It's not news to anyone to say that the market has slowed way down, but it may be news to many to hear that you need to market yourself & your listings now, more than ever.

When homes were selling in hours rather than days; running an ad, writing a blog or updating the listings on your website may not have been the first thing to come to mind. Now in this slower and very competitive market where money may be tight, the need is extremely high to market your listings if you want to beat the competition to the sale.

Marketing can be confusing and you might find yourself trapped in the whole "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" type scenario; where you feel like you need to have money to market yourself and your listings, but in order to have money to spend on marketing you have to make sales...and so on...and so forth. Breaking that cycle can be easier than you may think.

Shift your thinking from "What can I afford to spend" to "What can I afford to invest". Think of your marketing as an investment in your future. Whether it's in print or online, the agents that are marketing themselves now will see a larger return in the future.

Set aside a percentage of your commissions specifically for marketing. Whether that be 5% or 50% decide what you can comfortably spend and add 1% to that amount. Being a tiny bit outside of your comfort zone isn't a bad thing; Remember, marketing is an investment.

Why a percentage and not a set monthly amount? Because as your business grows the amount invested will grow with it. Allowing you to delve into other areas and maybe even experiment in new technologies or ideas; ultimately growing your brand and ensuring its strength in the future.

Start Small: This may take some real elbow grease, especially to those new to marketing. There are inexpensive and very cost effective opportunities out there to market yourself, but it will take time to research all of your options. For instance (I will shamelessly plug The #1 Real Estate Publication in North America here) with The Real Estate Book in Tulare County, CA. and nationally, ads come in many sizes, price ranges and terms. However, you get a lot more than a highly visible print ad when you advertise with our publication; you get exposure on over 25 nationally recognized websites as well. And you only have to enter your information once; it feeds data to these sites automatically, thus saving you time to boot. This one system covers 2 key areas for you and can be very cost effective. There are also free sites that are just itching to show off your listings! These are the ones that can be a bit time consuming to input your data to, but there are some services like postlets and vflyer that seem pretty promising. They can help you create one ad for posting your listings to several free sites. The key to finding what will work for you is research.

Research, research, research...and just when you think you're done - research some more! When you talk to any company about their product, don't be tempted to sign on the dotted line right away. Take some time to research the product claims. For instance when you buy a print ad; you are essentially buying into the claim that this ad will be A: printed and released for a certain period of time and B: that the ad will be distributed via a set number of printed publications throughout the area. Now, I know because I am a publisher that numbers can be tricky and easily misrepresented in this area. I could say that I print 1 million magazines and who would ever know? Muhahaha! However, distribution and how many magazines I print is one very, very important element that I must be 100% accountable for. Therefore, I am voluntarily audited by a 3rd party organization and can show any of my advertisers the reports if they want to see them. This proves one of the claims made in the print advertising field: "We print xx,xxx magazines." So this would be one of the claims you would want to research. Which claims to research in any type of media should be easily identified, by asking yourself "what exactly am I paying for?" Whether it's impressions, clicks or printed ads - be sure to ask questions and take the time to do your homework. Challenge any claims that you feel uneasy about or that may be foggy and not backed up by fact.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket: If you can afford to mix it up a bit - do so. My obvious choice would be to advertise in print and online, but no matter what you do - don't spend your entire budget in one medium if you can help it. If you don't have a large budget, stick with the economy packages of more than one medium. Don't worry if others have the Cadillac of all ads and you have the Ford Focus (apologies if you drive one of these dashing little go-getters) - you have to doggy paddle before you can do the breaststroke and if you're just starting out - focus on getting your feet wet to start.

Track your investment: Once you've settled on a current marketing mix, be sure to track your response. Asking "If I may, where did you hear about this listing?" can be a hard habit to get into; finding something to jot this little tidbit down on at the same time can make things complicated! But, this is a very important step in knowing where your money is best spent. Once you get into the habit it can be pretty easy and can actually be a good icebreaker. Some people will even give more information than you asked for; like "I see your ads everywhere". Getting feedback is always a good thing.

Give it time: Give any new marketing you try a minimum of 90 days to get an idea of it's response; even better would be a full six months. Track your leads and If you feel like you aren't getting enough response from a particular channel you may want to contact your representative (providing there is one) and discuss with them your expectations. Let them know how the product is performing from your perspective. They may be able to help you improve the performance of your marketing with them. Whatever you do; if you feel like your marketing isn't performing to your expectations, don't just sit quietly growing increasingly angry at the fact that the phone isn't ringing. Make use of the people that represent the companies you work with and pick their brain.

Stick with it: Brand awareness comes with time; so the best thing to do is stick with the marketing you have found to work and ease into new things as your budget grows.

Your brand is like a machine; it needs fuel to work. The fuel that feeds a brand is marketing.

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