Real Estate Marketing: Dominate Your Niche With The Right Mix
Having a good real estate marketing mix is key to excellent and sustainable results. How do you master that?
Some real estate investors have done very well throwing themselves hard into one strategy of generating leads and new business. That could be referrals, blogging, Twitter, or direct mail. However, in order to truly achieve consistency in deal flow and income, to avoid missing out on business, and to gain and maintain market share, investors really need a good marketing mix. Without that industry, regulatory, and competition changes, or just common mistakes can derail an otherwise very healthy and profitable business or career.
So, what are the steps savvy investors take to develop a strong marketing mix to maximize their success?
Choose Your Niche
Deciding on a niche is a crucial step to success. Trying to appeal to everyone rarely works. By owning a niche investors are able to focus their efforts and budget. That makes marketing more affordable and maximizes ROI. There is no right choice of niche. Pick your own. This can be a geographical area, type of property, price range, a certain lifestyle, or a combination of these things.
Understand Your Niche Prospects
Once you’ve determined your niche, you can then begin researching and defining your ideal prospects for marketing. Create a detailed profile. Who are they? How much money do they make? What do they do for work? What types of vehicles do they drive? What types of devices do they use? Where do they shop, eat, and live? How do they spend their days? The more precise you are in this, the more effective your marketing, and the better the results and returns. Use this information to create a one page profile which you can refer to, use as a guide, and share with your team and outside marketing partners.
Identify the Right Marketing Channels
Equipped with your profile, start matching that up with marketing channels. Weigh your on and offline marketing options. Specifically look for those that will complement each other. For example; you may be targeting a specific neighborhood, which predominately works in a specific area of town. So, you may determine that signs along that commute will work well in tandem with direct mail, commute time radio ads, and then a mix of Google ads and social media in the evening and on the weekends when they are most active online. You could be hitting these people five times a day. Whenever they think about buying, selling, or investing in real estate, or run into someone who is, your brand will be right there.
Create Consistent Branding & Messaging
Of course, this is only as powerful if your brand and messaging is consistent. Have a clearly identifiable brand image and logo. Have easy to recognize colors, tag lines, and even contact numbers and website domain names. Your prime prospects should not only have your brand at the top of their mind constantly, but be able to instinctively recall your phone number, website, and email. They shouldn’t have to think about it, or look it up. You want them to be able to share it from memory, or to connect whenever they have time and a need or question.
Marketing Budget
Before plowing into marketing, make sure you have your budget right. Some types of real estate marketing takes time to pay off. All marketing will see results compounded over time. The best thing that investors can do is to carefully set a budget which they can sustain for at least several months. As the results come in that budget can be expanded and scaled.
Optimize
Then be sure to track results from all of the marketing you are doing. Know exactly where your deals are coming from and how much money they are producing. Only then can you weight your budget effectively, optimize marketing, and continue to hone everything. Keep tracking, keep analyzing, keep optimizing. Too many investors and business owners don’t enjoy this part, or say they don’t have time. That’s just throwing away money. If tracking the numbers isn’t your thing, at least hire someone else to watch the data and interpret the numbers for you.
