eBid Marketing Challenge!!

[HannaHolly]

Why? I don't quite understand. I list a lot here but I don't feel any need for a bulk uploader. I used turbolister for feebay but that was mainly because I wanted to control start times/end times.

Kedo I'm referring to the regular posts we get on the forums complaining about how difficult the current ebid bulk lister is, or asking if they can user 'turbo lister' here. From a personal point of view my busines model is based on having and maintaining a high level of listings. I could not achieve this without some kind of bulk lister. However this will be my last post on the subject because it's only one suggestion on a thread with many suggestions. and i'm happy to read as wide a range of options as possible

[Snoo]

Why? I don't quite understand. I list a lot here but I don't feel any need for a bulk uploader. I used turbolister for feebay but that was mainly because I wanted to control start times/end times.

I'd personally rather not use a bulk uploader either (to be fair, I've never tried one), and I thought the point of the exercise was to attract more buyers rather than to further improve things for sellers?

[kedo]

Kedo I'm referring to the regular posts we get on the forums complaining about how difficult the current ebid bulk lister is, or asking if they can user 'turbo lister' here. From a personal point of view my busines model is based on having and maintaining a high level of listings. I could not achieve this without some kind of bulk lister. However this will be my last post on the subject because it's only one suggestion on a thread with many suggestions. and i'm happy to read as wide a range of options as possible

I can understand people new to eBid wanting to use turbolister to list on eBid if they have a lot of auctions saved in it already. I was just curious as to how you thought it gave you an advantage now. I know that I can get an auction onto eBid far faster using the online lister than I can onto feebay using TL so I can't see the point. I was just wondering if I'd missed something. Maybe if you want to be able to move things from site to site?

[nykmedia]

It's something that has been posted on the forums before, but we need better banner advetising/affiliate schemes. A search box to put on your website, or one of those slideshow reels showing some of your listings would be good. Someone also mentioned an RSS feed - not sure what it is, but it sounded good! Perhaps some of the money could be given to an eBidder who is able to set this up (jimbo springs to mind )

Well said TC. In my opinion the current affiliate programme has no real appeal to website owners for numerous reasons, lack of a live feed being only one of them. The RSS idea is a good idea, there is no denying that fact, but I would assume that it would be part of the technical development of the site and not funded by a marketing & advertising budget. When looking at how much other sites spend on generating new 'customers' I think we should be looking at comparing 'costs per sign-up' with whatever statistics we already have available. eBid management will know by now how many new buyers/sellers that their £2,000 worth of ad-words is generating, we don't. I believe that what they are asking for is how WE would spend the £2000 in order to generate new members/buyers/sellers so they can compare the figures. As an example, if I said that it cost an average of £50 per person 'recruited' to join my site, it would mean that £2,000 would 'afford' me 40 new members. The question, I think, is, how many active new members could you generate from £2,000 and how would you do it?

[*artsbanquet*]

I can understand people new to eBid wanting to use turbolister to list on eBid if they have a lot of auctions saved in it already. I was just curious as to how you thought it gave you an advantage now. I know that I can get an auction onto eBid far faster using the online lister than I can onto feebay using TL so I can't see the point. I was just wondering if I'd missed something. Maybe if you want to be able to move things from site to site?

Maybe we could have a choice of both? There are many sellers who are not technically orientated and find it difficult to use the excel spreadsheets. (Like me! )

Anyway, like nyk says - this is probably part of technical development and seperate from the marketing budget.

[HelenAndGraham]

It's very interesting how people have attacked this challenge from different angles. I don't take issue with anyone as I know we are all different, trading different products etc. So we also have our own unique takes on these things.

But if the guys upstairs are looking down on this thread now what will they see apart form a few opinionated people, including me, all pulling on the rope in different directions and interpreting the challenge to suit our own thoughts and personal wants?

I've seen the words marketing and advertising banded around a lot in these discussions and, in most uses, they are seemingly used as one or the same thing. Marketing and advertising are actually two distinct things. Advertising is only a part part of marketing. So what is marketing?

Simply put, marketing for eBid, is everything this site and the underlying business does to attract us users and generate a profit. Although it may be the sellers who directly pay eBid, that wouldn't happen if buyers didn't use the site. So everthing - site improvements, redisigns, pricing, new bulk listers, revised fee structures, advertising - absolutely everything that eBid has done and will do to improve the business etc. etc. etc. is all eBid marketing.

Similarly absolutely everything we do as sellers is our marketing. The quality of our listings, the quality of our products, the speed of our deliveries, the promptness and accuracy of our bookkeeping, the timeliness and clarity of our comms, the respect we show our buyers, the pricing of our products, our advertising etc. etc. is all part and parcel of our own marketing. eBids marketing and our own marketing are not the same, they at best overlap a little where there are shared goals.

