eBay Marketing: Keyword Fundamentals

Excerpt from "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing."

Keywords and Item Titles

Keywords help buyers find your product among the millions of items available on eBay. So, you need to carefully choose the words that potential customers will use to describe your product in their searches and use them in your item title and description.
Put yourself in the prospect’s place and brainstorm the words they would use to search for your product on eBay. Obviously, the primary keyword would be the object itself. Other essential keywords include:

* Manufacturer or brand name
* Model
* Style
* Color
* Material
* Country of Origin (if indicates quality or uniqueness)
* Age or Year Made (especially important for antiques and collectibles)
* Condition (new, mint condition, etc.)
* Size
* Different spellings of the item

Zero in on the best keywords to use in your title and description by using the eBay search engine to figure out what keyword titles work well historically. Search your own keywords and see what comes up. Sort by completed item sales and by highest price first.

Hint: You can use your brainstormed keyword list to create keyword advertising campaigns, a topic we’ll discuss in Chapter 6.

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Ultimate FAQs for Better eBay Marketing

Excerpt from "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing."

Write FAQs to Improve Your eBay Marketing
eBay item descriptions serve multiple purposes, one of which is to act as a retail sales person. In a traditional retail environment an effective salesperson takes the opportunity to present the product in the most favorable light possible. She calls attention to details, recommends uses for the object and answers questions. On eBay, a Frequently Asked Question section (FAQ) serves the same purpose.

FAQs:
* Dispel fears
* Overcome common objections
* Communicate benefits in the Q&A format
* Clear up nagging questions that don’t fit into selling copy
* Educate less experienced prospects
* Clear up technical concepts

Let’s say you sell those new mini-bikes, the tiny little motorcycles that you see buzzing around suburban neighborhoods.

Buyers have lots of questions about these bikes that need answering before they move forward with bids. Here are just a few:

* Do I need a motorcycle license to drive one of these?
* Are they safe?
* Are riders required to wear a helmet?
* Can a regular motorcycle mechanic work on them?

Imagine how long it would take to answer every question of every prospect via email. An FAQ solves the problem and gives you a new opportunity to stress benefits and reduce resistance. You also spare yourself the loss of a customer who goes to a competitor’s listing to find the answer to their question.

Hint: Only one out of 10 people with a question will take the time to actually email you. So, nine others had the same question but didn’t bother. If you don’t address details and FAQs up front, you’ll most likely lose those nine “invisible” customers.

Many sellers find that FAQs are much easier to write than prose-style text. The whole Q&A process really gets the creative juices flowing.

Once you’ve put together a compelling description for one of your products, you’ve got a boilerplate for other products. Click the “Sell Similar” button (Figure 1) to reuse that description wherever you need it and adjust as necessary.

Figure 1: Sell Similar allows you to easily re-use boilerplate description information
The whole process is not all that daunting – especially when you have so many ways to dive in and so many techniques at your disposal to get the process going. You can:

* Write FAQs
* Estimate value
* Use the bucket brigade
* Link features and benefits
* Zero in on positive factual information

We’ll have more tips and tricks in the Fine Tuning Your Descriptions section ahead, and Chapter 5 goes even deeper into the persuasive approaches that work best on eBay.

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eBay Marketing Tips: Selling – Writing - Speaking

• The message is about the reader and his interests, needs, and desires, not you and your wants.
• It should contain some significant promise of benefits (again to the reader), implicit or stated.
• The benefits should be concrete -- easy for your reader to imagine.
• Any claims you make should be supported by facts.
• Difficult concepts should be included only if you can clearly illustrate them with examples and analogies.
• Simple is better. One overriding idea presented repeatedly in different ways and with building evidence is much stronger than a string of related but distinct ideas.

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eBay Descriptions: Post-Writing Quality Control Checklist

• Set the thing aside and let it sit for least an hour
• Read it again and flag stumbling spots
• Break up paragraphs to increase pace (variety is the spice of life). Go with short graphs first, then vary the amount of lines from 3-5. Sprinkle in some one line paragraphs, if possible.
• Break long sentences into two simple, shorter ones
• Eliminate extra words
• Eliminate “thats"
• Eliminate words with “tion” “sion” “ance” “ate” “able” “ment”
• Eliminate excessive adjectives
• Eliminate passive voice (this includes “is” “are” “can” etc.)
• Eliminate cliches
• Make cannot and is not into contractions for conversational tone
• Pay particular attention to commas, making sure they’re right (right for the particular customer, too)
• Make sure bullet lists start with either a “How to” phrase or a number or a powerful verb or…
• Write rhetorical questions into your copy that can be answered in the affirmative (YES!)
  Make sure you have some numbers for impact (specific numbers are better than generalized ones). Keep the % and the numbers themselves. Don’t spell out.
• Proof read on paper and mark it up
• Read it aloud

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Benefits and Technical Features - eBay Fundamentals

Excerpt from "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing."

“Secret Sauce” Features vs. Technical Nonsense
Some vendors and manufacturers crave differentiation so desperately that they devise strange, incomprehensible product features. They get into all kinds of trouble describing crazy features and “XM-3000 performance statis­tics” that are lost on the potential customer’s dream receptors.

