Real Estate Marketing Campaigns: Aim Before You Shoot

I received the Google Analytics newsletter the other day in the mail and it got me thinking about long tail keywords. I shifted my thinking more generally to targeting your prospects.  Because that’s what using long tail keywords is really about, after all – honing in on the prospects that are searching specifically for what you offer.

What’s in it for me?

Let’s do a thought experiment: Imagine you’re looking for someone to clean up and fix the houses you buy before you flip them.  You happen, just as you’re thinking about it, to get three postcards in the mail. #1 Sunshine home cleaning Weekly, biweekly, monthly Call Rosie 555-123-4567 #2 Mrs. Clean and Mr. Fix-It Home cleaning and repair Good quality.  Great rates. Call Bill 555-123-4567 #3 Real Estate Investors! Need someone to fix and clean your properties So you can flip them, fast And maximize the sales price? Call Fix-N-Flip Cleaning and Repair Today 123-456-7891 Who would you call?  Fix-N-Flip, of course.  Not because their ad is flashier, or even better written, but because it speaks directly to you - to your needs.  It offers you an immediate solution to your particular problem. And that’s the key.  When you’re marketing to your prospects, think “WIIFM” – in other words, “What’s In It for Me?”  Your prospects don’t care what you can do, they care what you can do for them.  In the ad example above, the third postcard was so successful (in selling to real estate investors) because it said specifically what Fix-N-Flip can do for you, the investor.

What do your prospects care about?

Of course, if you’re going to target your prospects’ needs when you market to them, you have to somehow figure what those needs are.  How can you do that?  Well. . .

• You could put together a focus group. There are professional firms that can set up and manage focus groups for you, but that can get a bit pricey.  For the more economy-minded investor, you could do informal focus groups yourself by calling up your current and past clients.  Ask them what problems and needs drove them to you.  Ask them what you offered that was better than all of the other investors out there.

• You could do a survey.  There are a number of firms that charge a relatively low fee to and manage an online survey for you (or you can do it on your own for little to nothing).  You could post it on your website and e-mail it to your database.  You could even offer a modest prize for survey responders (though you want to make sure that you get well-reasoned answers).

I have a feeling that, at this point, a lot of you have begun to zone out.  “Focus groups?  Surveys?   I buy and sell real estate for a living,” I can hear you say.  And while it may sound weird – like something only Fortune 500 companies do, I assure you that’s not the case. Not only are the most successful real estate investors and agents asking their clients, past clients and prospects what they care about – in order to target their marketing – many find it an essential element of their success.  Perhaps you will, too. Onward and upward. Molly Castelazo Photo credit: Microsoft