Understanding your target real estate market takes effort.  If you don’t have time to invest that effort, here’s how to serve your target real estate market without understanding it:

1. Create a website that contains only standard information.  It’s easy to do.  Just copy some text from the Wikipedia or upload some packaged reports.
2. Without knowledge about your target market, you can’t get any more specific, so don’t identify a niche.
3. Since you’re not sure what your prospects want, don’t describe the competitive advantages prospects will get when they work with you.
4. Keep your “about” page focused on you; set it up like a resume, avoiding any strong marketing message.
5. Don’t try to put compelling propositions on your website or in your marketing materials.  Unless you know what will excite your prospects, coming up with effective calls to action is really tough.
6. Work really hard to attract prospects with a totally generic marketing plan.
7. Find a “real job” when your real estate business doesn’t generate enough revenue to pay your mortgage.

This topic came to mind the other day.  I was talking to a client about the content she wanted us to put on her website.  As we discussed various alternatives, this client did an excellent job of describing why one topic would be of interest to her target market, and why she felt another would fall flat.

Once more, that made me think about the number of people I work with who have no idea about the needs, wants or characteristics of their target real estate market.  If we want to add a truly outstanding offer to their site that will be most likely to encourage visitors to register. . .  well, we really can’t because the agent is clueless as to what would fit that criteria.

I can suggest ideas or ask questions to try to pin down what someone’s prospects really want.  But, unless the agent has been paying attention and compiling an overall view of the prospects in their target market, all the questions in the world aren’t going to help.

So, take some time to start writing your own post entitled ”How I Can Best Serve My Target Market”, or something similar.  You don’t have to publish it anywhere.  Just use it to fire up your marketing strategies!

P.S. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, the 7 steps listed above aren’t for real. 

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