Marketing Efforts - Recommendations for Newbie Investor?

[Mark Henderson]

This is my first post on BP. I'm 41 and a newbie investor. I own a small business that is starting to do quite well and I'm devouring as many books and lurking around here on BP to sponge up as much information as I can regarding real estate investment.

In few months I will embark on what I can only hope will be a successful investment career. I will continue running my company - and have a little freedom where I can leave the office during the day to work on investments, however, I feel as though I need to automate as much as possible my marketing efforts so I don't lose focus on my primary source of income (my company). I will be setting aside roughly $1,000 a month for marketing efforts to locate great deals. My strategy is to buy and hold rental properties.

My question to the BP community is this:

With a limited budget of $1,000 per month - what brings in the biggest bang for the buck? In other words, where should I focus my marketing efforts? And what kind of response rates/ conversion rates are you finding from these efforts?