3 Tips to Attract Your Ideal Real Estate Clients

As an independent contractor, you have the freedom to make choices in every aspect of your real estate business. From the broker under which your license is hung to how you market and advertise your business and, yes, even the clients you work with.

New agents can't imagine turning down or even firing a client. But as the years go by, they begin to understand that some clients are just not worth the time spent on them.

From those with champagne tastes, shopping on a beer budget, to those who are just downright toxic, you have a choice to avoid or embrace each client that enters your sphere.

How to choose the embraceable ones is what we'll show you with three basic tips.

1. Who do you want to work with?

It's probably a lot easier to determine who you don't want to work with and that's okay. Start there if you need to, then make a list of the opposite of those clients' characteristics.

Think about the clients you have truly enjoyed working with. Maybe they're less demanding than other clients, or perhaps better educated about the process. Maybe you liked working with them simply because they made you laugh or think or feel a certain way.

These are the characteristics you'll target for your new client pool.

If you've narrowed your practice to a niche, this part of the process should be a snap.

2. Choose new hunting grounds

Some places are magnets for less-than-ideal clients. Perhaps it's a group in which you volunteer your time, events you attend frequently, or where you have your coffee every morning. On the other hand, these may be the ideal hunting grounds.

Are there certain occupations that seem to attract the type of person you want to work with? This one is easy to answer if you have a niche practice.

For instance, if you want to attract the affluent for your luxury real estate practice, go for those who work in the "learned professions," and are paid accordingly.

Likewise, if you sell ranch property. Determining where these potential clients hang out, offline as well as online, will be simple.

Don't forget digital hunting grounds. Which social media platforms do they use, which websites do they frequent? Joining pertinent Facebook groups will bring you into close contact with those ideal clients.

3. Change your messaging

Figure out what your ideal clients are looking for – the answers they're seeking – and develop brilliant content that's relevant and, therefore, valuable.

"Your content is a powerful gift that positions your brand as a guide that helps the hero complete the journey that solves their problem," according to Brian Clark at Copyblogger.com. You'll find a wealth of information on how to pinpoint and identify your ideal client in Clark's article.

And, heavy, self-serving marketing messages aren't guides. Consumers are a lot more cynical today. They can see right through most marketing and what they see is someone trying to manipulate them.

Your messaging strategy, therefore, should aim to cut through the clutter that bombards your ideal client and quickly establish trust.

Pay attention to everything you write, whether it's for your direct mail, website, email newsletters and blogs.

Start by removing your call-to-action on any marketing piece that you hope will be shared by the reader.

Why?

When you end your blog posts and articles with "Reach out to the Jane Doe Team for your no obligation consultation," you are essentially removing the value of the piece.

That salesy call-to-action changes it. "Instead of it being a gift that is given to people, it's now become a lure," according to Mike Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner and author of Launch.

"They see it for what it is and they no longer want to share it because it's simply just something that's designed to get me to do something else." After reading the entire article or blog post, the reader reaches that CTA and feels manipulated.

"If we wanted to be shared, if we wanted to be bookmarked, if we wanted to be something people talk about, we need to take those marketing messages out of the mix," Stelzner tells Ed Gandia at InternationalFreelancersAcademy.com.

In step two, you figured out where your ideal client hangs out. For instance, you've decided your ideal clients are those in the market for luxury homes. You then figured out that many hang out occasionally at JamesEdition.com.

You put together (or hire a ghostwriter to do it for you) a brilliant piece about real estate in a trendy part of the world and request a guest blogging spot from the editor. Sort of like this one, from the head of sales at Sotheby's International Realty. 

Your ideal clients may just be popular among other agents as well. Reaching them, in a world cluttered with marketing messages, requires a strategy.

And that strategy depends on aligning your message to attract that person you've decided you want to work with.