I have an affinity for Marketing. It was my major in school and I have always held a job or career that required marketing. I know why they play that music in the super market and why certain places are painted in certain colors.
So, You made a few Bucks in Real Estate This Year and Now you Need New Marketing Materials. A good rule of thumb is 10-20% of your income should go back into marketing. I use 20% per closing and get more marketing. This time of year especially you will need Holiday Cards. If you have business cards you love and enough of them for 2012 along with post cards and note cards then go ahead and get those holiday greeting cards. I just ordered mine. I only bought 100 because I have a stack left over from years past. I print my labels and stuff the envlopes myself. It is personal and proper. It is also a bit cheaper to do it yourself than pay for the printer to do a mailing.
Where Should My Marketing $$ Go?? Try to think of Marketing Materials as Dollar Porducing Lead Generation. Business Cards, Post Cards to Farms, Note Cards to Mets are all Dollar producing items. Billboards, bus benches, pay per click advertising are all Passive forms of Marketing. However effective they may be they are also quite expensive. There are many places to get note pads or callendars where you peel off the sticker and put your own business card in its place. These are a fraction of the price of the pre-printed ones and if you change your card...you can easily make new ones cheap. I have a box of 1,000 in my office closet that I paid 16 cents a piece for. $160 and I just put my cards on them.
Take Some Time and Think about What is best for You and Your Local Market 
This tip is worth a ton............You can go to printer websites like vistaprint and order Holiday Business cards like 500 for FREE and place them on the note pads or callendar pads and mail them out as your holiday card to stay "top of mind" with your customers. The free cards require shipping. I ordered 500 for $6.97 shipping and I am putitng them on a bunch of those magnetic note pads I have. Super Nice Looking Marketing....for Super Cheap.
Pens. I admit my Ego and Branding has propelled me to order custom pens. There are a bunch of sites out there. Just remeber that when you add in shiping the cost per pen goes up. I ordered big barrel grip pens with my name, phone, email, web in a large print for about $1 a pen after shipping. When you have customers sign Listing Agreements give them a pen to sign with and let them keep it. :) Order Blue ones for closings and let the customers keep them. I do not reccomend buying pens unless your 20% Marketing Budget allows it. They are Very Passive Marketing!!!
Business Cards, Post Cards, Note Cards and Local Print Ads in Neighborhood Newsletters is where your main Marketing $$ should go. Dont forget to run a Free ad on Yellow pages.com, yahoo people.com and phone numbers.com.
Happy Marketing of Your Brand!!
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