Understand your target market and grow your income
To grow any business, you need to understand your target market.
Specifically, you need to understand the problem your potential customers are trying to solve. If you can speak to that problem and provide solutions, you're business will thrive.
In a real estate context, we could describe our key target market as:
Homeowners looking to sell in the next 6-12 months.
Note: Why 6-12 months? Why not 3 weeks from selling? If owners are weeks from selling, they probably already have a relationship with a real estate salesperson (if not 2 or 3). At that stage, you're coming in cold and it's hard to win unless you are the cheapest option. Ideally, you want to meet future sellers early in their process to build a relationship, demonstrate proficiency and increase your chances of winning the business when they are ready to go on the market.
For an owner 6-12 months from selling, what problem are they trying to solve?
Put yourself in your customer's shoes. What are their challenges? What questions do they have?
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Questions owners 6+ months from selling might be pondering:
- What's my house worth?
- Should I keep this home as a rental?
- What is the best way to sell this home?
- How long will it take to sell?
- Is it a good time to sell? What's the market like right now?
- How do I buy when I have a home to sell? Do I need to sell first, then buy?
- Do I need to make repairs before I sell?
- Do I need to renovate before I sell?
- How do I add maximum value before selling?
- Will people want my home?
- What are the next steps?
- How do I find the best real estate salesperson?
- How much will it cost to sell my home?
Our job is to become experts at answering those questions.
If we want our marketing to be effective at bringing in listings, then it should speak to these specific questions, and provide answers where possible.
Put simply...
Give enough people what they want (answers to their biggest questions) and you'll get what you want (more listings and commissions).
Now, most salespeople are excellent at answering these questions in person at an appraisal appointment. The problem is, if you never get called in, then it doesn't matter how good you are. You'll never get the chance to show owners how helpful you can be.
So my suggestion, and in fact the entire point of Agent Monday, is to proactively answer those questions for owners in your marketing, before you meet them in person, using:
- Email newsletters
- Posted newsletters
- Direct mail campaigns
- Flyers
- Blog posts
- Social media posts
- Podcasts
- Open homes
Click here for 12 ways to reach your target market using Agent Monday content.
Help your target market answer their biggest questions and you'll massively increase your chances of making the shortlist when they are ready to choose a real estate professional.
More than that, it's just a cool way to do real estate. Helping people is fun, it's rewarding and it works.
Now go out there and make it happen!
Till next time,
Andrew
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