MAKE BIGGER COMMISSIONS
Ryan helps auction companies look like marketing experts by clarifying their message, communicating that message well, and measuring its effectiveness.

95: What Would Your Brand Do?

or years, I’ve rolled my eyes at mission statements and the like, especially the ones that get posted on store walls or printed in company brochures. I don’t really care what a company’s mission statement is. If your customer service and marketing already exemplify it, I already know your vision and values. If they don’t, why give me a yardstick to to measure your shortcomings?

An Auction Bidder’s Wish List

Does this mean advertising should be reduced exclusively to a list of bulleted descriptions? No—even if in many media, that’d be the most efficient strategy. Write your sales copy as long as space and budget will allow. Emphasis, though, belongs to the facts. Headlines should tell people if what they want might be described in the next section. Top billing should go to the unarguable.

Make it easy for potential buyers to compare your sale item(s) to their wish list. That ease of comparison reflects on your brand, whether they bid or purchase from you or not.

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.

90: 6 Weird Intruders in Your Mail Box

Your media needs to make a good first impression, hold that attention, and then leverage its impact to evoke a specific response. The first step and the transition to the second step are typically where I see auctioneers stumble. They assume that the recipient is as interested in what they’re selling as they are and that the recipient will interact with an advertisement as though they already know the content will interest them.

89: The Ebay Rule for Advertising Estates

If your audience would investigate a collection because of who owned it, by all means use the seller’s popularity to their advantage. But if the seller isn’t the selling point, stick to the facts important to the buyers in your advertising headlines.