Section 6.4. Big-Time Marketing Strategies | eBay[c] The Missing Manual

6.4. Big-Time Marketing Strategies

Many successful business owners will tell you never to let a single day go by without doing at least one thing to market your business. They're right. If you put consistent, continuous effort into marketing your business, it will grow.

Marketing is nothing more than identifying, reaching, and communicating with people willing and able to buy from you. Many of the things you do in the course of an auction involve marketing. For example, when a potential bidder asks you a question and you come right back with a polite, helpful answer, that's marketing. When you leave positive feedback for good buyers , that's marketing. If you send out a newsletter or email promotions, that's marketing. Below are more ways to market effectively.

6.4.1. Identifyand ReachYour Market

Your market isn't where you sellit's to whom you sell. After you've been selling for a while, take some time to analyze your market. Look at who's bought from you and check out their buying habits (Advanced Search Items by Bidder). By looking at other auctions your buyers have participated in, you can get some ideas for things you might do to improve your auctions, like add more photos or offer a multiple-item discount. Or you might notice a product you hadnt considered that would complement yours; is there anything that your buyers tend to buy in other auctions that you don't offer? Do the same kind of research with low bidders who bid on your auctions but didn't buy. Did they buy a similar item elsewhere? What made them buy in that auction and not yours? Price? Shipping cost? Auction description or picture? BIN vs. regular auction?

Read the feedback buyers leave for you. Sometimes positive feedback contains veiled complaints, like "Never answered my emails but did send my saxophone " or "I wish I'd read the shipping charge before I bid"; if you see a pattern of this, address the problem. Or you might notice a pattern of praise, something that your buyers think you do particularly well, like super-fast shipping or extra care in packing. If you see many of your buyers are happy with some aspect of your products or service, highlight that in your auctions.

Market research teaches you two main things:

Who your buyers are.
What they want.

Do everything you can to get as clear a picture as possible of your target market in these two areas. Then you can go out and get 'em.

On eBay, some buyers will come to you. But to build your customer list, you've got to go out and find your target audience, wherever it may be. Here are some ideas for reaching your target market:

Run limited-time promotions . When they can hear the clock ticking, buyers don't want to let a good deal slip through their fingers. Use your newsletter or eBay Store to advertise limited-time specials or auctions with an unusually low starting price.
Tip: If you're running a sale, like a one-cent special on a long list of DVDs, you can use eBay's Home Page Featured promotion to get eBayers shopping all your auctions. Home Page Featured is expensive$39.95 per listing to get on eBay's home page and at the top of search results lists. Instead of choosing this feature for all your auctions, choose it for just one (to go along with eBay policy, it has to be a real auction and not merely a promotion). Then write your item description to let shoppers know you're holding a huge sale and get them excited about your other listings. Include prominent links to your other auctions and your eBay Store. You'll pay just one Home Page Featured charge, and your other auctions will get piggyback publicity.
Let eBay pay your advertising costs . Well, some of them, anyway. eBay's Cooperative Advertising Program reimburses 25 percent of your advertising costs if you're a PowerSeller (Section 7.6) and you're either a Trading Assistant (Section 7.5.1) or the owner of an eBay Store (Section 7.3). You get more business; eBay picks up part of the tab. To participate, you have to register with Co-op Advertising (go to www.ebaycoopads.com and then click the Registration Form link), and eBay must approve your ad. When your ad runs, you submit a form to eBay to get your money.
Become a favorite . Any eBayer can add your ID to her list of favorite sellers when she looks at your auction page. Make it easy for potential buyers to do so by putting a link right in your item description that will take them to the Add to My Favorite Sellers and Stores page. Inserting this HTML into your item description when you create a listing (replace yourID with your actual eBay ID) does the trick:
```
 <a href="http://cgi1.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI. dll?AcceptSavedSeller&amp;sellerid=yourID86&amp;sspageName=DB:FavList" target=_blank>Add me to your favorites list!</a> 
```
Network . If your business has a physical presencea table at flea markets or a brick-and-mortar storeuse that business to let people know about your eBay business. Create flyers featuring your eBay Store and drop one in the bag when a customer makes a purchase. Carry business cards with you and hand them out every chance you get. Ask friends who have Web pages or blogs to put up a button (Section 6.4.3.3) that links to your auctions or your eBay Store.
Market your expertise . Teach classes (Section 7.5.2) or write an article for a local or trade publication on how to sell on eBay. Use the exposure to let people know about your business.
Barter . If you're a Trading Assistant, offer a discount or your services to people involved with local or regional organizationsthe president of the local landlords association or the lady who sends out the newsletter for the regional writers groupin exchange for advertising space in their trade publication or newsletter.

