6: The Standard Question

I get the question all the time, “So, what media do you recommend?” It’s usually from an auctioneer moving into a new geographic or market area—and it’s a valid, important question.

Problem is, I can’t answer that question.

I can tell you how many readers a publication draws or how many visits a web site generates. I can give you anecdotal information I’ve gotten from other clients. But I can’t tell you where your buyer is easily and/or most influenced.

That’s not a cop out. I’ve helped with auction advertising now in 35 or so states, selling everything from mismatched silver wear to $12 million waterfront real estate. You’d have thought I’d have learned something from the 1,100 campaigns to which I’ve contributed.

Okay, I have.

1. Use the full extent of “free” or inexpensive media you can, when applicable. Press releases, web listing sites, virtual tour programs, and community events head a list of alternative ways I’ve helped auctioneers get the word out with limited budgets.
2. Poll your bidders at the auction. While I’d love for people to come to your auctions because of BiPlane’s shnazzy direct mail pieces, they probably saw a newspaper add, web site, or sign. Or not. Every market is different. The answers will be, too. But patterns will emerge the more you do of the same in an area—geographic or sector-based.
3. Start small into new media. The lure of discount contracts may make an immediate impact on the auction budget at hand, but you don’t want to get stuck with an unuseful outlet down the road.
4. At the start, medium forays into more media trump large expenditures on a few outlets. Until you’ve got your poll data and know your buyer, it’s often safer to spend a little in a lot of places than a lot in few places. Mix line ads with display ones—in the same editions but different categories or in alternating editions.
5. Build your ads, etc. to be utterly consistent, to help build brand recognition quickly in the media you do try. The pieces might not win awards; but you and I are in business to sell stuff not decorate office walls.

I can’t answer the “what works?” question with absolute authority. In a changing marketplace, what works this year may not work in three. So, this research—this pursuit of feedback and new media—is a constantly moving target. But those who stay at the front edge of it will have the profit advantage over those who stick with the status quo.
[tip]

I like knowing where I’m going and what I’m going to do when I get there. When I traveled to New Zealand, I held a 20-some-page itinerary notebook with everything including pictures of the rental cars we were promised and email-home schedules (in both our home and destination time zones). I like structure, goals—plans.

Problem is, life doesn’t stick to plans, at least not mine. My first response gravitates too often to asking God for the answer(s). He doesn’t give specific, situational answers to modern enigmas in His Bible, written two millennia ago. He doesn’t speak audibly today to make up for the lack of computers & cars or vitamins & television in the New Testament. He’s just available to listen and to answer from somewhere within my ribs.

He does, though, give overarching principles that apply to all situations. Unlike my advice, it’s always true, consistently proven, forever right—even if not easy. As I learn to do just what I know to do, the rest of it—surprise—tends to take care of itself.

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