How to identify and target your ideal Real estate client using inbound marketing

Well we all know that finding your ideal customer is no walk in the park. In business, generally recognizing the characteristics, attitude and behavior of the “primary customer” is crucial for a successful marketing campaign.

Companies that fail to consider which audience is most likely to become their loyal customers miss out on worthy growth opportunities.

But in order to find your ideal customer, you need to determine who the absolute fitting customer is, what their needs are, their wants, what they can compromise on and they can’t in the property they are looking for.

Not having this information, you will end up with bad or an unqualified lead meaning that they are ineligible to purchase what you are offering them.

An unqualified lead entails at least one of the following points:

• Poor fit – your interests as a seller and a buyer are not aligned.
• No need – the lead has no pressing need for your product/ service.
• Timing – now is not a good time for the lead to buy, might be worth revisiting in the future.
• Competitor – the lead has previous experience with your competitor and is loyal to them.
• Feature – the lead is looking for a specific product feature that you do not have yet.
• Price – your product price point is simply inconvenient for the lead to purchase.

Matching your buyer persona to the lead that you are targeting is an integral part of something called the Inbound Marketing methodology, where identifying your persona is at the center of your marketing operations.

According to HubSpot, A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. When creating your buyer persona(s), consider including customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. The more detailed you are, the better.

One of the real estate marketing problems in Egypt is that if you don’t have a particular niche and you’re selling all sorts of property, you’ll be losing lots of good opportunities. Therefore, you’ll need to ask yourself several questions in order to describe the characteristics of your chosen one “Buyer Persona” or rather your “Ideal Customer”.

• What are they worried about?

• What challenges do they face?

• What goals are they striving to attain?

• What experience thrills them?

• Where do they get their information?

• Who do they trust most?
  

A list of well put questions by DuctTapeMarketing which they highly recommend. To pin down the wants and needs, once those questions are thoroughly answered.

You should start by visualizing your customer buying your product. Imagine real life customers and take advantage of that image! Start describing them as you approach each question.

• Worry: The first thing people who are moving think of is “location location location”, of the property they are thinking of purchasing or renting. It’s the convenience dilemma. How far is it from their workplace, gym, metro station and supermarket? Also the security of the neighborhood .Is it child friendly? Convenience is key here.
• Challenges: Budget is often the most challenging issue that faces potential customers! You should be able to offer them different options in order to help them solve this problem and help them progress through their buying journey. 

• Goals: When it comes to goals, people seek the best value for their money. This is the case for everyone looking to move or just invest in a piece of property. Providing value should be your main concern when serving your prospect customer because that’s when they will convert to be a loyal customer who can advocate for your brand. 

• Thrilling Experience: what is your competitive advantage? What is different about your product? That extra feature you can add that might be the one thing that your customer has been seeking throughout his buyer’s journey but didn’t realize it can exist. By offering that you sure to gain the customers’ business.
• THE SOURCE: The easiest action to take nowadays when conducting research is to “GOOGLE IT”. The World Wide Web offers us all infinite resources of information regarding anything and everything. A lot of property seekers use it to check the available potential of the market and see for themselves whether it’s a good time or place to invest in. That is why you should think thoroughly and smartly when posting online and putting up content about your products and brands as it should target you customer persona’s needs and give them the information that they are seeking.

• Trust: is definitely a strong word .Customers don’t like being forced or tricked into buying anything. They like to be educated first, and they'll get back to you for more information. You as a brand should be able to make them trust by disclosing all needed information that will be beneficial to them, and the right customer who matches your persona will be driven by the right provided information to buy from you.

Providing this information freely in blogs on your website, will definitely make you trustworthy, and they wouldn't mind sharing their information with you to get a gated piece of content.

By educating your audience and adding value to their minds, you’ll be able to capture their attention, and the name of your brand will resonate in their minds whenever they think “REAL ESTATE”.

You might already have a good customer base now, but you’re not achieving the desired results. But by adopting Inbound marketing methodologies in your marketing practices you are guaranteed to expand your customer base with the right kind of customer who will be loyal and would advocate for your brand themselves.