04.04.05

Niche marketing can bring you great real estate rewards in a crowded market

By Joanne Victoria

You shower, shampoo, dress your best, check to see if you have plenty of business cards, drive about an hour, introduce yourself by saying "Hi, I’m Mary and I’m a coach" and the other person says, "Hi, I’m Jack and I’m a coach, too!". You meet more coaches than you knew existed. How do you get business when you are surrounded by what may be perceived as your competition?

Here’s a great strategy to create fantastic outcomes.

Time is precious and you can’t get it back, so it needs to be used wisely. For those of you who have limited time or don’t have much of a desire to network, but you know you have to, try niche marketing. As you target your work market for clients, you can target or focus your networking market using the same skills.

As an example, what if your target industry is real estate? Your target markets could include the bank, mortgage, real estate and insurance companies. Your target audience then becomes banking executives and mortgage brokers, real estate brokers and real estate and insurance sales people.

What do next? Follow these 7 methods:

1. Research these audiences in your area, determine their association meeting places, and invite yourself as a guest.
   
   Remember, the smaller the niche, the bigger the reward. If you go deep within your industry, you become the expert in your field and the possibilities are endless.
   
   
2. If part of your marketing plan is speaking presentations, you could also get yourself a free booking at any of these organizations with your target audiences. Yes, I said free.
   
   If you are willing to spend your time milling about an obscure cocktail party venue with unknown quantities, you could easily put together a 30-minute presentation in front of your entire market. You will create new relationships, save time and make more money.
   
   
3. Here’s the drill. Grab your yellow pad and let’s get going!

A. Use one page at a time and place the sample industry, Real Estate, in the center.

B. Without conscious thought, jot down anything that comes to mind in relationship to Coaching in the Real Estate industry. You can help these people in many ways.

C. Your final document, or at least one of them, should look like a sunburst, with your industry, the sun, and your market, the rays.

D. You could extend this piece even further by adding another dimension, your audience. The sun is the industry, with lines as the sun’s rays representing your market and lines off these representing your audiences.



4. Check your local business newspapers for anything close to what you have chosen. Refer to the yellow pages if you’re not familiar with these publications or associations.
   
   
5. When you get a copy of these business newspapers, check their calendars for meetings in your industry or market.
   
   
6. Visit your local Chambers of Commerce, check the membership list and get brochures of businesses in your target industry, target market and target audience.
   
   
7. Go to the reference section of your business library and review the Major State, Regional and National Trade and Professional Associations of the United States.
   
   The Association books have subjects by index, so if you did this today and went to "Real Estate, National", you would discover a minimum of 60 associations! This does not even include State & Regional.
   

So, pick up that phone, start dialing and enjoy niche marketing. With this exercise, you will have a major part of your year’s marketing and networking successfully managed.