There are pros and cons to navigating a saturated market.
It can certainly be a challenge but it also means that there is a healthy demand for the product you are offering. It means that the buyers are ready and it also means there is a lot of data about where the opportunities have lived previously so you can better anticipate where they may be moving next. More data means better insights and better decisions.
By the end of this article, you will have a tool chest of strategic approaches on how to stand out.
What is market saturation?
Over saturation of a market means there are others like you out there offering the same product. It means the product is a commodity, but it does not mean you or your firm needs to be.
Think of a healthy real estate market like a pizza.
Visualize it and cut it into 8 slices. Those 8 slices are all of the different neighborhoods in a given market and it includes all of the available clients in those areas, regardless of whether they are thinking of selling or thinking of buying – each customer has the potential of two transactions max.
The majority of the market will be consumed by the most well-established and well-known players. Every other smaller player has less brand recognition and subsequently fewer available customers to transact with.
A saturated market can have compounding scarcity effects because the majority of the market is consistently taken up by the big players and as new players enter, there are fewer and fewer available clients to work with.
The smaller players in the market can start to feel like David going up against Goliath.
The first way to stand out is to tap into the waves of change. Find the pulse on your market and your clients.
Study the current market and the current customer priorities and see where you can accommodate their needs where the big guys can’t.
See what micro pivots are smartest and make those pivots fast, or at least faster than the slow-moving Goliaths can.
Meet your market where they are: mentally, physically, and emotionally. Meet their desires for the product, the deal, and how they personally like to be treated.
Are they receiving “Ritz Carlton level service” from you and your team?
The word “change” can be a synonym for opportunity. If you don’t know what’s changing with your customers, competitors, distribution channels, alternative uses, features, and more, your customers will buy from those who do.
A section of your firm should be devoted to collecting this kind of intelligence.
The newer and smaller businesses have an edge here when it comes to learning and pivoting rapidly.
They can integrate the changes the customer and the market are showing to them right away rather than across a year.
Larger companies that have been in business for decades can sometimes be set in their ways and it’s uncomfortable for them to modify what’s been working. This is where the smaller firms can be nimble and more open to change. The most dangerous words in business are, “We’ve always done it that way.”
You have to constantly study your client and your market as their needs and desires evolve with time.
Smaller, boutique firms, have less red tape so they can respond to the market instantly and make quick decisions on the fly. Not only that, the feedback is received faster. It will be known right away if the changes are working out or not.
This ability to rapidly prototype ideas, implement, and gather data has been the magic behind meteoric growth in tech companies.
Offer a better value stack than your competitors.
Analyze the value stack of your direct competitors and gather intelligence on how they are persuading customers. Look at everything they provide or give to their customers, whether it’s part of their marketing messaging or not. Mystery shop the competition and get familiar with your counterparts.
What other perks and benefits could you be adding to your offer so that the overall value the customer receives is better? Does the client feel like they are buying into a swath of value? If you don’t mystery shop you don’t know what your competitors are offering.
Dive deeper into your niche. The riches are in the niches.
You can make a name for your business in an oversaturated market by catering to a specific subset of the target market.
Industry niches are commonly overlooked in favor of winning over customers with outdated methods. Why expand your marketing campaigns with the same generic offer? Everyone knows specialist doctors make the big bucks and not general practitioners.
Select the niche you want to work more with and then think about what problems they are working through right now. What keeps them up at night? Find the gap between their current situation, where they are now, and where they could be with your product or service. Once you discover the gap, you can bridge the gap between where they are now and where they want to be.
Your niche will start to resonate with you and your messaging; they will start to see you are the best track forward for their future.
Your clients will like that your messaging is speaking directly to the specific unmet needs they have. Speak in their native jargon because people really want to work with people that speak their language and they feel “get” them.
Interview and survey beloved clients that match your ideal client archetype. Identify the common problems your target audience faces that aren’t solved by existing products or services. Cater to these unique needs and you can win over customers by filling the gap and giving them what they say they want.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies often use this strategy by designing feature stacks that cater to customers in specific industries.
Price honestly and transparently to build trust, but also don’t shy away from boutique pricing. Price signals perceived value.
Don’t price your products and services out of the solar system just for the shock and awe value. It may tarnish your reputation because it’s assuming the customer is uninformed. Today’s customer is locked and loaded with mountains of data. The consumer is smarter and more informed than ever, especially when it comes to their largest purchases in life such as homes and automobiles.
If they sense pricing games or unrealistic asking prices, they will not have as much trust in your or your firm.
It’s far better to price fairly and transparently because the consumers in saturated markets always do their research.
Personality. Have it.
Dare to stand out a little. Be a little quirky and a little different. It’s okay! It’s part of having a personality. Having a personality differentiates you and makes you memorable. Don’t be afraid to unapologetically be yourself, it’s the only way to be authentic.
Show your unique personality confidently instead of being who you think others want you to be. It will convey authenticity without literally saying “I’m authentic.” Your consumers will feel your authenticity and if they stick around there is a chance they like working with you and the way you make them feel.
“If I want to be free, I’ve gotta be me. Not the me you think I should be. Not the me my wife thinks I should I be. Not the me my kids think I should be. Not the me my clients think I should be. So I’d better know who me is.” -Bob Proctor
As a business owner, it’s easy to have passion for your business. Many owners think their employees must have the same level of passion as them, but that’s not realistic. If you have employees and contractors just make sure they share enough of your passion and vision to carry out the mission. They don’t need to be as passionate considering they are employees and non-employees that don’t have a stake in the company but do make sure they are engaged and making the customer feel good.
Personality is what keeps people coming back and makes the transaction feel human.
Real estate will be a people-first business for many generations to come.