Where are you spending your marketing dollars?

Where are you spending your marketing dollars?

This topic has probably been debated time and time again. It's the one topic in Real Estate school that I don't remember being taught. It's not a Continuing Education class nor credit.

I've been in this business long enough to know that you need to establish a budget for marketing. The question remains, what should you budget for?

I'm sure you all receive phones calls on a weekly, sometimes daily, phone calls from the Big 3 companies letting you know that zip codes have just become available and you have 3 secs to cough up your credit card information before another agent in your market place snatches them up. No matter which company you are speaking with, they are the #1 online portal for both buyers and sellers. #1 in traffic! #1 in everything! So you place your marketing dollars in these portals?

We all have heard that buyers start their search online up to a year before actually being able to buy. We are taught that the goal is to be in front of those potential buyers and that with great SEO and web presence you can be the agent that they find when they are looking. How much of your marketing dollars go to buyer lead generation?

Seller Leads. Is there really such a thing as generating online Seller Leads? Should you allocate a dollar figure for creating Facebook ads, Google +, Market Builder, Market Snapshot, or any of a number of providers that promise you seller leads?

Are mailers still ineffective? Should I invest marketing money to send out mailers or is this a dying medium? With the cost of mail increasing seemingly every year this doesn't seem to be a worthwhile investment. I sit back and think about all of the emails that I receive on a daily basis versus how many pieces of actual mail that I receive. Convenient to send an email, but receiving email has become extremely inconvenient.

Would the best route to go be a mix of all of these marketing styles?

Let's not forget the budget for advertising listings that we do have. Websites, photography, Open Houses, Enhanced Listing packages, Print Media, and although many online portals such as Craiglist are free.. we spend time.

Now that I'm thinking about this more and more.... I NEED A RAISE!!

So I'm asking all of you to let me know, where and how do you spend your marketing dollars? Do we really have to spend money to make money, or is that something a very clever salesman got us all to believe?

sidenote: I generally like to take my time and take a couple of days to write any post. Not this one! I actually only logged in to get the phone number so that I can get the phone number to make adjustments my Activerain Rainmaker account.