What is the best marketing for a newer agent. Which is money well spent?

A good website
Sphere of Influence

Best "marketing" is keeping in touch with your sphere of influence. Lunches, visits, calls, newsletter, and notecards so they think of you when they think real estate.

The best marketing for new agents is anything FREE and cheap! Be creative. You will need as much money as possible to just survive your first year or two.

Everyone has some good advise so far. I will add my 2 cents. Some of the best advertising at this point in your career will probably be advertising that is mostly free and word of mouth. If you do not have a lot of friends or SOI. I would suggest looking at networking with different venues like churches, schools, town meetings, social get togethers, title co's, open houses, holding open houses, free office time, flee markets, people you see everyday. Just get the word out there. I was amazed at some of the lost deals I had because I simply forgot or did not remind someone I was in real estate. A lot of times had they known at the time they would have preferred to give me business then a stranger. So if you get your name out there and remind people, when the time comes to buy or sell they will remember you and think of you. Because they much rather give business to someone they are familiar with. Also carrying yourself in a professional manner will help tremendously.

Put every nickel you can scrape together into your own personal, local PR/publicity program.

You NEVER waste money when you invest in your name.

Then leverage any media attention you get on yourself into Centers of Influence to generate more word of mouth.

It seems like alot of the information given came from a multi-level marketing meeting. My opinion is different. You could spend a life savings on material that doesn't ever give you an ROI. Spend less time waiting for your website and family to give you business. In todays market expireds and For sale by owner leads are hot. If you can't afford a service that provides the leads, get them from newspapers, MLS, internet, etc. Start creating leads and get listings. When you make some commission, then pay for a nice website and any other marketing you wish. Expires and FSBO's...those are listings waiting for the right agent

Buy a $12.00 logo badge and logo-embroidered clothing and wear one or both of them everywhere that is appropriate. Get involved in your community, especially housing initiatives where lots of people are and try to get names and addresses to build your SOI. Also, work FSBOs, Expireds and Open Houses.

While it is important to get your name in front of people, I would shy away from too much "pick me" advertising. Always look at your ad from a buyer's or seller's point of view. Say "so what?"

Ads that say "we need more listings" or "million dollar producer" and so on don't get you business. Offer something of value--a free report on what buyers or sellers should know, for example. Do a newsletter and hand-deliver it. You can buy those little plastic bags and hang them on doorknobs.

You may have heard it before, but it's true, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.