But I believe this challenge was meant to be specifically about advertising. The basic premise was to spend around £2K, not on Google Adwords for a month, but however us sellers agree it should be 'better spent' to improve the advertising results.

Now I fully accept I'm not a regular in the forums and I've no preconceived idea of anyones character here. I offer my thoughts with the greatest of respect to everyone here. So please accept there's no judgment intended in what I'm now saying.

BUT...

The very fact this thread exists is based upon the 'challenge' laid down by the site owners. Basically I believe what is really being said to us is;

"OK guys and gals, despite the fact eBid belongs to us and you sellers choose to list here, you keep having a pop at us in these forums making it clear you think you know better than we do how to spend the available advertising budget. Despite the fact running and building an auction venue like eBid is a totally different ball game to being a seller on the site, we've grown abit tired of the knocking. So here's next months Adwords spend for you to allocate, so put up or shut up. And once it's over we can ask you questions for a change and knock your efforts if things don't work so well."

While on the one hand it may seem 'unusual' for the execs of the business to offer a little control over part of the business short term, it is also proving effective in my opinion.

I don't know, but I would bet (that's two bets now!), that a fair percentage of 'constructive critics' in previous threads about advertising have yet to post here.

I would also guess that a few people upstairs are now looking at one or two of these posts and picking holes in them - mine included. After all they have the facts and figures surrounding the business and must know better than any of us what has worked for eBid and what hasn't in the past.

So putting it bluntly, the guys are calling the critics bluff now. If we don't put together a credible, realistic, well thought out and costed plan that makes sense, we will have proved what I think the guys are already thinking upstairs.

On a different forum to this a few months ago I was reading a lengthy post by a site owner. The sentence that stuck in my mind went something like; "Site owners and site sellers make terrible bed partners". That has stuck with me as one of the most fundamentally correct observations about this industry I've ever read.

So, with that in mind, I look back at the original challenge. What realistic alternative to £2K worth of Adwords clicks can we propose that will produce better results for the eBid site? Not just a benefit to a few of the sellers, but for the site as a whole.

Lets run through some options that have been raised. I wont show any bias but I will simply ask some of the obvious questions for you to answer for youself and we can see if this helps clarify our thinking.

Option 1: A new bulk lister?

Does that benefit the majority of sellers more than a few thousand click thrus from Adwords?

Does a new bulk lister appeal to existing and potential new buyers?

Will the number of potential new buyers drop during the month because no Adwords are running?

Will the overall quality and appeal of eBid listings improve enough by this lister investment to get more than 15-20,000 discretionary clicks from people already online?

Will a new bulk lister inspire independent websites to be built around the display of eBid listings elsewhere on the net or reported in forums, newssites, blogs etc?

Option 2: A few radio ad spots?

Given the budget available, the modest coverage will only be regional. Is this best for eBid?

If so, what are the best regions to target?

What can a 30 second radio advert say that will move people in those regions suffuciently enough to take of the marigolds, switch the PC on, and go log on to eBid?

Will the results be as equally worthwhile, or better, than around 15-20,000actual clicks to eBid from people surfing the net and seeing the Adwords ad?

How many people will remember the radio ad a week after the money has run out and the ads have stopped?

How many people will buy a domain and build a website to publish the wording of the advert for people to see in future?


Option 3: A quarter page in a national paper (if you're lucky!).

How many people will read the paper fully and see the ad wherever it may be placed?

If it is in the sports pages will too few women see it?

If it is in the Dear Derdrie section will many men see it?

Will many people be at work when they see the ad?

Will Prisoners with no internet access see it?

Will kids under 18 see it?

Will a fair percentage of people that never use the internet see it?

But then a fair number of net users will see it. What percentage of the papers readership do we think that will be?

Will the ad produce more than 15-20,000 visits during the month the ad appears.

How many will be generated on publication day?

How many visits will be generated four weeks after the ad was published?

How many independent websites will be created or grant free space to covering the wording of this advert?



Option 4: Give all sellers a stack of flyers to enclose with their sendings.

How many flyers can each seller have bearing in mind the cost of delivery to each buyer?

How many sellers will never use them (even if they say they will)?

How many NEW buyers will be attracted by sending leaflets to existing buyers?

Will recipients of this leaflet be motivated to scan it and publish it on their website or code a load of links to eBid listings and keep them updated?

Option 5: RSS enable the site.

Will you get 15-20,000 clicks to the site as a result of RSS feeds in the short term (say 30 days)?

Will you reach 20,000 in 60 days?

Will you reach 20,000 in 90 days?

How many people will see or remember the RSS feeds 30 days after they've been enabled?

How about 30 months later?

