93: 5 Reasons You Should Be Using Google Alerts

One of the most overlooked tools in the search giant’s toolbox is Google Alerts. In the hands of a savvy entrepreneur, marketer or blogger, this superpower can be a force for good.

The linked article is the exclusive content of OPEN Forum by American Express.

10 Tips for Better Marketing Emails—Part 2: Dont’s

Email should be an important component in every marketing campaign you create. Because the medium is free or very inexpensive, the temptation is not to place as much effort into it as with more tangible and public media. Beware of that pitfall. Surpass your competition’s emails by doing the small things right.

10 Tips for Better Marketing Emails—Part 1: Do’s

If these suggestions seem like common sense, know that I’m still not seeing them used as common practice by many small business owners—auctioneers in particular. For all you do to sell your professional brand in the marketplace, don’t sabotage that work and expense with cheap and lazy email marketing.

87: Measuring Your Social Media Influence

Social media analytics won’t tell you where to advertise your auctions. They won’t tell you how many people are absorbing your message—only those who interact with it. These sites don’t supplant the most important question to analyze your media outlays: “How did my bidders hear about my auction?” But they can give you a more informed perspective of how you’re doing at building an interactive brand on the Internet.

86: 7 Valuable Social Media Shortcuts

There are two halves to social media: sharing and interacting. While you can’t schedule your likes, comments, and other responses in advance, you can simplify the manner in which you collect and distribute the content you want to share. By uploading more than status updates, you can show your audience that you are a source—or at least a distributor—of engaging knowledge. Then, when you share updates about your business, these posts will have more credence and smell less like spam. You do have time for online social networking, if you use your time wisely.

85: Where Should You Advertise?

The only metric that should inform your future advertising is the collective answer to one question: “How do my bidders hear about my auctions?”

Some media will be in the budget simply to show the breadth of your campaign—to assuage sellers. But the majority of your sellers’ advertising dollars need to be going to higher ROI media, and you need to be able to sell and defend your suggested advertising outlays.

82: Long Distance Marketing

On a regular basis, I talk to auctioneers who are proposing and contracting auctions across state lines—in some cases across multiple time zones. Whether these auctioneers are selling for distant estates with local heirs or for banks with holdings in multiple states, they are faced with the same dilemma: how do we find buyers in geographic areas outside of our expertise?