Talking of advertising, in one of the numerous threads on the subject posted on these forums, we were discussing targeted advertising as opposed to general.
I had started to try & get some info on magazine advert costs (I didn't get far) & came across the following website.
http://www.cardellmedia.com/advertising.html
A great deal of food for thought.
Gothicina.
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Hi guys!
Thanks for the fair reception on the RSS post.
I'm not sure everyone read it properly judging by some of the questions asked afterwards but hopefully things will become clearer in time.
BTW, Gothicina, I'm not and was never a Lawyer!! How dare you! LOL
My background is marketing. Although I'm not quite over the hill yet and not drawing any State Pensions, I was Marketing Director for a PLC in the finance industry until I retired in 2002. I guess I'm just a 'net bum' now tho :-)
The key thing about this challenge is to spend this money in a way that will produce ongoing results. Having spent substantial amounts of company money in the past, where my performance was judged on the results, I've learned a few things about value for money and what type of advertising works best in certain circumstances.
For instance, no names for obvious reasons, TV advertising. For eBay it will work. For another UK based auction site that has previously advertised on TV (and says it intends to again shortly) it was and will be a complete waste of time.
Why do I say this? Simple really. If we're honest we will all accept that eBay offers the best browsing experience for buyers. The vast choice and competitive nature of eBay means you can usually pick up a bargain in almost every category of interest within minutes.
Alternative auction sites don't have the luxury of such an enormous and competitive userbase, promoted extensively and visited in huge numbers by potential buyers. The listings on most alternative sites are therefore less appealing to buyers at first sight. A much higher % of 'buy now' listings, which are usually uncompetitive when compared to eBay, can actually make for a laborious and unappealing browsing experience.
If a TV advert made an eBayer visit an alternative site they WILL be comparing what they see to eBay. And, so far, no alternative site I've found comes even close to winning that comparison. Sad to say it, but true.
Now the appeal of an alternative site is 99% down to the active sellers, the range of offerings they list and the competitiveness of their pricing. Auctions are popular with buyers still - don't let anyone kid you otherwise - although sellers on less busy sites naturally fear losing their items to low opening bids. So we have a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' problem.
Assuming most of you will know the alternative site I mean that spent large amounts of cash on a TV advertising campaign not so long back, then you will probably also know how the site has performed since. They made the classic mistake of looking at their own site through 'rose tinted glasses' rather than judging it side by side with the competition. As a result they advertised something that didn't compare favourably to eBay as a buyer experience and in the process actually helped eBay.
Until a site has something as good as the competition there is no point whatsoever in throwing money down the TV (or radio or national newspaper) drain. They are in fact paying out money to advertise their weakness comapred to the main competition. The result will be a short term spike in visitors but very little transacted business.
That same site says it is likely to spend even more on TV advertising soon. If this happens they are simply making the same stupid mistake. No matter how attractive or fresh the appearance of the site, if the items on offer are relatively weak in depth and competitiveness, then they are paying out their money to advertise eBay yet again.
Like it or not, even the most casual of online auction site buyers WILL be comparing alternatives - more specifically the offerings by the sellers - to eBay. It simply isn't credible for sellers to move away from the big E and pretend it doesn't exist anymore. Buyers know different. You have to move away and then compete with it and the lower fee environment is your tool to do this with.
OK, I guess a few people will be seeing this as a negative post but it isn't. I'm trying to help people see what the challenge really is.
In my opinion eBid has progressed enormously this past year. Although the 'hide and hike' stupidity at eBay created a window of opportunity, a quick look at eBid's Alexa graphs will show you that the positive trend back then is now reversed and - because eBay have behaved reasonably well fee wise since - people are returning to eBay cos that's where the action is.
This is not eBids fault. But it is to a large extent the eBid sellers fault - including me.
What we are listing is, when combined overall, not attractive enough, complete enough or competitive enough to stand the obvious comparison. But the eBid site is an excellent venue, functioning well and offering facilities I believe rank among the best.
But buyers are turned on or off by the items being listed on a venue. They don't care about the same things we sellers care about, 'stores' 'cheap listings' 'friendly forums' etc.
Now I've heard the answer; 'but sellers are buyers too' chipped in all too often at this point. My answer to that is would Tesco, Walmart or eBay be the size and success they are if they limited sales to their own staff? No. In fact as sales begin to drop so would the number of staff causing a very fast downward spiral. Stop thinking about selling to each other on eBid and start thinking that we all have a part to play in getting more and more new buyers coming here.
The items being listed on eBid is in OUR control - the sellers. Not the guys in eBid HQ or anyone else. HQ provide a damn good venue but not the stock, that's our job.
So my main point of posting this saga is to highlight three things to consider when roasting this old advertising chestnut.
1) If your house is in a bit of a state you tend to discourage visitors until you've tidied up. When you know the appearance of your house stands comparison to your friends places then you're more willing to invite people over. So, be honest, spend a bit of time surfing eBid as a buyer. We the sellers need to improve the experience for browsing buyers. Huge piles of money thrown in to expensive media advertising will be wasted - and actually counter productive - until this is recognised.
