Niche marketing - we have all heard that term before. "You just have to find you're niche." How may times have you heard that before? I was told that many times, and I kept waiting to find it, but it just never showed up. The waiting game nearly put me out of the business! I wasn't sure what my niche was so I figured that I would market a little to alot of niches and that the one that was mine would just present itself.
My first attempt at finding a niche was 'first time home buyers'. Great idea, but WHICH first time home buyers? The ones coming out of apartments? The ones fresh from college? Families? Couples? Singles? Bad credit? Good credit? No credit? I had no idea! My ads looked like something from a Chinese menu: just take one option from column A and one from Column B...you get the picture. My idea of niche marketing was to appeal to everyone and then work with the ones that responded...so my niche was people that answered my ads. Strike One! What to do?
Next I spent months trying to develop my image - my next attempt at niche marketing was 'brand imaging'. I got the website and the flyer's and the new cards and the pictures and the scripts and on and on. In fact I even talked to other people so they could help me develop my brand identity...I suppose they were 'staging' me so I could be sold. So now I had let other people decide who I was going to be, and then I marketed that image - with the same ridiculous one size fits all ads that appealed to the same exact niche - which was once again the people who answered my ads. Strike Two! Now what?
Eureka! I have new niche! I'll concentrate strictly on FSBO's. (Cause that's an original idea right?) Now all I have to do is 'target' FSBO's and I know who my clients are. Um...which FSBO's? Estates? Distressed Sales? Moving? Speculators? Moving out of state? Moving down the street? Divorces? Maybe if I send out enough cards I'll get some responses...that sounds oddly familiar...but I know and agent who told me that a person from their office did it and it worked (two calls, one over priced listing?). Strike Three....wait, the ump signaled a check swing, ball 3.
Now what? I got a three and two count on my career here...the next pitch will decide one way or another. It's the wind up...and here's the pi...TIME OUT...the batter stepped out of the box....
No, I didn't turn in my license, I just took a moment to asses the situation. Blindly 'swinging away' with my marketing was going nowhere, so why would I do that again? What I needed was focus...just like a batter focuses on his 'target' (the ball) I needed to find my target. I couldn't afford to keep swinging away and hope I hit something....what to do?
Before I could really decide what my target was, I realized I had to find out who I was. Can you imagine a professional baseball player choosing a basketball as a target? As absurd as it sounds, I was doing exactly that. In-fact, I was 'swinging away' at basketballs, golf balls, whiffle balls, snowballs, footballs, soccer balls, Nerf balls, dodge-balls and gum-balls. Every once in awhile I even hit one...but I had no idea what would happen after I did. Imagine how far a football would fly if you hit it with a baseball bat; not very far (and, yes in the interest of completeness I tried it...I would NOT recommend doing so.) Imagine how accurate the football would fly after the bat hit it. The phrase 'dying quail' comes to mind. So the light went off...I can't let the target find me I have to find it....but how?
I will answer that question tomorrow...
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