In today's real estate market, slower sales, warier buyers and keener competition have made savvier selling an occupational necessity. Personal marketing has upped the ante for professionals who recognize that to be a success in real estate today means creating a consistent memorable image. Many agents have taken it a step further and carved a niche for themselves by specializing in serving a unique market segment of the community.

Some specialists have achieved great success, and their stories have become the stuff of which sales and marketing legends are made. No doubt you've heard of some of them: "The Condo King," "The Singles’ Realtor," "The Ranch Ranger." Perhaps you're considering becoming a "special agent" yourself, but aren't sure what to specialize in or whether niche marketing will work for you at all.

Where do you draw the line?

There are as many ways to segment the population as there are people. From the very specific, to the very general, the possibilities for niche marketing are only limited by your imagination.

To get some ideas, take a look at yourself, your family and your past and current clients. Think about how you would categorize these people in terms of geography, lifestyle, hobbies, occupation, ethnicity, etc. Pay attention to any trends or patterns. Major overlapping in any area could be a possible market niche. The more you, your clients and the people you know have in common in a specific area, the more likely it is that you could turn this feature into a unique marketing concept. Which leads you to this important question:

Which niche is right for you?

When looking for a niche to market in, make sure it allows you to offer a unique benefit. And to determine if this niche will work with you, consider these three things.

1. Personality Fit. Do you feel totally comfortable with the people in this group? Do you understand them? Do they feel totally comfortable with you? Ideally, you should find a niche that fits your style. Think about the things that you and our current clients have in common to help narrow the field.
2. Competition. Are any other Realtors targeting this group? Make sure that the niche you choose is one that is the best fit for you. Beware of looking like you're jumping on the bandwagon. even if the group is large enough to support competing agents, make sure no one agent has 30 percent of more of the market share. Taking on a dominant agent head-on is the surest way to fail.
3. Size. How many home sales or potential home sales does this group of people represent per year? How much is your time worth? You must be sure you can get enough business from the group to support the energy and funds you'll need to devote to marketing to make it pay off.

Over time, as your niche mailing begins to grow and that segment of your business begins to increase, you'll want to add specific adkards, directmail fliers or even a targeted brochure to help you gain further in roads into your niche market. Whether you ever devote your entire business to serving the specific needs of your niche market or not, becoming a special agent can still be a great way to expand your current business and keep new clients coming your way.

Published: July 21, 2003

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Co-founder of Hobbs/Herder Advertising and Hobbs/Herder Training, Greg Herder is recognized as the real estate industry's foremost authority on residential real estate marketing and agent productivity training. Herder is also a licensed Certified Residential Broker (CRB) and owner of MegaAgent Realty, and co-owner of JDG investments, a real estate investment company. Herder is a featured columnist on real estate marketing and training issues for Realty Times, Real Estate Executive Magazine, Savvy Executive Profiles, and, as well as a contributor to a variety of other industry publications, including Realtor® Magazine and Real Estate Business Magazine. He also authored the innovative how-to book “Satisfaction Guaranteed - 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed or Your Money Back," which ushered this unique concept into the world of real estate service. Greg has conducted over 1500 one, two or three day seminars over the past 17 years for the real estate industry and is a professional member of the National Speakers Association (NSA). He graduated cum laude from California State University with a BA in psychology and is currently working on getting his PhD in Organization Behavior.