How has the market effected your advertising mix

[NealRM]

I was just wondering how the market has effected everyone marketing mix. Are you advertising less or more? Are you cutting costs and how?

[RESteve]

If you're like me, you followed the quality advice from some of the great minds here on the forums. In doing so, your marketing budget for online lead generation was zero; it's all organic.

I've never been a fan of print advertising anyway.

If you need to leverage out your SEO work then that's a different story. You'll need to keep your fixed expenses low without biting the hands that feed you. Cutting the costs of your SEO professional (like REW) is not the way to go IMO.

As agents, I think we spend way to much money on crap; like coffee. Find other ways to lower your expenses rather than lead generation, like negotiating a better lease, or reducing your monthly reoccurring business expenses that aren't related to lead generation.

Edit: Just realized you posted in the selling forum. Oops! In that case, marketing for your sellers, in my experience, isn't really what sells the home. Sure it may help in some cases, but I find that simply setting the right price (most important) and adding it to your MLS will do the job. You're basically hiring all the other agents in your MLS to help sell the home.

Sellers need you to market though; that's for sure. In that case, what I wrote first applies. If you rank well, you'll generate more leads for your sellers (featured properties). You can market until your blue in the face, but having a site that generates consistent traffic (and organically) wins in my book hands down; for both you and your sellers.

[mrbrian]

I cut my print budget in half based on sales I could attribute to print ads for the past year. That money will go towards internet advertising of some sort. But overall budget will remain about the same.

[MikeNY]

Print ads should be for marketing yourself, they do not sell houses, and most of your $ should be spent on some form of Internet marketing, web sites, etc.

Post cards are still great, just listed/sold.

[1813611]

I am personally focusing more on SEO which I see as the investment that keeps on giving. Traditional marketing like print is a big one-time investment that is in the clients face and then their garbage. With SEO you're at your clients fingertips at just the right time.

[Susan Zanzonico]

I cut print marketing as well. I still think its important to do the 'farming' cards. Of course internet goes without saying for most of us.. ;-)

[scottiegrace]

Just this week I have dropped a full page as that we have been running that costs our brokerage $800 a pop. I am going to focus more on online advertising to make up for it.