By Ian Grace
In my last couple of articles, I promised I would talk about the power of creating an advertising campaign, rather than just individual ads in individual media. However, before I do that, there is another powerful tool I want to cover first – using different ad campaigns for different target markets.
Target your market and talk to them only. This is vitally important – it is what professional advertising agencies do, with every product or service they sell on behalf of their clients. Think about it, every product we see advertised is aimed at a specific market. It may be aimed at men, women, seniors, children, affluent people, mass market, brand-label conscious people – the list goes on.
I talked before about your ads becoming a personal communication, which can be read by your prospective buyers as if you are talking directly to them. That is target marketing.
However, ads I see all the time saying things like, “ideal for first-home buyer or investor” are not target marketing and once you mix two very different markets into the same ad, you cannot communicate directly with either one of them. It’s like trying to have a conversation with an 80-year-old and a five-year-old in the same sentence – can’t be done.
Now, before we look at communicating with each of those markets separately, let’s have a look at the checklist that will help you to choose the best possible target market for each property you list. In some cases, as above, it will be two totally different relevant markets.
In selecting your target market, the advertising experts will normally split this into three distinct areas, using one, two or sometimes all three, to ensure they are right on target. See how easy it makes it for you:
Geographic – Where is the purchaser of this property likely to come from? The local area; particular suburbs; beyond the greater city area; another city, state or country.
Demographic – Age, sex, income, singles, couples, families; occupation/profession/investors.
Psychographic – Expectations and aspirations, hobbies, habits, preferences, likes and dislikes. For example, people who love entertaining, gardening, golfing, relaxing.
By focusing on each of these three areas, it becomes so much easier to determine who your ad campaign should be directed at, to generate the greatest (qualified) response.
Now, if you look at the concept of running two totally different campaigns, aimed at two totally different markets in all the media you’re using, it makes absolute sense.
In each case the ads will evoke a better response, as they read so much more personally and therefore more powerfully. In addition, you will be reaching two different markets at the same time, giving more chance of competition between prospective buyers from both markets.
You remember the headline I used in the successful campaign that sold our investment property: Watch the waves …… and the $$$s roll in!
If we had been aiming to sell the property to someone who would live in it, the headline could have been something like Watch the waves…..every day.
Or
Your view …… every morning!
Or
Your view, your lifestyle … every day!
As you can see, the laws of common sense dictate that someone reading the first headline, who was looking for a place to live in, can say to themselves when they see that headline and the photo, “I’d love to live there and watch the waves every day. Let’s go and have a look.”
An investor reading either of the two headlines could assume that the property would be a good investment with a high rental return (possibly with an ulterior motive of living in the property in years to come).
Another example of a property where first-home buyers or investors are equally feasible markets: some headlines could be as simple as: (Could this be) your first home?
Or
Secure your future with this great investment.
Most sales reps never think about the idea of running two different campaigns for the same property, so the minute you do it for any of your properties, your ad campaigns will be different, they will stand out and they will achieve way more results.
All too often, I see sales reps with totally different ads in different media. They don’t even look like each other. In this case, it means that each ad must start from scratch with the readers rather than having an accumulative effect to get the best results.
Once you understand how campaign advertising taps into your prospects’ conscious and subconscious minds, to give your properties “top of mind awareness”, you will see how obvious and simple it is – and how amazingly powerful!
Known internationally as “Mr. Real Estate Advertising”, Australian born Ian Grace is acknowledged as one of the world’s leading authorities on real estate advertising. Since 1994, he has delivered his programs throughout Australia, New Zealand, U.S.A., Canada and the U.K. His articles about real estate advertising have been published around the world. www.iangrace.com
