John Kejr of Dreamcatcher Real Estate in Taos, New Mexico has a growing business that is basically the perfect real estate marketing storm – positioning, product, market – everything is in his favor. In fact, he’s doing so well he’s begun working with Realtors in other states to go national.
His secret may actually surprise you.
Before we take a look at his business lets look at one that’s not entirely different from his…
“How hot do you like it?” If you live in Arizona, like I do, then this isn’t an odd question. It gets around 120F during the summer. Oddly enough, folks here tend to like their hot sauce around the same temperature…. or so it would seem.
There are stores here that sell nothing but hot sauce. Walls and aisles of it and nothing else. Clearly, there’s enough people who like hot sauce to merit entire stores devoted to their favorite condiment.
Fortunately, the hot sauce market isn’t that much different from Jon Kejr’s real estate business .
cater to a small niche market of rabid enthusiasts
Just like the hot sauce stores cater to a small niche market of rabid enthusiasts, John specializes in one particular type of real estate – Earthships.
Other Realtors in his area are struggling but John has cultivated his market with marketing that includes a topic focused blog, strong search engine results and has built an opt-in email list of prospects.
The Secret Sauce of Success
The tools he’s using aren’t any different than what you currently have. The real secret – the same one that supports entire stores dedicated to hot sauce – is that he serves a rabid market.
Like hot sauce enthusiasts, folks who are interested in Earthships are really (really, really, really) interested in Earthships. They’ll drive great lengths just to view one.
Now, if you don’t want to drive that’s fine…
There’s another Realtor who runs a tour bus for house hunters looking for mid-century modern foreclosures.
There’s also a woman who only sells homes made in the 1960s by a popular architect with a cult following.
Now before you go off and “specialize” consider this…
find a thirsty crowd and you can sell them a drink
The reason these Realtors (and hot sauce) are doing so well is not just because they specialize but that they specialize in a market that is passionately rabid for what they offer.
Mustard, while tasty, doesn’t have the raving fans that the hot sauce market does.
Homes, while nice to own, aren’t necessarily any different than one down the street.
But, find a thirsty crowd and you can sell them a drink.
Special Ingredients
Let’s look at what else these folks are doing that’s really working for them:
- Create a niche-focused website with a blog (write to your market)
- Pay attention to their SEO (page titles, keywords, URLs, link building)
- Build an opt-in email list (use an incentive piece to collect emails)
- Develop relationships in the market community (get to know them and those who currently serve your market)
- Keep your marketing message on point and specific (avoid the general messages, keep it niche focused)
While many Realtors are out there trying to grab every deal they can (if it comes your way, great! take it!) but you only have so many resources – invest them in a thirsty market and the payoffs can be huge… and hot!
A great place to start is this article on identifying profitable target markets. For further reading check out this article on nano-niche marketing from MarketingSherpa.
Got any experience with a niche market? Let us know.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Well Mark, You’ve hit my favorite subject!!!
Diamond Dwellings is building an entire brokerage franchise model based on niche marketing (mostly hyper-local geographic niches). So, we think that there is just no other way to develop a powerful position. Consistent success results from deep knowledge (and marketing of that knowledge) about a very specific subject.
Here’s a couple of our websites for specific markets:
http://www.hamiltonmilldwellings.com
http://www.suwaneedwellings.com
http://www.brandondwellings.com
@Matt Fagioli – what’s the saying, “niche makes ya rich,” or something like that? and it looks as if you’ve get several flavors of geographic nicheness going on. do you just rely on seo or are there other weapons in your arsenal to promote your specialties?