The Young Professionals Network has arrived at NAR's Midyear Meetings. Today, in a standing-room-only session, several YPN Advisory board members spoke on a panel about “Marketing Strategies That Work,” and offered up some of their best marketing ideas.

The Gen Y and X panel looked at how to tailor your marketing to different generations and cultures, and gave some ideas for the best technology tools to help you do it.

Here are some of their ideas:

• Host education seminars to reach out to different generations. Baby boomers are preparing for retirement, downsizing homes, and interested in second-home investments, so they'll be interested in seminars on self-directed IRAs and second-home buying, suggested YPN panelist Shannon Williams King, ABR, GRI, of TriBella Realty in Austin, Texas. The Gen X crowd may be more interested in seminars on buying their first home. King suggested holding seminars for lifestyle-conscious Gen Xers at a boutique or unique restaurant.

• Become a niche practitioner. Target a certain industry and make yourself an expert and important resource to that industry. King has established herself as a practitioner catering to dentists. She's learned about the business of running dental practices and and when new dentists move to her city or to a new office in her market, they know to call her. She also hosts relocation seminars at cities throughout her state, targeting graduate programs of dentists and doctors who might be interested in relocating to her market, Austin, Texas.

• Establish yourself as an expert. Baby boomers value education, so you can show yourself as an expert by getting a REALTOR® designation (CRS®, ABR®, GRI, etc.), King said.

• Expand your network with social networking. Reach out to Gen Y by tapping social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.). Make managing all of your social networking sites easier by partnering up with someone else in your office – or your