6.4.2. Get Some Buzz Going

Word of mouth is the best marketing tool out there. Get people talking about your business, and they do your marketing for you. You can start a buzz one customer at a timeor you can shoot for national-level exposure by getting your auction in the news.

Here are some ways to get people talking about your auctions:

Ask them to . People love to brag about getting a terrific deal. Tuck a note into your packages asking the buyer to tell their friends about your auctions.
Get on eBay Pulse . eBayers love to see which auctions are on eBay Pulse's Most Watched Items list (http://pulse.ebay.com). These are the 10 auctions that are on more eBayer's Watch lists than any others. Some of the auctions are pure marketing geniuslike the guy who got hundreds of dollars in bids for an empty gum wrapper by describing how he started the auction on a bet and then adding updates as the bidding went wild. Study the top auctions to see what gets people excited. In your item description, ask bidders to add you to their Watch list. The more who do, the better your chances of making eBay Pulse.
Piggyback on a popular auction . When you see an auction on eBay Pulse, click Ask Seller a Question to send the seller one of your auction numbers and ask him or her to mention it on the popular auction. If you're charming enough, you might get a link. (This works best if your linked auction is related to the popular auction somehow, or if the proceeds of your auction are going to a good cause through Giving Works; see Section 8.5.)
Write a "serial" auction . One recent craze on eBay has been "mystery" auctions, where a seller puts a box, trunk, suitcase, or other container up for sale without revealing the contents. (Per eBay policy, the auction is for the container only; the contents are a bonus.) When the bidding reaches certain levelssay, every hundred dollarsthe seller reveals a clue about the contents of the box. Shoppers love to come back and read the clues, and bidders are motivated to push the price to the next level. You can adapt this strategy to other auctions, as well. For example, you could tell the sob story of how the cameo brooch up for bids was a wedding present from your great-grandfather to your great-grandmother, who wore it pinned over her heart every day until that tragic buggy accidentpromising the next part of the story when the bidding reaches a new level.
Stop the presses ! You've probably seen eBay auctions in the newsfrom the Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich to a " haunted " cane to the guy who sold advertising space on his forehead. More serious auctions also make the news if an item is extraordinarily rare or important. If you've got an auction with a news angle, you can try to get it into the press. Start locally. Contact your town's newspaper and talk radio stations . If it's a slow news day or your story is attention-getting enough, a wire service might pick up your story. Several companies (such as www.ereleases.com or www.eworldwire.com) will write and distribute a national press release for you, but the service is expensive; it can cost hundreds of dollars. And there's no guarantee that the media will report your story after you shell out.

Tip: If you've got a weird and wacky auction that deserves attention, like the tennis shoes Elvis wore in junior high or a cookie that's a dead ringer for Bill Clinton, get your oddball auction some attention by notifying popular Web sites that publicize way-out auctions, such as Who Would Buy That? (www.whowouldbuythat.com) and Bizarre Bids (www.bizarrebids.com).

6.4.3. Promote, Promote, Promote

With millions of items up for grabs on eBay at any given moment, you need a good strategy to drive buyers to your auctions. In other words, don't sit around waiting for buyers to come to youreach out and find them by promoting your auctions.

6.4.3.1 Newsletters

A newsletter is an inexpensive way to keep your auctions in the minds of past customers. When you send your invoice, or after a buyer has left you positive feedback, offer the opportunity to subscribe to your newsletter to stay informed of your auctions, great deals, and special offers. You can send newsletters weekly, monthly, or whenever you get around to it.

Note: Any newsletter you send has to be an opt-in newsletter: buyers must sign up for it themselves and be able to unsubscribe easily at any time. Otherwise, someone might report your newsletter as spam and get you in trouble with eBay.