If your product really does something different, if it’s oozing with “secret sauce,” then certainly highlight that. However, do it by connecting with buyer benefits and keeping it simple.
Here’s a good benefit list about a Palm handheld device that was listed on eBay:
• Read and reply to your business and personal e-mail.
• Send an SMS message and collaborate quickly with colleagues.
• Type an e-mail to your team on the thumb keyboard.
• Use the phone feature to make a call and take notes at the same time.
• Edit spreadsheets, documents, and presentations on the Tungsten W handheld’s crisp, high-resolution color screen.
• Keep track of calendars and contact information.

Notice the seller didn’t lead with confusing features like “Motorola MC68VZ328 33 MHz Display, TFT active matrix - reflective - 16-bit (64K colors).” Those may be important when it comes time to compare the device to others, but the dream needs to be sold first.

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Marketing Emphasis at eBay Live

There's a buzz of consensus here at eBay live. Everyone is agreeing that selling is becoming much more competitive. People are talking about how to differentiate, how to cross-promote, how to publicize outside of eBay and promote business in an original way. Half of the seminars deal with related topics.

eBay has grown up a bit. Big-business marketing techniques have become much more common, and a little of the rough-edged casualness has gone by the wayside.

From my perspective it's not such a bad thing. After all, we’re in this to sell and to help customers get what they want and need. If we can improve the way we do that, then everyone wins.

The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing is all about this core philosophy. The book helps you improve your marketing approaches, invest time and money in the right marketing activities, and move customers closer to the bid/buy buttons.

By the way, we sold out of all copies here at the show – a great indication of sales to come. The other books on the shelves weren’t moving nearly as quickly. We’re excited! The publisher says that bookstores will begin receiving the book in mid-July… earlier than expected. Be sure to thumb through the book and let me know what you think when you get a chance.

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Estimating Value -- A Great New Source for Collectors

Here's a great new site that helps you value goods by conducting historical eBay pricing analysis. It's called SmartCollector. I'll have more info on this service soon, but I'll post their schpeal below to give you a taste. Visit the site to learn more.

"Use eBay research to buy and sell collectibles and antiques with confidence

"Every collector needs to answer the question – what is this collectible worth?Find out at SmartCollector, where you can:Search up to 120 days of historical eBay sales dataFilter out numerous unsuccessful listingsTrack trends in collectible/antique item and category sales "

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New Ways to Present Listings

Quite a few companies here at eBay Live are offering nifty systems that allow you to publish listings in video format. One such service, called Auxnmercial, takes your photos and turns them into an audio presentation that's embedded in the listing.

Prospects come to your auction or listing, they click play, and they see a photo slideshow that's synched with audio from your description. As I understand it, you can phone in your description in your voice, or can have one of their text to voice translators read from your description and record the audio automatically. One of their robotic voice readers has gathered particular attention. People like the funky sound and unique style.

This looks like a trend. Keep your eyes peeled for more products like this. Infomercials are getting easier and easier to produce with services/software like this.

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ShopGoodwill.com -- A Good Source?

I just lunched with a woman who runs the Goodwill donation aggregation and reseller program. She pulls in truckload after semi truckload of product every week, and has to figure out what to sell on eBay or on their own shopgoodwill.com site.

Her big dilemma is to figure out what donated merchandise meets her self-imposed $50 threshold for resale. Anything less is a waste of time, she says (which means that *lots* of goods pass through the Goodwill stores that don't meet the threshold). She cherry picks antique furniture, comics, electronics, computers, art and more from the piles and posts it on eBay, earning the Goodwill a nice profit, and ensuring that good merchandise doesn't slip through their fingers.

Some of the merchandise ends up on the shopgoodwill site, though. This is potentially a great source. Let me know what you think about this. Is it a dead end? A sweet find? Are there gems in there to be unearthed?

One of the recurring themes at eBay Live is that sourcing is everything. Everyone wants to know how and where to find good deals that they can then turn around and post on eBay. I learned quite a bit from this woman. Email me or respond to this post if you'd like to hear more of her insights.

More updates on the way..

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Live From eBay Live

I attended a seminar by the legendary "Griff" this morning. He was going down eBay memory lane, from AuctionWeb to EchoBay to billion-dollar greatness. Fun stuff, great speaker.

Marketingwise, one thing that stuck out was his story about the beginning of eBay's listing fees. Originally, AuctionWeb didn't charge fees, but once they started, they quickly figured out two of the more valuable marketing and pricing lessons known to man: 1) Once you charge for something, people attach heightened value to it. And, 2) once you charge for listings people become more discriminating about what they list. Both of these factors contributed to the early success of eBay.

The first point is marketing 101. Things that are free are generally considered of little worth. Even Internet sites like eBay, sites that originated in the free, communal ethos of cyberspace, benefit from the introduction of basic monetization. If somebody wants something good, they’ll pay for it. If it’s free, it’s suspect. A free cotton t-shirt is generally cruddy, for example. There are, however, designers who sell cotton T-shirts for $60+. What’s the difference? – Quality, Value and Perceived Value. These three areas are where professional marketers earn their keep.

In Griff’s story, eBay realized that listings increased rather than decreased when they started charging fees. When people realized that listing on eBay was something of value, something that could help them make money and reach a large audience, they gravitated toward it. It’s conceivable that since eBay listing was free for so long that others kept away from it, perceiving it as illegitimate or suspect in some way.

The second point helped eBay grow quality listings. The introduction of listing fees forced people to be careful about what they listed and refrain from posting as much junk as possible. The quality of goods on the network improved, and eBay benefited as a result.

