This is part one of Aaron Woodman’s five-part series on how real estate agents can build an effective, winning marketing strategy in 2013.

In the real estate industry, there’s a major problem that pervades all of our lives – give a person too many options, and oftentimes they’ll choose none.

Or worse yet, some agents are insistent on spending money towards the digital platform of the moment, and when the money spent isn’t a part of a larger, grander plan with clear goals and a vision on how to attain them, they’ll be billed for months without results. When they finally cancel the service, they’ve wasted thousands of dollars and precious hours of working time.

That’s why my first piece of advice for agents who come to me looking for help is simple: step back and take a moment to look at the bigger picture. Though spending money on a marketing initiative will give you the satisfaction of being proactive, it can also be a temporary and costly distraction from the true task at hand, which is the truly exhausting planning and analysis.

The best way to build a business is to create a marketing strategy. On a broad level, a well-executed marketing strategy will define your business. For example, if you were asked to put a face on the typical client that your business has flourished with in the past, or the type of client that you would like your business to align with from now on, what would that person look like? What is your unique selling proposition to these clients? Is there something about your approach to the business, your background, or your personality that draws them to you?

Once you’ve defined what your business is and what makes it successful, focus on the method. What channels will you use to put yourself out there? (This is where envisioning your client as an individual comes in – what magazines or blogs does he or she read? What neighborhoods do they live in? What activities do they participate in?)

Think not just about the channels for your content, but how the content will flow – are you using social media to push people to your website, or vice versa? Do you keep an email list to send your sphere a notification every time you publish a blog post?

This series will take you through the steps of building a winning marketing strategy as a real estate agent, from networking and self-promotion to blogging and thought leadership, as well as from making a broad-level evaluation of your business to scheduling your content effectively.

A marketing strategy requires a major investment of time – but considering the alternatives, the value is unparalleled.

Aaron Woodman has sold more than $200 million in real estate assets and has managed a portfolio of more than 1,600 multifamily units, working for several large property management companies as well as for EXIT Realty and Keller Williams Realty. Recently, he has focused his efforts on using his breadth of experience to act as a consultant for a variety of real estate businesses, including individual residential brokers across the country, national property management firms and real estate technology start-ups.

Find him on twitter.com/aaronwoodman and woodmanconsultinggroup.com.