One-size-fits-all marketing solutions rarely hit the whole audience being targeted. At best, they may get the one type of buyer who best fits the message, and at worst you are lucky to get more than a lukewarm response from any buyer. Fortunately, today's analytics and ad technologies allow you to create different campaigns targeting different buyer segments. You may as well bring those campaigns to any traditional media you intend to use for similar effectiveness. If you try to hit many targets with one arrow, you will hit no more than one target and miss all the others. With my method, it's more like having a unique arrow for each target and hitting all of them right in the middle. To show you in a more direct way what I mean by different buyer segments, I am going to discuss three types of buyers I have encountered in my many years of condo and real estate project marketing. Then I am going to give you an example where this method would be tricky, but should still work.
- Investors. When marketing to investors, try to research some of the language they would use for financial services. Speak to them in financial professional language, but know what the words mean before you use them. Talk about diversifying their portfolio. If they own single-family homes, maybe they should consider investing in multi-family homes as well. If their portfolio is strictly residential, maybe they should branch off into commercial.
- Empty nesters. When marketing to empty nesters, it helps to model somebody successful. Study Del Webb, my favourite example. They appear to have had a lot of success with the baby boomer niche. Use images of attractive physically fit people in that age range for sales ads and promotional materials, people that boomers and empty nesters would aspire to look like.
- First timers. When marketing to first timers, they want to see the project in an up-to-date condition with the latest gadgets. They want it advertised with current music.
- How would you market resort homes? In this case, remember that your buyer segments are still separated by lifestyle. People often buy resort homes within a two to four hour drive from their main residence, and they think differently than people coming in on direct flights. Make sure you understand (and sell) what they are coming for. And whether the area is known for golf, a beach, shopping, or anything else, remember that an investor still prefers this to be spelled out to them in financial terms--the value of the location, for example.
