How HousingWire Defines Who It Wants to Reach

Whatever industry you’re in, there’s probably a specialist media outlet that you consult on a regular basis. You’re familiar with what they write, but what does that publication look like on the inside? How do they define you, their audience? And what is it you should know to improve the likelihood that they’ll highlight your company?

As President of HW Media, Diego Sanchez has answers to all of these questions for one of the most important publications in the housing industry, HousingWire. Housing is such a big topic and growing even bigger given the current affordability crisis. So Diego could go after a large, broad audience. But that’s not what HousingWire is doing at all.

Diego and his team care most about a group of industry leaders and insiders that, if put in one place, would constitute a mid-sized US city. This approach is targeted, thoughtful, and may be a model for how to break through an incredibly noisy information environment.

1:30 Diego outlines his early career in investment banking at Credit Suisse and the skills he developed there along with his time at Microsoft.

7:20 Defining HousingWire’s core audience: 200,000–250,000 high-value professionals

10:45 HousingWire’s revenue model. Striving to become the “Bloomberg of housing.”

17:30 Integrating AI into products to enhance analysis and user experience

22:30 The trade-offs between investing in editorial content versus product development

26:30 How private equity ownership influences HousingWire’s strategy

27:10 HousingWire’s four core user personas: C-suite executives, capital markets leaders, homebuilders, and top-producing agents and loan originators.

32:30 Advice for professionals pitching stories to HousingWire

35:20 Will HousingWire branch out into multifamily?

39:35 Housing policy is hardly ever in the news as much as it is now. And that's not necessarily a good thing.

43:15 Are industry awards programs pay to play? Why HousingWire is not incentivized to play that game.