You Talkin’ to Me? Defining Your Real Estate Marketing Audience

You need to know who your target audience is...and no, it’s not “everyone.”

Ever gotten a call from a wrong number? Ever had the person launch straight into the conversation, addressing you by the wrong name, and leaving you wondering what exactly was happening? Seriously, who is Linda and why does she need to get those chicken nuggets out of your pantry? Also, why are they in your pantry (yes, this was a real call I got once)?!

That’s what it’s like to market to the wrong audience. 

We talk about audience A LOT! In fact, we mention your audience in almost every single article because audience is a major part of marketing. So...what exactly does that mean? And why does knowing your audience even matter?

What is “my audience” and why do I need to define it?

In the most general sense, your audience is the group of people who see and interact with your business online. In marketing, your target audience is extremely important, which is a slightly different group. Your target audience is the group of people your business hopes to work with, i.e. your potential customers.

In other words, your target audience is the pool of people you hope to get leads, and eventually sales, from. That makes them a super important group of people! Marketing, then, is the tool that you use to attract these people and turn them into clients. Which brings us to the main point: you need to define this group!

How can you market to a group of people that you don’t know? Even if you have the best information, greatest listings, and most amazing agents, if you’re talking to the wrong people you won’t get very far. Think of it this way: if you saw an ad in a different language advertising a product you’ve never heard of, made by a company you know nothing about, would you buy this mysterious item? No way! Running any kind of marketing without defining your audience does just that.

But isn’t it bad to limit my marketing?

Not really. Here’s the thing: there’s a lot of marketing out there. We are constantly bombarded by advertisements online, in print, watching TV, walking around, when we’re driving, on the radio...you get my point. Ads are literally everywhere. Sure, if you have billions in cash to burn, you can just slap your name and sales pitch everywhere and hope for the best. But that’s a really bad strategy - and most of us are working with limited budgets.

Would you take the time to tour a bunch of houses with an 8-year-old who can’t buy a house for a good 20 years in the hopes that she remembers you when she’s 28? Seriously, that’s ridiculous. Marketing to everyone is the same thing. 

For real estate pros, some of your targeting is built in automatically. You’re licensed to work in a specific region, so that’s your target area. If you sell residential property, then your audience would be people looking to buy a house. If you specialize in leasing commercial property, your audience would be business owners/decision makers. So when you’re running any marketing, the same kind of logic needs to be applied - especially online. For example, why would you have ads promoting a million-dollar home to college freshmen?

The key to effective digital marketing, and really marketing in general, is getting your message and brand in front of the right people. So you need to figure out who those “right people” are and where they tend to be.

Ok, I get it, so how do I do this?

A great place to start is to look at your existing customers. Who are you already working with, and why have those relationships been a success (or failure)? You also want to look at your specialty and think about who it would benefit. If you generally sell a small starter home, that would benefit a very different group than a brand new office complex. After an initial brainstorm of what’s working and not working already, it’s time to do some fact-finding.

When you’re looking into your ideal audience, there are a lot of places to look, including: 

• Your own website and Analytics: Look into what kinds of people are coming to your site, what channels are sending them to you, and which ones are actually contacting you once they’re on your site. (Don’t have a website? Head here. Don’t have Analytics set up? Check this out.) 
• Your competitors’ websites and social media pages: Your competition is a great place to get inspiration for what you can improve and what you’re already doing well at. Taking some time to do a quick competitor analysis is key to not only defining your audience but also knowing what you’re going up against. 
• Do some keyword research: keyword research is important to keeping your site’s SEO in top shape, but it’s also a great way to look into what your audience is searching for online. You can check out our tips for keyword research here. 

There are lots of other ways to get insight as well. 

• Send a survey out to existing clients to find out what they liked and disliked about working with you. 
• Read up on industry best practices and standards to see what other pros are doing. 
• Talk to your friends and acquaintances to see what their impression of your business and branding is. (This is a great way to see if your brand and messaging matches what you think it should.)

By figuring out who you want to work with, you can then tailor your marketing and overall branding to match what those people like or need. Audience targeting can be as complicated and in-depth as you want. Your business as a whole might have a larger audience than that of a specific listing. The key to keeping your marketing efforts running smoothly and effectively is knowing who your “right people” are.

Bottom Line

If you want to get your brand in front of the right people, you need to define your audience. By researching and defining the group of people you want to work with, you can make your marketing dollars go further by investing in the right ads, platforms, etc. Once you’ve defined your target audience, go where they are! How do you do that? Check out our tips for picking the right platforms here.