2) Individual sellers can market themselves, and therfore eBid, at the same time. Courtesy of the Seller+ deal I spend the money saved promoting my eBid store to get potential customers there. I've made a few sales (on a product I reasonably expect to be VERY slow to sell) as a result. I do this by going elsewhere on the internet and leaving signposts to my eBid store. It is pointless waiting for people to stumble across my listings. Two domain names I sold recently meant the buyers had to open eBid accounts to in order to buy. They wanted what was on offer, it wasn't available on eBay, so they had to join eBid to get the name they wanted. Success.
3) The guys upstairs have given you the opportunity to 'spend' £2K. Before you do anything else, imagine that £2K is YOUR money. You HAVE to spend it in such away that you will get it back in a reasonable time frame. Losing that £2K is not an option. You must show results. Once you are genuinely thinking that way, now propose some marketing and advertising ideas....
The challenge is two fold. Spend the £2K to get signposts out elsewhere on the Internet and get new people to visit. But we also have to make sure that, when these visitors come, the buyer browsing experience compares as well as it can to eBay. Listing after listing of uncompetitive 'buy nows' and gaping holes in the product range offered will simply underpin a buyers opinion that eBay is a better place to shop.
I still belive the RSS option is the best way to get the signposts planted far afield on the Internet. But I also believe we should look a little closer to home about what we are doing to welcome the visitors that will be generated. If we don't then the guys upstairs here at eBid should put the £2K in to their Christmas party fund. At least they will have a hangover to show for it afterwards.
That was very informative, Helenand Graham - (or is it just Helen, or Graham?). What do you think are the best free ways to advertise?
Online advertising through RSS still seems to be the best way as people are more likely to click on something that is right in front of them than rip out an advert from the paper to put aside for next time they look at the internet, although the more times you see the eBid logo, it gradually sinks in as a recognisable brand.
I lot of the items that I sell are pocket money toys in bulk packs, which I aim at fundraisers/PTAs etc. I once spent £1000 to place a 1/4 page advert in 2 editions of a specialist PTA magazine. I put a discount code in the advert so I could track how many sales that were generated through it. I got NONE! It is more effective for me to offer large sample packs to fundraisers and send them about £10 worth of stuff, than to spend the money on advertising.
With newspaper ads, every week I see a news story from feebay in the national papers. They cost nothing, so, as far as the press goes, I think we should conecntrate on the articles that we can get printed for free.
I think a lot of the members also do boot fairs, so if they could be given a load of merchandise, such as the mugs to give away at the boot fairs, people would take them home.
Also with the charities that people have been posting about, if we can promote this, it would hopefully create both buyers and sellers.
I am also up for the challenge! I can use some of the money to make more eBid shopping bags which could be used by Christmas Shoppers. Rather than sell them to fellow eBidders, I could give them to them to distribute.
eBid promotion
H HelenandGraham,
Welcome to the eBid forums and I am sure that everyone reading will be grateful of your input, most of which has already been said on previous postings over the past few months, but it is really good to see it presented in such a professional and concise manner.
There are a few points that should be clarified, however, with regards to the buyers/sellers scenario, the first being that some of us run personal store seminars where we invite friends/family/associates to visit and then introduce them to eBid during internet sessions. This has resulted in quite a high number of sales for me and, as a result, new sign-ups. Often whilst showing people around this site I have made purchases on their behalf - impulse buys for items they have seen whilst on their guided tour. I don't mean to criticise or disagree with your comments but things aren't always as simple as they would first appear
eBid is a fantastic site, propably with the best opportunities available for traders, but like you say, it has to appeal to buyers and then hold that appeal enough to make them want to stay long enough to buy. At the moment, the stickiest part of this site is the forum section and I think that is why it is developing at it's current rate. With the ongoing networking and increase in promotional items / offers, this will develop as time progresses. Yes, it may be slow, but at least it is sure
OK, what would YOU spend £2,000 on and why? It is not a great deal of money when talking worldwide or, even, nationwide advertising and I no longer have access to the big white rabbit LOL
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I can't take the gamble of listing my items for £1 normally, as they don't get enough hits, but I would be willing to put a load of items up for £1.
We could run this up to Christmas. We could spend some of the £2000 on flyers.
Where is everyone else?Is there only a few of us who want to help?
Just some support for some of the ideas put forward would be good.
I like all the ideas so far. Sponsorship sounds good. I think one of the most inspired sponsorship deals ever was when someone decided to sponsor a young woman called 'Ellen Macarthur'. If we could only know who will be the star of London 2012, we could buy them their first PE kit now!
This is an excellent and informative post. Thankyou for sharing your profesional experience with us.Originally Posted by HelenAndGraham
Gazza and Mark.
