We are committed to serving auctioneers as a trusted digital partner. We invest heavily in the industry because we know that combining the right auctioneer technology and marketing toolkit with the most trusted online buying environment for bidders, enables auctioneers to maximize asset value and run successful online businesses.
This is the fifth email in a series of marketing guides to support auctioneers on everyday marketing needs and best practices.
If you have any questions or would like us to cover a certain topic, please feel free to send a note to your account manager and we will try to include it in a forthcoming guide.
When do I need to notify bidders about my auction?
In the last few newsletters, we talked about the User Interface (UI) and the User Experience (UX) which focus on having a deep understanding of users, what they need, what they value, how they shop, their abilities, their limitations, and their satisfaction level to ensure we find the ideal buyer for every auction. However, we can’t just find the ideal buyer once and then market all asset categories to them on every auction. Each asset category will have its own targeted buyer. Every auction will require a smart strategy to ensure the ideal buyer is identified and reached. To have a deep understanding of the ideal buyer or the “who”, we need to start with the right demographics such as age, gender, education, career, occupation, location, and income. This will help us identify an accurate “buyer persona”. A “buyer persona” is the profile of a bidder which defines your target buyer for each specific asset category; this profile is a detailed description of your ideal bidder who will convert into a buyer. Understanding your “buyer persona” will also help you make marketing, advertising, and sales strategy decisions. At this point, how will you know which publication will be most effective? The only way to know is to measure performance. Continuously measuring and analyzing your marketing strategy is the ONLY way you can ensure your campaigns perform well on every auction. If you are utilizing a third party, be sure to request performance results. Knowing your Return on Investment “ROI” is essential when allocating a marketing budget for each publication.
Notifying bidders in a timely manner is crucial to ensure your marketing campaigns perform well. But how do you know when to start notifying your bidders about your auction? The time that it will take for your marketing campaigns to be successful varies based on your asset category and industry.
To properly monetize the traffic and ensure your auction stays top of mind, we revert back to what has proven to work since the 1930’s. The marketing “Rule of Seven”, which states a prospect needs to be exposed to your message at least 7 times before they take action to buy. Unfortunately, in today’s over-saturated digital world, where our target audiences are constantly disrupted with texts, tweets, calls, emails, social media, etc. we may need more than those 7 times just to be heard above all the clutter that’s in people’s newsfeed or fields of vision. Thus, unless we have a clearly defined marketing strategy that maps out how you’ll reach that prospect at least 7 times, you significantly reduce your chances to have a successful auction. You need smart strategies to ensure your marketing performs. Therefore, the timeline picked for notifying bidders about your auction should revolve around the number of days needed to ensure your target audience is reached 7 or more times with emphasis on ensuring your marketing is seen frequently considering all interruptions.
This approach keeps your auction top of mind – Bidders can be forgetful and easily distracted;
- How many times have you received a promotional email that you’ve opened and while reading it, were distracted with a phone call?
- How often are you distracted with someone walking into your office?
- How often do you go back and look for those promotional emails after being distracted?
- What are the chances of you picking up where you left off on a promotional email without any additional reminders?
If we know there is a chance we may not pick up where we left off, why do we trust that the target audience for each of your auctions will register and bid with just 1 tactic or in just 1 day?
Marketing experts rely on this degree of exposure to ensure they are interacting with your target audience long enough to build trust and frequently enough to ensure the moment your target audience decides to purchase assets like yours; they click and participate in YOUR auction.
We recommend auction catalogs be uploaded and marketing campaigns start at least 14 days prior to the auction. This benefits you on multiple levels; it gives Google crawlers enough time to pick up your content and gives your bidders a chance to be aware of your auction, plan due diligence and make the decision to buy.
We all know getting auction catalogs ready ahead of time can be challenging but it is crucial to ensure when your target audience lands on your auction page, they can register and place a bid. If your catalog is not ready in time, you can compile a list of your high-value assets and post those online as zero A lots until final lot numbers are confirmed. On Proxibid when you post your high-value assets as zero A lots, you have the ability to update the lot numbers to their final lot numbers without losing any bidding activity. Reach out to your account manager to see how you can post zero A lots for your next auction.
Make sure you keep up with this series of emails! If you miss one, reach out to your account manager and they will be delighted to share.
Still to come…
- Why should they choose me?
- How easy is it for them to find me?