Win, win. Introducing listing fees worked out well for eBay. Many would argue that they’ve become far too enamored of fee hikes, however. ;)

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eBay Live Blogging

I'm going to be in San Jose tomorrow, Fri and Sat for eBay Live. If you'll be there, send me an email, and we can meet up -- phil@qualitywriter.com. I'll be posting observations and new info as it comes available. Lots of info of interest to eBay sellers will be revealed.

Best,
Phil

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How to Ask for Referrals

I receive a great newsletter everyday called Early to Rise. It features collections of articles and tips for passionate/enthusiastic businesspeople and entrepreneurs -- everything from business strategies to health tips.

This morning, the email newsletter included a great article on asking for referrals. They'll post the article tomorrow (it appears from their site).

Here's the gist... When you ask for referrals, use open ended questions -- preferably ones that start with the word "Who." As in, "Who else do you think could benefit from the products/services I offer?" Closed ended, yes-or-no questions (as in most cases) make it too easy for the person to decline.

The article also talks about how many referrals to ask for (hint: the more the better, according to their research). In addition to asking for referrals in person, you should include requests for referrals in your email correspondence, in your newsletters, on your eBay listings and on any other Web commerce sites you host. You'll actively build a future for your business and spread the word quickly about your success and value.

Now -- here's my chance to ask you for a referral. Who do you know that would benefit from the information posted in this blog? How many people do you know that would get value from "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing?" Think of 6 or 7 people you could send my way and email them this URL as well as the URL to the book. Thank you so much. Your help is greatly appreciated. -- Phil

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Opt-In Marketing on eBay

Excerpt from "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing."

Opting In
A major caveat to the one-to-one and direct marketing suggestions in this chapter is that, per eBay policy, you must first obtain permission from your customers to participate in marketing activities that involve them. Customers are much more receptive to marketing materials that they’ve agreed to receive.

In Internet-speak, this is called allowing your customers to “opt-in.” With their permission in place, any e-mail promotion, newsletter, or other ad campaign will be a welcome item in their inbox. Without their permission, they’ll view your promotional material as spam, click the Delete button, and won’t return to shop with you again.

Getting customers to opt-in to your retention efforts is as simple as just asking. Include an invitation to receive marketing materials from you in the e-mail correspondence you send. Use the Selling Manager Pro e-mail template editing capability discussed earlier to include an invitation to opt-in to your promotional offers.

Note that it is against eBay’s policy to send marketing e-mails to your customers once you have completed the post-sale e-mail process, unless your customers have opted-in to receive further communications from you. Design your own opt-in process, or use the system offered by the eBay Email Marketing Program, but be sure to get your customers A-OK before launching retention efforts.

Caution: eBay requires that sellers obtain opt-in permission from customers to include them in marketing and e-mail campaigns. Use Selling Manager Pro’s e-mail template editing feature to include an opt-in invitation in every correspondence you send out.

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New eBay Book Reveals Marketing Strategies that Build Repeat Sales, Loyal Customers

Our latest press release for the book:

Contact: Phil Dunn, 949-515-3510 or phil@qualitywriter.com

Summary: Most eBay sellers rarely follow up with consistent marketing efforts. They simply cash the PayPal credit and vanish into bits and bytes. A new book, “The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing,” shows eBay sellers all kinds of low-cost or no-cost marketing ideas.

New eBay Book Reveals Marketing Strategies that Build Repeat Sales, Loyal Customers

San Jose, CA, June 16, 2005 – Most eBay sellers rarely follow up with consistent marketing efforts. They simply cash the PayPal credit and vanish into bits and bytes. “I’ve been buying on eBay for more than seven years, and in the 1,000+ packages I’ve received from eBay sellers, only two have included any kind of marketing push,” said eBay aficionado Janelle Elms.

That’s a shame, because it’s common business wisdom that the people who have already bought from you are your most likely future customers.

Elms is one of the authors of the new eBay book, “The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing,” which debuts at eBay Live in San Jose (June 23-25). “Too few of the millions of eBay sellers are taking the time to ask buyers to come back and spend more money,” said Elms. “They could triple their business if they grasped just a few marketing basics.”

Elms is an eBay University lead instructor, author, and eBay Silver PowerSeller. The new book, which is geared towards advanced eBay sellers but is certainly accessible for new sellers, shows eBay sellers all kinds of low-cost or no-cost marketing ideas. The strategies help sellers build their brand, generate repeat traffic, build customer loyalty and boost profits. It also catalogues and explains dozens of new eBay tools and applications that help people sell more efficiently and profitably on the site.

The McGraw-Hill release will be available this July, online and in bookstores across the country. The authors maintain a blog, http://ebay-marketing.blogspot.com, and an eBay Group (eBay Marketing Success Strategies) that offer bonus material, updates and excerpts from the book.

Contact: Phil Dunn, 949-515-3510 or phil@qualitywriter.com
http://ebay-marketing.blogspot.com

###

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Notes on Shipping and Handling

Excerpt from "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing."

Resist the temptation to pad your shipping and handling costs. Most eBay buyers are knowledgeable when it comes to postage rates. They resent attempts by sellers to squeeze a few extra bucks out of them with padded S&H costs. If you charge a handling fee, be sure that it is a reasonable amount so as not to raise buyers’ eyebrows when they check your S&H rates.

Some sellers proudly advertise that they charge actual postage only. This has the potential to give the seller an edge over competitors who charge inflated S&H costs. However, it also represents a lost opportunity to use a reasonable handling fee to help recoup the considerable costs involved in shipping products. Other sellers dangle the carrot of free shipping to entice buyers and build the S&H costs into the price of the product. This is a great idea, so long as it results in more sales and higher profits overall.

