Why You Should Define Your Anti-Persona (Who You Don’t Want to Work With)
When it comes to marketing, most agents think the best approach is to cast the widest net possible and to market to as many people as they possibly can. They’re often told that every person is a potential lead, every homeowner is a potential seller, and every renter is a potential buyer.
But more experienced agents know that isn’t true – they know that more isn’t always better.
That’s because the goal of your marketing strategy shouldn’t be to bring in as many people as possible, but rather, to bring in as many of the right types of people as possible (and get better leads as a result).
Low-quality, unengaged leads who aren’t loyal to your brand require an exhausting amount of work to convert. That’s why a sophisticated inbound marketing strategy isn’t just about who you want to attract; it’s equally about who you want to avoid.
And that starts by identifying your anti-persona.
Your anti-persona is the type of people that you’re trying not to attract because they don’t fit within your target audience. Remember, your target audience is always:
- Your Current Clients: People you work with now,
- Your Future Clients: People you want to work with in the future, and
- Your Anti-Persona: People you don’t want to work with it all.
And your anti-persona is a very important part of defining your target audience.
That’s because by clearly defining the characteristics of people you don’t want to work with, you can plan a marketing strategy that attracts the people you want, but discourages the people you don’t want to work with from ever reaching out in the first place.
★ Want to learn more about building an audience-specific real estate marketing strategy? Have a look at these posts:
- Creating a Brand Associative Real Estate Marketing Strategy
- The Basics of Building an Organic, Inbound Real Estate Marketing Strategy
- Establishing a Behavioral Marketing Strategy
- The Steps to Building a Trustworthy Personal Real Estate Brand
- Building a Hyper-Local Real Estate Marketing Strategy
Who Is Your Anti-Persona?
Most agents generally have the same type of people they don’t want to work with. For example:
- People who are looking for deep cuts to commission,
- People with unrealistic expectations,
- People that are high-maintenance or a lot of work to deal with,
- People that live far away from the area you work in,
- Or all of the above…
But, defining your anti-persona can even go a bit deeper than that, and you should also consider any characteristics that can further break it down. For example:
- What their personal values and opinions are,
- What their specific interests are,
- What causes are important to them, etc.
It may sound like too much, but the more you define your anti-persona the better your strategy will perform and bring results.
That’s because, by clearly defining your anti-persona, you’ll be able to make decisions in your marketing strategy not just for who you want to attract, but to purposely push away people that you don’t want to work with, which you can do through the imagery you use, the language you use, etc.
Defining Your Anti-Persona Means Better Leads
A marketing strategy that has a clear definition of its target audience, including its anti-persona, will get better results. That’s because a well-planned, high-performing inbound strategy that accounts for their anti-persona typically generates leads that are already convinced they want to work with you. These leads:
✔ Trust You Already: Because you’ve provided the answers they needed during their research phase.
✔ Are More Qualified: Because they fit your predefined target audience criteria.
✔ Convert Faster: Because they found you through a search related to their specific marketing event.
But defining your anti-persona isn’t just good for getting better, higher-quality leads – it also contributes to a stronger, more effective overall digital search strategy when it comes to building visibility in both traditional and AI searches.
That’s because the people the more people you attract to your website that are part of your target audience, the more likely they are to be high-quality traffic source that are engaged (if you want to learn more about engagement, have a look at this post called: Measuring the Success of Your Digital Strategy Through Engagement).
And engagement is a major indicator of success, not just to you, but to search engines and LLMs as well. Depending on your strategy, if your traffic isn’t engaged, LLMs and search engines will notice and recommend you a lot less in their results.
On the other hand, if your traffic is highly engaged, it indicates that your website is a well-built, useful, and authoritative resource, and you’ll be recommended more in those results.
★ Want to learn more about building search visibility? Have a look at these posts:
- Bridging the Gap Between SEO, AEO, and GEO
- Creating an AI Visibility Strategy for Your Real Estate Brand
- Building a Successful SEO Strategy for AI Search Results
- Pivoting Your Website Content Strategy to See More Success in AI Search Results
- Switching Your SEO Strategy from Keyword Matching to Topic Ownership to Get Better Leads
- Planning for How Your Audience Searches For You (and Finds You) Online
Don’t Be Afraid to Say No
By identifying your anti-persona, you aren’t losing business – you’re planning a more efficient, more effective marketing strategy with a well-defined target audience that brings in traffic more likely to reach out when they need help with their next transaction.
Want to get better, more qualified leads and build your authority? Our Inbound Marketing Guide is a walkthrough of the overall philosophy of inbound marketing, why it’s effective, and how you can build it into your own real estate marketing strategy to get better marketing results.
