Best Marketing Tactics to Promote Your Online Equipment Auction
If you are gearing up to have your first online equipment auction, you might be wondering how you can begin to market and promote your auction in order to get the most visitors and bidders to look at your equipment. If you are not immersed into the marketing world, it can be hard to shift your focus to the initial investment that is required in order to receive a better return in the long run. Marketing your auction well is so much more than just trying to get the most visitors to view your lots, it’s more about getting the RIGHT visitors to view your lots, place bids, and ultimately buy your items. Although all traffic is good and will undoubtedly help you in your marketing efforts, and SHOULD be taken into account – it’s important to recognize and set appropriate goals for what you are trying to accomplish as well as who you are trying to reach. For example, if most of your traffic for your upcoming farm equipment auction is created by stay-at-home moms, it’s unlikely that you are going to get the better results than if most of your traffic been from middle aged farm owners. So, in order to promote your online equipment auction the best way possible, we have put together five of the best marketing tactics for your equipment auctions to help you maximize your efforts and make sure that you are reaching the right audience.
When beginning the auction preparations, it is important to know who your main, target audience will be. Are you trying to focus on other businesses? Or would an individual consumer be interested in buying your equipment? Is it more likely that a small business would be able to afford this asset? Or should your focus be more towards a larger corporation? Maybe it’s a combination of a few of those audiences, these are all things to take into consideration as you are learning and exploring your equipment value that will help you market your online auction to the right audience.
Secondly, taking good photos is a simple yet extremely effective way to maximize your marketing efforts for your online equipment auction. A well-lit, clear photo of your equipment goes a long way in showing your prospective bidders what they are looking at as well as persuading them to place a bid. Numerous studies have shown that imagery definitely affects the mindset of the bidder/user and allows them to imagine more realistically what it would be like to own such product. Good photos are another way to show transparency to your bidders – when the photos show clearly what the piece of equipment is and the state that the equipment is in, your bidders are going to know that there is nothing being “hidden” from them which in turn sparks an element of trust and relationship between buyer and seller. A well taken photo is one of the simplest ways that anyone can promote and market their auction well.
Now it’s time to start utilizing your marketing resources. One of the biggest, and best ways to get your auctions out to a wide audience is through the free resources called social media. Using social media to promote and market for your auctions is a little less about reaching the “right” audience, but more about reaching all the audiences – which might not always create the highest conversion rate, but ultimately will never hurt your auction promotion and marketing process. Creating Facebook events, sharing them on your company page, and personal page, and asking your current audience and employees to share the promotional posts helps you reach a huge audience of people who might know other people who might be interested. Social media tends to just be about getting your content in front of as many people as possible, which will no doubt help you start to get some more of the right people seeing your upcoming auction. Utilize Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Craigslist (not free but a small fee) and other online facets that will get your auction information and photos out to the maximum amount of people possible.
Another way to market your auctions well is to consider investing in paid advertising. Paid advertising is an incredible way to target specific audiences based on their likes, dislikes, and interests to get your auction in front of the people most likely to be interested in buying your equipment. Facebook, Google, Instagram, and LinkedIn are all platforms that offer various paid advertising options that are a great way for you to invest in your auction sale in order to have the best auction results. There is an element of investing according to the value of what you are trying to sell. For example, if you are selling three pieces of equipment that are all worth $5,000 you would expect to end the auction with about $15,000. In this case, investing a couple hundred dollars into paid advertising is going to be more than worth it – that extra few hundred dollars will allow you to specifically target your audience with more precision, which will get your online equipment auction in front of more people who are more serious about buying your equipment, driving the price up, and thus allowing you to take home more than the expected $15,000!
We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how you can digitally market for your auction, which is where most marketing takes place now a days – but don’t underestimate the ability of non “digital marketing” such as print marketing, network marketing, or even “brick and mortar marketing”. These various types of marketing can be EXTREMELY productive and valuable for your upcoming equipment auction. You can seek out similar businesses and let them know of your upcoming auction, you can print out flyers to put in your local hardware store or any other place that has a lot of foot traffic from people who might be more likely to buy your equipment. You can simply network, it’s all about going to hang out and meet your target audience where they are – that could be going there physically or simply getting the right flyer in front of them at the right time.
There are hundreds of approaches that you can take when it comes to marketing for your auction, these are just 5 proven marketing tactics that we know WORK! If you are getting ready to sell your equipment and are interested in partnering with Ranger bid, our team offers marketing package options that will take your marketing a step further. Contact us today for more info!
If you have questions regarding marketing options or how to start selling your equipment with Rangerbid, please contact us today, or reach out to our customer service team at 616-261-4984.