Determining the best S&H policy for your business requires a little experimentation and a little calculation. Examine what happens if you offer free shipping or charge actual postage only. Do your total sales increase? Do they increase enough to make up for money you could have earned by charging a reasonable handling fee? If you add a handling fee, do your total sales decrease? What if you increase or decrease the amount of the handling fee? Like all other aspects of your eBay business, making an informed assessment of your S&H policy will lead to higher margins.

If you decide to charge a handling fee, use eBay’s Shipping Calculator to help disguise the costs that you’re passing on to the customer. Offering the Shipping Calculator option on your listings allows buyers to calculate their own S&H costs based on their location. The calculator gives you the option of entering a flat price as a handling fee and automatically combines that amount with the actual postage. Your handling fee is discreetly bundled into the single S&H cost shown to the buyer.

Finally, maximize customer S&H satisfaction by opting not to display actual postage amounts on self-printed shipping labels. This option is offered both by the USPS/PayPal label printing service offered through eBay as well as third-party postage services such as Endicia (www.endicia.com). Sellers with accounts with UPS, FedEx, or other shipping companies also have the luxury of shipping goods without the actual shipping costs displayed on the label. This practice falls under the old adage of “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.” So long as your overall S&H costs are reasonable, your customers will be happy.

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Will Yahoo! Gain Traction with No Fees?

Frank Ross at Home-Based Entrepreneur posted this introspective piece about eBay fees and no fees over at Yahoo! Something to ponder. Will Yahoo! get on the auction map with this strategy?

I don't think so. eBay and it's 3rd party parallel world of applications and services have built up quite a fortress. And as Ross points out, it's all about the customers. eBay's got a whopping built-in buyer base.

Are there parallels we can draw between this situation and the Open Source-Linux/Microsoft situation? Perhaps. No-fee Yahoo!, Overstock.com and listings sites like CraigsList may very well chip away at the eBay fortress over the years. To what extent, we'll have to see.

You're thoughts are welcome. Post below.

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Espresso Marketing

Espresso marketing

I'm in a Diedrich coffee shop right now. It's the runner up to Starbucks in this neck of the woods. They hired a new ad firm -- as is obvious from the new posters all around the place. The posters depict happy Diedrich customers and employees and feature snappy headlines and subheads (I'll post the pictures once I get home).

One says, "They’ve got my favorite chair to go with my favorite drink. Life is good." This is a good example of placing the customer and his perceived benefits on center stage. It's generally a good thing to do. They were smart not to lead with "Diedrich-this and Diedrich-that and Mocha-this, etc." They're drilling down to what it means to choose and stick with a coffee shop. There are really nice chairs in here, by the way.

The subhead reads, "Make yourself at home with comfortable seating and genuine people." This is doing two things. 1) It re-enforces the benefits, and 2) it differentiates Diedrich's vis a vis the competition (namely Starbucks). The implication is that Starbucks is full of phony yuppies. At least that's my take.

Pretty solid stuff. Even though you won't be making huge posters for a retail space, these are good examples of how to write eBay listings. You have products, you have customers, you need to bring them together. How do you do that? You stress benefits and set yourself apart from the competition.



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Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Really Considered Marketing?

The latest post over at Home-Based Entrepreneur is a nice little story with some valuable lessons about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is quickly becoming a critical skill for eBay marketers and marketers in general. The subject is fairly technical, but then again Direct Mail can be, too. It's all marketing. Search engine position brings the market to your products (or you to the market) -- so there you have it.

Excerpt: "Little was mentioned about current standard SEO tactics such as title tag tweaking, on-page content optimization, or linking strategies." If you'd like to learn more about these SEO strategies Google some of these terms and start learning. If you find some good resources, feel free to post them here.

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eBay Newsletter Promotion: 10 Questions to Ask Yourself

Newsletters should be a part of your eBay marketing mix. Here are some questions to ask about your existing or future email campaign.

1. Do you give sign-up gifts that your target audience appreciates? (i.e. free information, white papers, etc.)
2. Does each issue contain both subscribe and unsubscribe information and links?
3. Do you ask readers to forward the letter to friends?
4. Do you test different subscribe wording and button formats on your Web site subscribe pages?
5. How much information do you require on your subscribe form? (hint: keep it minimal)
6. Is your subscription process complex or quick and easy?
7. Do you network and partner with similar/complementary content providers to grow your list?
8. Do you have newsletter archives, and are the pages search engine friendly?
9. Do you offer readers a reward for sharing your newsletter and signing up new readers?
10. Do you offer information on forums and blogs to promote your newsletter?

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Cheaper eBay Shipping is Almost Here

This just in from eCommerceGuide.com:

eBay North America President bill Cobb announced today that beginning Friday, June 17, the 20 cent fee previously applied to all USPS First Class, Media Mail, and Parcel Post labels will be gone. This is good news for sellers, claims Cobb.

"One of my priorities for eBay.com is to make shipping less of a hassle for you. Put simply, we want to do for shipping what we did for online payments when we acquired PayPal and integrated it into the transaction flow on eBay," he said in an announcement posted on the site this morning.

"Last year, we introduced the ability to save time by printing shipping labels with pre-filled address information, billed directly to your PayPal account. You've told us you love this - in fact, you've printed millions of labels so far," added Cobb.

