Not Knowing Your Audience
- The Orange Stack
- Feb 12, 2018
- 3 min read
This is the third installment in our 11-part series on social media mistakes real estate agents are making. In the last two we covered why social media is such a big deal for real estate agents, and why not implementing social media as part of your marketing strategy is a bad idea. Today we’ll be looking at another mistake real estate agents make when marketing: not knowing their audience.
Marketing science is about analyzing an audience and discovering what psychological triggers influence a purchase decision. As a real estate agent, this is critical. Mostly because as you deal with buyers or sellers, you need to know what to say and/or do to get that signature down on paper.
Most real estate agents achieve this through a trial and error approach. They try several things and carefully curate what works and what does not. This is probably why most successfully real estate agents will chalk down their success to years of experience.
As a new and aspiring real estate agent, you do not have the luxury of having years of experience working in your favor. Instead, figure out who your customers are and what motivates them to make purchase or sale decisions and you will be well on your way to closing more deals.
Here we’ll share a few questions you can ask yourself and your leads as you seek to understand their motivations better.
But first, the 80/20 Rule
Also known as the Pareto principle, the 80/20 rule states that in most events, 80% of effects arise from 20% of causes. In your case as a real estate agent, this means 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your leads.
Conversely, 20% of your revenue will come from 80% of your leads. This makes knowing your audience even more important as you do not want to invest heavily in the 80% of leads that only brings in 20% of your revenue. You want to focus all your efforts on the golden 20%.
Now that you know there’s a small portion of your leads that will bring you the largest sales, how do you identify them? Here are the questions to ask:
Where does this segment spend most of their time?
This means both online and offline. Are they on Facebook? Do they attend certain events in your neighborhood? Are they inclined to certain groupings (for example, club memberships)? If you know where they spend most of their time, then you know where to reach them with your messaging.
What sort of content do they consume?
In this case, content may refer to local news content, trade-related content, profession-related content, statistical and data-oriented content, entertainment content, etc. Knowing what sort of content they consume will help you tailor your messaging to fit in with that they are used to consuming.
Do they have pain points you can address?
More specifically, do they have pain points relevant to your business that you can address. These could be issues related to the buying/ selling process, how to get/ negotiate a mortgage, what a buyer/ seller contract contains, etc.
These are likely issues that may be causing your target audience anxiety as they think about buying or selling a home. Articulating and communicating answers to these issues well will give you a significant lead over other agents competing for the same business.
How do you build your social capital with them?
Your audience needs to know you are the best at what you do. They need to know you have the answers to their pressing issues. They need to know you can deliver the value they are looking for in a real estate agent. Build your social capital and turn it into social proof through email newsletters, testimonial videos, and other media will mean they will look to you for answers when the time comes.
Other more pointed questions you can ask are:
What income bracket are they in?
How many children (if any) do they have?
Are they married?
What are their top 10 questions about the buying/ selling process?
Which part of the buying/ selling process are they most apprehensive about?
Etc.
Knowing your audience is two thirds the journey towards closing more leads. If you spend time here, you can’t go wrong when it comes to convincing your leads to close on their deals.
Comments