I'm assuming that any user contributing to this thread is contributing to 'taking up the challenge'. and you are viewing this thread as a pool of potentual ideas from which you will select one or more to take forward? Have I got the right idea?
My own contribution- particularly after reading some of the earlier posts and reading a thread started by Jimbo is:
1. Spend the £2000 developing an easy to use bulk lister so we can attract new sellers.
2. Priorotise your own time on identifying what issues are loosing ebid some of it's current customers, and fixing those issues. ( Didn't you mention a customer survey recently?) It's a lot cheaper to retain a customer you already have, than to gain a new one
'mornin TC...
The problem with these £1.00 auctions that are running at the moment is 'not enough people know about them...as you say...front page would be good!
None of us can afford to list every item we have with a starting price of £1.00 and then 'sit back n' think of England'....most, if not all of the present bids are from the good people here in the forums...
I would be prepared to 'take the risk' of 99p starts if there was more exposure, which of course, is what this discussion is all about.
I think people are a little slow to 'offer' any new ideas because they fear the possible 'reception' they may get..
....in my case, I bow to superior knowledge on the subject of advertising, I know nothing about it...
...I do only what I know how to do...
If I sell an item and the buyer comes back for a second or third time…then I feel I have done something right.
Surely one of the best forms of advertising is ‘word of mouth’….a friend will tell you if there is a shop in town with ‘good offers’ or ‘ a good sale’ ….
The problem with online shopping is …at least in my line of selling, where most buyers tend to be collectors…the buyer does not go home and tell their neighbours and friends about ‘the shop in town’ ….they tend to keep it to themselves for their own ‘exclusive’ use…
Certainly with Christmas just around the corner now is the time for the big push!
….but in which direction?....
Some very valid observations.
I was asked what I think is the best form of free advertising. The answer is anything free is good! But, that aside, RSS would have a cost to set up but, once the site is enabled, the feeds are free to use and exploit.
I can see other people have also found out the hard way that simply because one form of advertising is expensive and high profile, doesn't necessarily mean you will get any results. Good advertising means publicising what you are good at or, ideally, best at.
Advertising from the viewpoint of eBid sellers is not the same as advertising from the viewpoint of eBids owners. The aims are very different and only overlap to a degree.
I'm about to begin work on a friends eBay Store clone site. Effectively this will be an independent website on its own domain but completely stocked using RSS from their eBay store.
They can then publicise their eBay Store listings anywhere they like on the Internet without promoting eBay directly - just their store items. At present that isn't possible for an eBid Store or Items for sale page(without creating your own RSS feeds).
The observation about 'word of mouth' is also valid. However word of mouth operates ina very different way online. Essentially people offer their opinions via blogs, other forums, MySpace, Squidoo etc. How can they do anymore than offer a link right now? With RSS they can actually recommend and display examples of their favourite stores....
I was under the impression this money was to be used to market the eBid alternative to potential new buyers? That being so I don't think people would be pleased to see the money used on nuts and bolts improvements to bulk listers which should be addressed in time depending on priorities and using alternative budgets.
I agree that it is very important that eBid does what it can to keep customers happy and coming back. It is a crucial part of the marketing startegy. But 99% of that problem is solely in the hands of the sellers and not the site. It's important to analyse problems and realise where and how they can be addressed. Code glitches are inevitable on complex sites like these and eBay is the king of glitches at times. But that isn't the prime reason why a new customer wouldn't return, far from it.
The £1 auction concerns are very valid as mentioned in my previous post. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. But if every seller risked losing one item worth £5 for £1 each week you're still far better off than using eBay. Now you potentially have thousands of £1 start auctions. The browsing experience for new buyers has just improved by a factor of ten. Well done. I will do it if others will too. But don't expect the results in one week. If you mean it, then commit to six months of it and by then you can judge the effectiveness (which will be huge).
So back to the point. How should eBid spend it's £2,000 for the benefit of eBid? That's a totally different question to 'how should sellers spend their money to promote their own sales'.
I still say that eBid's money should be spent on improving the ability all eBid users will have (buyers & sellers) to exploit RSS feeds and give users the ability to spread the eBid message beyond the barriers of the site and these forums. After all, wasn't that what the Google Adwords were supposed to be doing? What do you want; an ongoing £2,000 Adwords bill or lots of FREE links and advertising in blogs, forums, dedicated websites, Squidoo lenses, MySpace pages etc. etc. etc.?
GRAHAM (although my better half, Helen, is always around too!)
Last edited by HelenAndGraham; 12th October 2007 at 10:09 AM. Reason: Add name
Is this something that we can create ourselves? eg If someone really teckie set up their own RSS feeds, is it something that we could amend easily to make our own? How long do you think it would take to set up properly from eBid? Can you use RSS feeds, in Emails so when you open up the Email it brings up current data? We could at least copy the latest data as a picture and put a hyperlink in it and send that in an Email.
The £1 NR promotion with RSS feeds dotted all over the place would attract buyers. I'd certainly click on it if I saw a promotion like that.
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