This announcement was originally slated for the upcoming eBay Live! Conference beginning June 22 (which we will be covering from San Jose), but Cobb couldn't' contain his excitement any longer.

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Custom eBay Product Configuration

Excerpt from "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing."

Provide Custom Product Configuration

Infopia’s Configurator (http://www.infopia.com/products/configurator.shtml) helps sellers offer buyers a way to create their own customized items (think computers with different components, or different sizes and colors for clothing and shoes). Dell and Nike offer the most high-profile examples of how this works outside of eBay. You can get any kind of custom computer from Dell by clicking through their site, and Nike allows you to design your own shoes on theirs.

For eBay, Configurator allows the seller to create one listing with a variety of item options at different price points. The buyer clicks the options they want and Configurator automatically generates a “Buy It Now” listing with the price adjusted according to the customer’s selections.

The Configurator encourages buying behavior by empowering buyers to make their own choices and involving them in a personal shopping process. Configurator also has the potential to save sellers a lot of money in listing fees since you only need to create one item listing with the Configurator. This gives you more money to invest in fancy upgrades like ‘Home Page Featured’ to gain maximum exposure. This is a prime example of demand-driven commerce – with minimal effort and expense on your part and happy customers who have chosen the exact product they want. Figure 2 shows an example of the Configurator in action. Figure 2: This sample eBay Listing uses the Configurator interface, allowing buyers to build their own computer with different components at different prices.

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Web Usability, Fonts and Readability

This is an interesting read about fonts and web usability/readability. If you want people to read your eBay listings comfortably and stick with what you're saying, you need to consider some of the ideas in this article. There are a lot of factors to consider, but you can vastly improve the experience by making just a few simple choices.

In search of: The Best Online Reading Experience

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Third-Party Listing Management Tools Help You Manage Listings And Increase Profits

Your options for listing management tools aren’t limited to eBay offerings. There are literally dozens of third party companies that offer powerful tools and services that interface with eBay and provide similar functions to Turbo Lister and SMPro. A few of the most commonly used by PowerSellers include:

- Mpire
- Kyozou
- Channel Advisor
- Market Works
- Auction Hawk
- Vendio
- Auction Sage

Some of these tools operate in a more limited capacity, but come at a less expensive price than eBay’s tools. Others offer a higher level of functionality and can even be customized to your particular business. Of course, these services are more costly, but if you’re selling at a high rate and volume, it can be worth the investment.

Do your homework and investigate which selling creation and management tool is right for your business. There’s a great overview of these services, along with their pricing structure and links to each service’s website located at AuctionBytes.

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Marketing and Liking

Andy Uhlig over at SmarteHomebusiness.com posted a short, powerful "Top 7" article by Jo Han Mok. It's called 7 Things You Must Do If You Want To Increase Your Traffic.

I would also add that you should personally mix with people in your industry (customers and other experts) to show them that you like them.

What?

Yes - this has been upheld by psychologists. People who understand that the person selling them something likes them also understands how that person will work with their best interests at heart. It's got to be genuine, of course. And it doesn't matter if they don't like you! This liking will open doors for you, increase your traffic, and help build your business perception (or brand) into one that customers respect and admire.

BTW, is there any magic to the number 7? Just wondering -- my new eBay book is called "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing."

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Coffee Is for Closers! Second Place Gets a Set of Steak Knives!

Everyone who's involved in writing Web pages for business sites should be "closing" on every page of the site. That means making an offer, asking the reader to take the next step, or asking for the sale.

I admit, I'm not best example for my advice. Each page on this blog should ask people to take a look at my book or entice them to fill out the free newsletter form you see in the right column of the page (it contains bonus info and more in-depth reports). I could also encourage readers to consider hiring me as a writing consultant or call me to talk about training their own writing staff. I need to be more diligent about this.

In any event, when you continually close throughout your pages, you increase your chances for success. You build deeper relationships with customers and prospects; you guide readers through your site; you usher people toward the shopping cart; you up-sell and cross-sell, loading their cart up with extras and complementary products; and you generally get them to move in your direction or begin saying yes to your entreaties.

That said, you may be asking, "What's up with the title of this post?" (Hint: rent or download the movie Glengarry Glen Ross.)

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Common and Uncommon Facts about eBay Management Tools

Excerpt from "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing."

eBay’s Management Tools
eBay offers some very powerful management tools that help you super-charge your selling. Some PowerSellers use a combination of eBay’s Selling Manager Pro along with TurboLister to create and manage a large volume of listings.

Turbo Lister
TurboLister (http://pages.ebay.com/turbo_lister/) is free downloadable software from eBay that enables you to create bulk listings and bulk uploads. It features a single screen listing form where all the information required for the listing is entered on one page. (Compare this to the tedious clicking of the “Continue” button through seven pages of the eBay Sell Your Item form.) It also gives you the option for customized item templates, bulk editing of listings, bulk scheduling of start times and bulk uploads of listings to eBay. It’s truly an incredible time saver.

Note: Although it’s a nifty tool, it does not work for Mac users. TurboLister only works in Windows operating systems.

TurboLister also provides a WYSWIG (what you see is what you get) HTML editor to create your listings. It can be used in conjunction with eBay’s Listing Designer, which provides HTML templates to create attractive and effective listing layouts. Chapter 3 of this book discusses ways to use this tool to create a visual identity that reinforces your eBay business brand.