A newsletter should offer value to its readers. Instead of simply promoting your auctions, include tips or news that relate to your specialty. For example, if you sell children's clothes, include parenting tips or cute stories about the neighbor's kids . Occasional contests, surveys, and subscribers-only promotions also have appeal . In other words, give your subscribers a reason to read your newsletter that goes beyond browsing your current auctions.

eBay Store owners (Section 7.3) can organize mailing lists and send out newsletters through eBay (see the box on Section 6.4.3.2). You can also start your own Group on eBay (Section 10.1.2) and use it to email eBayers who join. But consider going off eBay to create your newsletter; then you can use the newsletter to promote your Web site, not just your eBay sales. One of the best and easiest ways to create and distribute a newsletter is through Yahoo! groups (it's free). Subscribers must go to Yahoo! to sign up, so it's definitely an opt-in list, which means eBay won't accuse you of sending out spam. Whenever you've got a newsletter ready to send out, you can email it to every member of your Yahoo! group . Here's how.

Go to www.yahoo.com, and then click Groups "Start a group now." Sign in (or click Sign Up if you dont already have a Yahoo! ID) to begin this process:

Choose a category, as shown in Figure 6-10 .

Pick a topic that relates to your sales niche. You can get really specific with subcategories (such as Family & Home Parenting Moms Working Moms), or you can click "Place my group in " if you dont want to go any deeper into the subcategory structure.

Figure 6-10. Yahoo! Groups cover just about anything anyone might be interested in discussing: business, home and family, education, crafts and hobbies, computers, entertainment, health, and more. The main categories appear under Find a Group; each category is a link you can click to discover its subcategories.

Describe your group .

In this step, you select a name for your newsletter, like Kathie's Collectibles Corner or Mad about Barbie, and write a description that lets subscribers know what they're signing up for. Will your newsletter feature secret sales, subscribers-only deals, or articles about, say, how to grow more beautiful roses or build a better model airplane?
Select your Yahoo! profile .

If you have more than one Yahoo! ID, you can select which one you want to use to administer your newsletter. (If you have just one Yahoo! ID, type it in here.) You also specify the email address you want to use for correspondence related to the newsletter and type in a security code. If you click Continue, Yahoo! creates your group.
On the page that appears after you've created your Yahoo! group, turn the group into a newsletter by clicking the Customize Group button .
Here you choose options about who can join and whether or not to restrict posting. To make your group a newsletter, answer the question "Who can post messages to your group?" with "Only group owner."

Yahoo! assigns your group its very own Web page. To find it, go to the Yahoo! home page and click Groups. Sign in to Yahoo! (if you're not signed in already), and Yahoo! shows you all the groups you're a member of under My Groups. Click the group's name to go to its page. You can use the Web page to archive past issues of your newsletter, display photos, conduct polls , and more. The Web page's left-hand menu has a Management link: click it to invite or approve new members , edit content and appearance, or delete your group.

GEM IN THE ROUGH
Good News( letters ) for eBay Store Owners

If you own an eBay Store (Section 7.3), you can use eBay's Email Marketing program to reach buyers. Here's how it works. Every eBay Store owner can create up to five email lists. When a buyer adds you to his list of favorite sellers, he can opt to subscribe to your newsletter. You can't send more than one mailing a week, but you can make your newsletter whatever you want it to be. Try including special offers, new listings, and other news to keep your readership reading.

To start an email list, from the navigation bar select My eBay Manage Your Store. Find the Promotions sections, then click Email Marketing, and then follow the instructions. Depending on the level of your store, you get a certain number of free emails you can send each month:

Basic store . 100 free emails per month.
Featured store . 1,000 free emails per month.
Anchor store . 4,000 free emails per month.

Whatever the level of your store subscription, emails beyond the monthly limit cost a penny apiece.

The Email Marketing section of your Store Manager also tracks each newsletter's success on the Sent Email page. Use these reports to find out how many recipients opened your newsletter, the click-through rate, and how many bids and BINs resulted from each newsletter.

6.4.3.2 eBay Groups

Thousands of eBayers join hundreds of eBay Groups to discuss their special interests. If you specialize in a particular kind of merchandise, starting your own eBay Group (Section 10.1.2), or even posting actively in already existing group, establishes you as an expert and attracts collectors or people with an interest in your specialty. You can build a customer base and make friends at the same time.

