Delaney L. writes, “Buzz, I serve a niche in which I sell information to both realtors and home owners. How do you recommend I market to them effectively?”
Dear Delaney,
“You'd be surprised how often I'm asked this question. Many people try to ‘kill two birds with one stone' and market to two niches. I think if your business is going well then you should expand!
My first recommendation, though, is to master one niche and add products that meet their needs. If you do want to market to another niche or if you already market to another niche, I would recommend separating your efforts. After all, in most cases neither niche uses the same online search terms to look for your information or goes to the same sources to find what you're selling.
In your specific case, I would guess that the information you sell might be passed over by realtors who are afraid it's too “watered down” to appeal to home owners’ general interests. And, home owners may not buy it because they are afraid it's too technical and geared more to realtors.
I usually end up recommending that you start two businesses. Or, if that's not practical, create two websites with their own separate domains. If you want to leverage your name and reputation, create each business “as a division of” your original business. If you're still getting traffic to your original business site, have a single splash page with two links: a home owners link that takes them to your new home owners page and a realtors link that takes them to your realtors page. This will also allow you to measure the success of each side of your business.”