Selling Manager Pro
Selling Manager Pro is a powerful tool that provides:
· Inventory management functions
· Customer email interfaces with customizable templates
· Payment and shipment tracking
· Bulk printing of invoices and shipping labels
· Custom preferences to automate customer emails and feedback
· Sales reporting with profit and loss statements
· Customizable bulk feedback options

You’ll note that the word “bulk” appears a couple of times in the list of functions above. This is the beauty of this software – functions such as feedback and customer emails that once were handled individually can now be handled dozens at a time. A few simple checks of boxes and clicks of a button and you’re on your way. You can even set preferences to automatically send customers email notifying them of winning bids, payments received, or items shipped.

When you use Selling Manager Pro, it automatically becomes the “Selling” tab of your My eBay page, which gives you access to all your selling activity from any remote location with an Internet hookup. It has an easy user interface that divides your selling activity into different “views,” such as scheduled listings, active listings, etc. Figure 1 shows Selling Manager Pro as it appears on the My eBay page. Note the variety of views listed on the left column.

Figure 1: Selling Manager Pro replaces your My eBay page and offers a variety of options for sorting and viewing your listings. This makes it much easier to manage your listings and sales.

Tip: The customizable email templates with Selling Manager Pro offer a great opportunity for sellers to connect with their customers on a personalized basis. This is a powerful tool for creating excellent customer service and driving repeat customers to your eBay store. Chapter 6, our customer service and retention chapter, will discuss these strategies in detail.

An added benefit to using eBay’s Selling Manager Pro is that eBay offers to bundle the cost of this tool with other eBay tools you may already be using. Although there is a monthly fee involved with SMPro (at the time this book went to press, it was $15.95 a month), it’s offered as a freebie to Featured and Anchor eBay Stores subscribers. Also, if you choose to use eBay’s Listing Designer (pre-set HTML templates for listing creation), the usual fees for the service are waived for SMPro subscribers.

[We'll discuss 3rd party management tools in the next post]

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Free Competitive Analysis Tools

Frank Ross, who writes the Home-Based Entrepreneur blog, posted an excellent article on competitive analysis. You can apply his tips to individual products or market segments. The Google Toolbar is free, and you can trial the other products he mentions for free, too.

I added my $0.02:

"If you're in a highly competitive market (and can't get out), there are things you can do to set yourself from the crowd. For example, think about how your product is different because it comes from you. What do you do that's "different" (think Apple ad campaign here)? Do you ship faster? Do you offer extra goodies (extra training, education, etc.)? Are you known for spotting the next trends? Think about differentiators, and figure out how you connect with your particular audience... then figure out what keywords these people are searching. Figure out how they want to be engaged. Understand what their real motivators are. These are the keys to the castle."

The book "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" shows you how to use eBay itself to perform market analysis and competitive analysis. I'll address this topic further in future posts.

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Opportunity Knockwurst

A lot of sellers bemoan the fact that eBay profit margins aren't what they used to be. This article on how eBay selling margins on certain items are much higher in Germany calls that view into question.

Good margins are out there. They may be elusive, but smart sellers are finding ways to re-position their goods and capture new audiences.

"The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" addresses international sales and how to make the most of expanding global eBay markets. It's available for pre-order now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and in stores everywhere July 2005.

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Prompt Seller = Happy Customer

We mentioned that the key to customer satisfaction on eBay is to assail the drawbacks of online shopping with good customer-service policies. Another drawback you need to neutralize is the delay of gratification that customers experience when shopping on eBay.

Think about it: When you go into a brick-and-mortar store, you buy what you want and you have it in your hands immediately. That instant gratification is the basis of the concept of “retail therapy,” and that rush is an essential element to happy customers in the brick-and-mortar world. Despite all the other positive attributes of shopping on eBay, one thing that is severely lacking for customers is the aspect of instant gratification.

For this reason, promptness is a virtue for eBay sellers. Providing a quick response to questions from potential customers sends the message that you are a conscientious seller. Sending timely invoices to winning bidders makes them feel that they’ve made the right decision to purchase from you. Prompt notification of payments received shows buyers you’re on the ball. And the pinnacle of promptness is to ship off merchandise quickly, as soon as payment is made.

Amy, one of the authors of this book, has made it a standard practice in her eBay business to ship all goods within 24 hours of receiving payment. While it occasionally makes for stressful days packing large orders of merchandise, the practice pays off nicely in customer satisfaction. Frequent feedback comments not only express delight with the merchandise, but they also include statements like “Quick! Quick! Quick!” “Shipped lickety-split!” and “Faster than a speeding bullet!” (It’s always nice to be compared to Superman.)

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Reach Your Customers Via Satellite

Wired News ran this story about Google's satellite mapping system back in April. If you click through the photo links, you're in for a treat. Incredible images, both breathtaking and cute.

Where is it all headed? I was thinking that I might start selling corn field ad placement services on eBay. I could write killer ads, link to them and charge by the click. Or auction off thick fields ready for mowing in text.

Any other ideas? Post here to let us know how you'd take advantage of this new service.

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Is eBay Ready for Video?

eBay Live (June 23-25) will feature lots of new-fangled Web services and products that promise to improve your listings and make you rich.

Here's one such Web service that could be a hit. This video service for eBay, Yahoo! Shopping and any other ecommerce site looks like an easy way to get video into your listings. Apparently they've eliminated numerous steps in the video posting process by having users record directly to their servers and then paste code into their listings.

I'm intrigued. It could be a good way to go for certain types of sellers. What do you think? Would you use this service? Is it priced appropriately? Please click on the post link below, and let everyone know what you think.

