1. Get reprints of an article you wrote a local real estate or business publication and put them in the brochure boxes on your listing signs. Send more to your client list. If you're not comfortable writing, hire a ghostwriter. —Paul Carlson, Lake Stevens, Wash.

2. Stick with an advertising format for at least three months, or even better, for six months. Just at the point that you are sick of looking at it, customers are beginning to remember it. —Eleanor Mowery-Sheets, Dallas

3. Take time during the traditionally slow month of December to develop a marketing plan for the next year.

4. In a drive-in line, buy the coffee of the person behind you and leave your business card with the free drink. —Denise Brophy, St. John’s, Newfoundland

5. Use customer testimonials in your brochures. The praise of others often has more credibility than your own claims. —Ralph Roberts, Warren, Mich.

6. Find a niche that is truly underserved in your market area and focus on that. You’ll be more successful than pursuing the “hot” markets everybody wants. —Hobbs/Herder Advertising, Newport Beach, Calif.

7. Invite those who referred business to you to an annual client-appreciation event. Make it a bash so they will want to refer next year so they can come again.—Mike Brodie, Dallas

8. Put your business cards in the check-out card pockets of books about real estate in your local library.—Bill Dilny, St. John’s Newfoundland

9. Replace that paper business card with a CD business card. At about the same size as a conventional card, you can provide music, a slide show about you, and a link to your Web site.—McEneanery Associates Inc., Northern Virginia.

10. In January, send last year’s buyers a copy of their closing settlement statement for tax purposes. —Bill Barrett, Rochester Hills, Mich.

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