, or set of circumstances that binds people together can make a successful niche.

The professional and personal rewards from having a niche in my real estate business make my geographic farm look like finding needles in a haystack.

Mark Nash (mnash@coldwellbanker.com) is a broker associate with Coldwell Banker in Evanston, Illinois. He is the author of several real estate books, including Reaching Out: The Financial Power of Niche Marketing. His latest title, Fundamentals of Real Estate Marketing, will be published this year.

home   current issue    top 10    resources 

discussions   contact us   search

Buyers & sellers, visit www.texasrealestate.com.
REALTORS®, visit www.texasrealtors.com.