How to define your ideal target market for your real estate business 

April 28, 2020

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a Realtor®  is trying to be everything to everyone. If you are trying to appeal to everyone, you are appealing to know one. “Everyone is not your customer” as Seth Godin said. He is a marketing guru and author of 18 books, including his most popular “Purple Cow”. He talks constantly about the smallest viable market on his blog, podcasts, and in his books. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but this video and article will explain why this is the best strategy for growing your business and will show you how to find your ideal target market. And make sure the download the free worksheet below to follow along, filling out your information as you go!

What does the smallest viable market mean?

The smallest viable market means what is the minimum amount of houses you’d need to sell to sustain you? Sure, you want to be able to sell hundreds of houses a year and have thousands of people follow you on social media. But what happens is when you focus on the numbers and trying to appeal to everyone, you end up being very average. You seem average because you lose your expertise when you are everything to everyone. Average doesn’t get people excited to use you as their Realtor®. Average is boring and doesn’t make people jump into action. Average means you appeal to them in some ways, and not in others. Everyone ends up being “meh” about you.

People who are excited by you or really like you and what you bring to the table are going to want to work with you. Not only that, but also they will rave about you to their friends, who are likely similar to them and will love you too. They will want to use you as their agent too.

While you probably don’t just want to sustain yourself, you want to thrive, right? That’s the thing. If you serve this niche of people who are the minimum audience, like I mentioned, they will rave about you to others. And what I bet you will find is this market is bigger than you think.

Now that you understand why the smallest viable market is so important, let’s find your ideal audience.

How to find your ideal target audience

“A target market is the specific group of people you want to reach with your marketing message.” – Hootsuite 

They are the people who are most likely to become a client of yours and typically have  similar behaviors and interests. Once you have defined this group, it’s easier to speak to them because you know what they like, don’t like, pain points they have, and can serve them better.

It’s creating a specific person, an avatar, that you speak to anytime you advertise or write content. Anytime you think about an aspect of your business, I want you to think “Would my avatar be into this?” “Would my avatar care about this?” “Does my avatar hang out on this social media platform?” I’d recommend even giving your avatar a name. Becky or Sam or whatever feels right for you. Create a story around Becky’s life. The more specific you can be, the better you will be able to talk directly to her. And there are a lot  Beckys out there. So let’s find your Becky!

1. Find people similar to your favorite past clients

Who was fun to work with? Who did you jive with that you looked forward to talking to? These people make your job enjoyable and would make your life so much easier if you had more clients like them, right? So why not find more people similar to them.

What life-stage are they in? What pain points did you help them solve? What questions did they ask? What did they enjoy doing for hobbies or how did they spend their time? What industries did they work in? Asking all these questions will help you find more similar to these people.

You can take this a step further and ask them what they enjoyed about working with you. This will help you hone in to find others that are similar to this audience. Maybe they liked you texting them instead of calling them. Maybe they liked how aggressive you were negotiating for them. THESE are the things you should be talking about on your website, your social media, and any advertising that you are doing. This is what is going to attract others that are similar to you.

If you don’t have a ton of past clients, write a list of traits your ideal client would have and speak to those interests.

2. Find people who are similar to you

Are you at retirement age looking to downsize, are you a newlywed thinking about a bigger place that will hold kids? Are you the type of person that wants to live downtown where all the action is or someone who wants a lot of land in the country and maybe some chickens? Are you a transplant to the area? Knowledge you have and things you are interested in will attract others looking or into similar things.

We attract people who are similar to us.  Chances are people want to work with an agent that is similar to them. The same things that would be important to you is likely going to be important to your ideal client too.

If you hate wearing a suit and curse a lot, someone who dresses up and is offended by cursing isn’t going to vibe with you. And why change who you are appease everyone? Again, that is vanilla and you are chocolate chip cookie dough or spicy strawberry or even green tea ice cream (my personal favorite). But if you are vanilla, be 100% vanilla! Don’t try and be vanilla to some and spicy strawberry to other. Point being, be your authentic self and you will attract others similar to you.

3. Know the value you bring and what you are most knowledgeable about

What value to you bring will help you define what your ideal client would be interested in. Are you really familiar with a certain area of town? Have you had a ton of experience with quick closings? Do you know your knowledge will best serve first time home buyers or the luxury market? Knowing what value you bring to the table with help you define your ideal client.

Defining these three things above will help you talk to a specific person and help you grow your client base. It will make you a better agent and allow you to grow your business more than you could imagine!

Are there other ways that helped you define your target market? Let’s discuss in the comments below!