If 85% of real estate transactions are starting online why are you spending all your money printing things? I am not saying that you should not drop printing. There is a place for marketing through traditional outlets, but let’s face it most of those are dying breads that take up an every growing slice of your commissions. We were recently in a meeting with a multi-office brokerage in Southern California who averaged less then 5 calls a week from their LA Times Ad. I won’t say what it costs for a full page ad in the weekend real estate section, but let just say it is not cheap. They spent essentially a years worth of our services for 3-4 days of exposure.

Take some time to think about your marketing budget to see if the money that you are spending is making you money. I don’t know what your percentage split should be, but that is something that you need to figure out. In our business we don’t even consider a marketing outlet unless we think we can get a 10X return on our money in the first 90 days of a campaign.

If you are currently advertising in the newspaper or a magazine. Cut the size of your ad in half or run it every other week and move that money to other forms marketing. If you want to more your ad dollar online you should first invest your money in your personal website if you don’t already have one. Then you should invest in upgrading your listings through Realtor.com or get a single property website for it. If you prefer to market offline, invest in a networking group membership. I have experience with BNI and our Realtor gets a lot of leads, but remember you have to commit to attend and actively participate in networking groups for a year to be successful with them.

What are you doing to market yourself and your properties?