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Notes on Shipping and Handling

Excerpt from "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing."

Resist the temptation to pad your shipping and handling costs. Most eBay buyers are knowledgeable when it comes to postage rates. They resent attempts by sellers to squeeze a few extra bucks out of them with padded S&H costs. If you charge a handling fee, be sure that it is a reasonable amount so as not to raise buyers’ eyebrows when they check your S&H rates.
Some sellers proudly advertise that they charge actual postage only. This has the potential to give the seller an edge over competitors who charge inflated S&H costs. However, it also represents a lost opportunity to use a reasonable handling fee to help recoup the considerable costs involved in shipping products. Other sellers dangle the carrot of free shipping to entice buyers and build the S&H costs into the price of the product. This is a great idea, so long as it results in more sales and higher profits overall.

Determining the best S&H policy for your business requires a little experimentation and a little calculation. Examine what happens if you offer free shipping or charge actual postage only. Do your total sales increase? Do they increase enough to make up for money you could have earned by charging a reasonable handling fee? If you add a handling fee, do your total sales decrease? What if you increase or decrease the amount of the handling fee? Like all other aspects of your eBay business, making an informed assessment of your S&H policy will lead to higher margins.
If you decide to charge a handling fee, use eBay’s Shipping Calculator to help disguise the costs that you’re passing on to the customer. Offering the Shipping Calculator option on your listings allows buyers to calculate their own S&H costs based on their location. The calculator gives you the option of entering a flat price as a handling fee and automatically combines that amount with the actual postage. Your handling fee is discreetly bundled into the single S&H cost shown to the buyer.

Finally, maximize customer S&H satisfaction by opting not to display actual postage amounts on self-printed shipping labels. This option is offered both by the USPS/PayPal label printing service offered through eBay as well as third-party postage services such as Endicia (www.endicia.com). Sellers with accounts with UPS, FedEx, or other shipping companies also have the luxury of shipping goods without the actual shipping costs displayed on the label. This practice falls under the old adage of “What they don’t know won’t hurt them.” So long as your overall S&H costs are reasonable, your customers will be happy.

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Top 10 Lists Are Cool

Top 100 lists are even cooler -- if you have 100 things to list. This list -- by marketing, social networking and buzz expert Chris Abraham -- has been open in my tabbed browser for several days now. I know I'm going to get into it soon and check out everything (tech/software/hardware recommendations). Until then, it just sits up there and drills the words Chris Abraham into my subconscious.

The marketing writing point here is that you should use Top X lists. They come in many flavors -- with "Top 10" popularized by David Letterman, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" popularized by Paul Simon, and "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing," popularized by yours truly.

These types of lists always capture attention, the numbers POP, and the whole format draws people in by asking them to make a judgment on the validity of the claims. If you have a good supporting list, these formats can really work wonders for your authority and expertise positioning.

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Small Business Rules

Here's an excellent discussion about an ongoing phenomenon -- the micro-sizing of business. The article is called "Small is the New Big," and it's good news for eBay sellers, ecommerce vendors and consumers of every stripe.

It's on Jeff Jarvis's Buzz Machine blog.

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Michael Jackson and eBay -- How to Get BigTime Publicity

There's nothing like hitching your wagon to a soaring or plummeting star. Case in point -- Michael Jackson. He seems to accomplish both trajectories in grand fashion. One way to turn the fortunes or misfortunes of others into marketing buzz is to engage them via eBay. You can buy something of theirs, or create something original or funny that plays off of their position.

These puppets that Keith Olbermann used to re-enact the Michael Jackson trial, for example, fetched a pretty penny on eBay and generated a lot of attention for the charity, personalities and buyer involved.

Celebrities are open season for this type of satire. Or, you can get into the kitchen and try to make something that has a biblical image on it. Better yet, design a product that piggybacks onto such a craze, like this, or this, or this.

Some words of caution, however. Make sure your store or listings are positioned in a way that factors in humor, and make sure your audience/customers/prospects can handle your humor or unique offering. There's no sense alienating the bulk of your business for the sake of a few laughs or a well positioned news story. Once the joke is over and the bright lights dim, you'll need to sustain sales the way you always have -- filling needs and offering excellent service.

"The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" discusses humorous marketing tactics as they relate to driving traffic and creating viral buzz. Read more when the book hits shelves this July. Or order it early on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

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Tips on Writing Policies and Terms of Sale

Along with well-written, honest, and persuasive item description copy, you must include clearly stated policies or terms of sale for effective customer service. Direct communication with your customers about your expectations of them and exactly what they can expect from you works wonders in the satisfaction department. Be thoughtful with your sales policies, word them carefully, and be sure to include information concerning the following:

• Payment types accepted
• Shipping methods and costs
• Sales tax
• Warranties and guarantees
• Return and refund policies
• Feedback

Additional customer service policies, including timeframes for submitting payments, offers for expedited shipping, or other instructions for payment
Your terms of sale should appear in three locations:

• In the body text of each and every item description
• In the appropriate spots for shipping and payment information on the Sell Your Item form
• In your About Me page or as a customized page in your eBay Store
  

Tip: Use the Sell Similar link or create templates in Turbo Lister or your listing management service that include your standard terms of sale as boilerplate text that appears automatically with each listing you create.

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"Where Is Your Hungry Crowd?"