Tip: If you start an eBay Group or a newsletter, let potential subscribers know by linking to the group/newsletter sign-up page from your About Me page and your eBay Store.

6.4.3.3 Want It Now

Check Want It Now ads (Section 3.1.11) to see if anybody's specifically looking for the stuff you're selling. From the Want It Now main page (http://pages.ebay.com/wantitnow), use the Search Want It Now box to search ads. If you see an ad from someone looking for a cookie jar shaped like a teddy bearand you just happen to have one for saleyou can send the poster your auction number through eBay by clicking the Respond button at the bottom of the Want It Now ad. On the next page, click Respond To Post, as shown in Figure 6-11. Keeping up with Want It Now ads is a handy way to target bidders who are out there searching for auctions just like yours.

Figure 6-11. You can only respond to a Want It Now ad with an auction number; there's no way to contact the buyer directly. If you've got a suitable auction running, type in the item number and click Respond To Post. If you've got just the thing but haven't listed it yet, you can list the item right from this page. Click Sell Your Item to get started.

Note: When you respond to a Want It Now ad, your auction should be pretty close to what the buyer is looking for; if the ad is for a mint 1984 Stanford yearbook, don't respond with a 1967 yearbook from Princeton. If your item is close, however, but not quite word-for-word the same as the Want It Now ad (a 1984 Stanford yearbook with pencil moustaches drawn on the entire graduating class), send the auction number, anyway. Let the buyer decide whether what you're selling is what they're hunting for.

6.4.3.4 Your own Web site

Create an off-eBay Web site to bring potential buyers to your eBay auctions. Your offsite Web page doesn't have to be an official store with catalogs and shopping cards; it can be anything you want it to be. If you're an expert on comic books, for example, you can have fun writing up a Web site that shares your expertiseand links to your current comic-book auctions and (if you have one) your eBay Store (Section 7.3).

Tip: If you participate in email lists and discussion groups (Section 10.1.2) related to your area of expertisea great way to build your reputation and let other eBayers know about your auctionsremember to add the URL of your Web site to your email signature. If you do, folks who like what you have to say can click through to your Web page easily.

When you have your own Web site, the simplest way to link to eBay is to add a button to your page. To do so:

From the eBay home page, click Services "Add link buttons ."

Figure 6-12 shows you the page that appears.

Figure 6-12. You can add a button to your Web site that links to the eBay home page or to your current auctions. Select the button you want (you can choose one or both) and type your Web page's address into the text box. Then you have to scroll way down the page, past the long License Agreement and its terms (you did read all that, right?) and click I Agree to continue.

Turn on the checkbox beside one (or both) of the button options .
You can create a button that links to the eBay home page (not so useful), to your auctions on eBay (more useful), or both.
In the text box, type the complete URL of the Web page to which you want to add the buttons. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click I Agree .

A page containing a customized HTML snippet appears.
Cut and paste the HTML snippet into the HTML code of the Web page where you want the button to appear .

You need to follow your usual routine for uploading and testing your newly edited Web page.

Creating a link from your Web page to your eBay Store (Section 7.3) is easy. Each Store has its own Web address: something like www.ebaystores.com/storename . Create a hyperlink (Section B.5) from your Web page to your store to help buyers find your auctions.

Tip: When you join the free eBay Affiliates program (Section 10.2), you make money every time someone follows a link from your Web page to eBay and registers or bids. In addition, you get access to the Affiliates Toolbox. Go to Services

eBay Affiliate Program

Toolbox to see what goodies the Toolbox holds. To add your current eBay auctions to your own Web site, you want the Editor Kit, shown in Figure 6-13. On the toolbox page, click the Editor Kit link. The cool thing about this tool is that it lets readers see your actual auctions right from your Web page; they dont have to click a button to see what's on your auction block.

Figure 6-13. The Editor Kit lets you insert an eBay Search box on your own Web page and show live auctions. Most of the fields are selfexplanatory. When you've finished, the Editor Kit generates a sniplet, a piece of JavaScript code that you copy to your Web page and upload to the site that hosts your page.