How much will it cost to deliver or make these feeds available to eBid buyers and sellers every minute of every day of of every week of every month.... for years to come?

Can these feeds attract new buyers in addition to existing buyers?

Will these feeds be displayed on a sports site only thus not getting in front of many women? Or will they increasingly appear on all types of site appealing to all types of potential new eBidder?

Will people offer part of other website pages to display these feeds at no cost to eBid or the sellers?

Will people be willing to build affiliate sites where they only get paid a modest amount if they produce real results? (new accounts and/or sales).

Feel free to add more questions to each of these options, or more options too.......

Maybe then we can get a sense of balance in the discussion as to the relative potential of each idea and what it may achieve in the short, medium or longer term for eBid.

[Barrattess]

....Clever man!

[kengillam]

I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that dropshipping is the worst thing to happen to auction sites. In reality it means that eBid ends up just duplicating catalogues from (Pick your supplier), not what I want to see as a buyer. Variety, yes, but not the same thing I can find in a dozen other places.

[ToyCrazyUK]

This is what Gazza said in his post:

On the same note and in response to the many criticisms we receive about our lack of marketing, we'll be toning down our online advertising for a month and the £2000 we save we are offering this for our users to spend for marketing eBid. It'll be interesting to see if we can get a better return on this money than Google and Yahoo can give us. How it is spent is up to the eBidders who take up the challenge. It is both a marketing idea and a chance for our community to get their claws into something that might interest them... I'll start a thread soon that this can be discussed on (if no-one else does first)....

I see your point about marketing and advertising being separate, but I get confused (it's not difficult), so my post will probably mention both.

This is my views on your options:

Option 1 - bulk lister. This would be of benefit to new sellers who have a large inventory on other sites as they would be hesitant to list individually. If it brings in new sellers with different stock (we have a gap in the market for computer games CDs DVDs etc - I often find no results when looking for a fairly new release) that would be a benefit. I have used the excel spreadsheet and after a couple of mistakes, I find it OK to use. Improvements would be good, but not with our £2000 marketing challenge.

Option 2 - Radio ads - unless you are doing a big campaign with a recognisable jingle which will drum itself in to everyone, then probably not worth doing.

Option 3 - Newspapers - as above, plus we can make use of the PR company in thinking up 'interesting' stories, like the other side does and get news stories printed free. eg someone auctioning the diamond that they had made out of their grandmother's ashes .

Option 4 - Flyers - I think these will be very effective for little cost as most sellers intend putting them in their ebay parcels etc and handing out at boot fairs.

Option 5 - RSS Feed - need I say more - WE'VE GOT TO HAVE IT NOW! (but can we also have our £2 challenge please )

Option 6 - handing out merchandise eg cotton shopper bags, mugs etc. If I ever get given a freebie at the train station, I always look up the website to see what it is about. Haven't got enough budget to give away merchandise at the mainline stations, though.

A lot of charities hold Christmas Fayres. Could send out goody bags to put on their tombolas. Might be able to get a bit of publicity in the press for this giveaway (can I have some for my scholl Christmas Fayre?)

This could also tie in nicely with the hospice idea. For each hospice who signs up, eBid could list some of its merchandise for auction.

Option 7 - Making an advert - too expensive for TV, but a viral ad series on Youtube wouldn't cost much, if anything. Anyone good at movie making out there? Could do spoofs of the popular ones like the bouncy ball advert (was it for Sony Bravia?), or a series, like the 'Gold Blend' ads with Gazza/Mark instead (Is there really a Gazza AND a Mark?)

Option 8 - Sponsorship - cost a few hundred pounds to sponsor a kid's football team and you get the logo on their kit. Could get a few stories in the local press from it.

Sponsorhip in a lot of cases has a good 'community' feel if you are sponsoring good causes.


I haven't been able to put my ideas as clearly as Graham, but I hope there are a few useful thoughts there.

I hope that Gazza/Mark have offered up the challenge in a light-hearted way, rather than an 'at the end of their tether' of everyone moaning way - I'm quite excited about it (does that make me a saddo??), but you are right about -

I don't know, but I would bet (that's two bets now!), that a fair percentage of 'constructive critics' in previous threads about advertising have yet to post here.

. I am pleased, though, that this thread has received only constructive ideas and has not been hijacked by moaners!

[ToyCrazyUK]

I just tought of another couple -

Option 9 - word of mouth - won't cost eBid anything, but carefully tageted buying will lead to new buyers. eg I've bought a couple of lovely bracelets and a silk scarf. When people comment that they like it, I can tell them where I got it from (only works if not a one-off item). I'm going to try and build up a collection of accessories to wear.

(I had thought of another one, but can't remember it now! Will add when I remember it)