Frank Ross has a great blog called Home-Based Entrepreneur. The blog title makes it sound small business oriented, however the tips and articles within are useful to pretty much anyone in business – from Fortune 100 on down. Well written stuff.. and very relevant to the issues of the day.

Here’s bit from his most recent post:

“A) Who and where is your hungry crowd? It is no use trying to sell burgers to people who are just leaving a restaurant. They are not hungry. If you want to sell something, your very first task, even before you decide what to sell, is to ask "what do people want"? If people are desperately hungry, they want to be filled, if they are dying of thirst, they want to be quenched, if caught in the rain, they want to be dry, and if feeling lonely, they want to be loved. Get the general idea?

"B) When you know what they want so much they would sell their own mother to get, your next question is "what product or service can you provide them that would meet their need or want?"

"Be careful to distinguish between SOLUTIONS and PRODUCTS. People caught in the rain don't want an umbrella, they want to be dry. People who are insecure don't want a fancy, expensive car, they want to be noticed, admired and envied. The mother with a newborn does not want diapers - she wants her baby to be dry and comfortable.”

Whether you’re thinking about ways to improve your existing eBay business or starting up a new one, these kinds of questions need to be revisited frequently. Building business and increasing profits takes insight and creative thinking. Going through these exercises will help you generate ideas and discover new angles for improvement.

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eBay Post Card Marketing: Part II

Joy Gendusa, founder of PostCardMania just posted a great article on the how and why of sending post cards -- repeatedly. He is dead on when he recommends repeating, rinsing, repeating.. and so on.

The following are some actual post card writing suggestions that add to that article. They'll help you get better response rates on eBay promotions, drive more traffic to your eBay listings and store, and generally keep you in the minds of your target audience for longer periods of time.

1) Make offers on the front of the card. Give them a reason to buy or flip the card over. Free reports, discounts, and premiums can all go into titles on the front of the card.

2) Include "news" in titles and subheads. Nobody wants to hear something they've heard before. If you've got a new story to tell, make it POP.

3) Keep the word count low, and make every word count. You can do this by sticking to one subject or offer per card. Don't confuse the reader by broaching several topics or creating complex offers.

4) Develop urgency in the text. Your writing style can be urgent, but it's even more effective to create actual offer urgency. "Limited time only," "limited supply," "buy now and save 10% off," "free shipping in June with orders over $25" -- these all create offer urgency.

5) Finish with a call to action. Tell the prospect what you want them to do next -- call you, email you, go to your eBay Store, or make a bid "right now!"

There's more info and links on this topic in Part 1.

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eBay Import-Export Tips and Key Links

If you’re in the import-export business, as many eBay sellers are, you should take a look at this article on Home Biz Tools -- How To Start an Export Business. It has a bunch of links to government and import-export resources that help you get started, get financing and generate business. It’s written by Jennifer Henczel.

“The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing” has some good info on international sales. Here are some tid-bits:

“Selling internationally does come with certain risks. Payment and shipping can be tricky and not quite as secure as domestic transactions. However, it’s also full of sales potential. When the U.S. dollar is weak, foreign shoppers enjoy extra buying power on eBay, and they tend to spend like crazy. International sales are booming – so get onboard!

Here are a couple of nifty tools to make international selling easier:

• BorderFree.com (customs clearance/shipping centers) – This site processes international payments and forwards the money directly to you. They also give you a “ship to” address of their warehouse in the U.S. from which they send your package to its international destination.
  
• Google Language Tools (located on the Google homepage) – Overcome language barriers with a simple cut and paste. Just place any text into the box, select the language “to” and “from” fields, and it translates any text into your language or your customer’s. It works best if you keep your text simple. Use very basic sentence construction and simple words for accurate translation. Your international customers and prospects will really appreciate this.”
  

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Google AdWords and eBay: Writing Clearly and Succinctly

If you want to get your mind around how important it is to write clearly and succinctly for your eBay descriptions, keywords and titles, take a spin through the following article:

http://jimbursch.typepad.com/cadcoop/2005/06/searchrelated_a.html

It talks about how Google employs writers to help companies develop those three line ads in Google AdWords. It's a type of Haiku for commerce -- a highly sought after talent these days, apparently.

Great article, fascinating subject, the wave of the future. Hemingway would have loved the whole concept (maybe).

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Top 10 Journalism Lead Hooks for eBay Marketing and PR Efforts

In case you don't have time to read the post prior to this one, I boiled down some of the journalistic lead hooks into a short list (no particular order). If you think about these emotional drivers that populate the newspaper and news programs every morning, you can get a better understanding of how to connect with people and create compelling stories for press and PR purposes.

1. Fear - Everyone's afraid of something (hunger, thieves, the cold, the heat, war, crime, natural disaster, poor health...)
2. Peer recognition, adulation (celebrities, business leaders, heroes..)
3. Guinness Book of World Records-type stories (largest pickle, fastest pie eater...)
4. Physiological danger (medical/health topics, famine, disease)
5. Security (home, financial, insurance, children's safety..)
6. Human interest stories (heroes, helpers, leaders)
7. How to/tips/purchasing information (think Consumer Reports and technology/media review columns)
8. Psychological fear/threats (as related to security, business, competition, imagined illness...)
9. Event information (concerts, movies, cook-outs, fairs, employment events)
10. Travel/Food/Outdoors/Lifestyle information

Take a look at your eBay business and then think about how your products and services fit into any of these areas. You'll be surprised at how many different ways you can frame your product as an "issue" or "happening" for press releases, case studies, customer communications and so on.

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