Todays home entrepreneur's tips:
eBay (A subset of List Building)
eBay? Free Advertising?
Ok, so technically an auction listings cost 35 cents… But one sale can easily make you a profit, and you’re allowed to sell nine of the same product in one auction at that price… So this is one exception I’m going to keep in this book because it’s really BETTER than free, all things considered.
So where does the Advertising part come in?
Simply place an information package of some kind, even if it’s just an article on your niche, and sell that infoproduct in an extremely cheap auction listing. Most people sell these things for 1 penny, although the difference between 1 cent and 35 cents really isn’t that much of a difference to the buyers looking for this information.
Naturally there are no other costs like shipping or insurance, because delivery is a simple digital download. Further advertising is up to you, and it is always a matter of just giving eBay some additional fees to make your listing stand out more. If your listing is profiting, try starting the next listing as a “Gallery item” for another 35 cents, and go up from there until you’ve reached a point of maximum returns.
Here’s the great part about this tactic: The winner of the listing’s email address is automatically sent to you via email, through eBay itself. Sell a bunch of those info packets, and you’ve built yourself one of your industry’s most targeted lists!
Don’t feel too left out if you haven’t mentally joined these two concepts together before now. Not too many people have, unless they bought the secret from someone on eBay themselves.
The fact is that eBay already has the lion’s share of traffic, and more importantly, of people in the purchasing mindset. Compare this to Google’s Traffic, which is composed of people in the “researching” mindset. It’s not hard to imagine why serious marketers prefer eBay’s traffic to Google’s Traffic!
Advertising on eBay is as simple as being there in the first place, using a few well-searched keywords. Finding those keywords isn’t too difficult either; all you really have to do is search for expired listings and sort by the price. This way you’ll easily see which auctions recently got the most money in your niche, and then all you have to do is model your campaign like theirs, listing your product under the same category!
Drawbacks?
Although the Delivery Time and the Quality of the traffic is world class, the Quantity is not infinite… It depends on your niche, of course, but the competition on eBay can be fierce as new auctions will be placed above older ones all the time. Still, with people happy to search keywords you’ve still got a good chance of being found even between the first day or the last few minutes of the auction.
Effectiveness in drawing a large amount of traffic all depends on how good your auction’s sales copy is. Luckily, you can model your auction off others that have done well in the past.
Make no mistake about it; selling infoproducts on eBay is a world-class list-building strategy. That’s about all there is to it, but most people overlook this very powerful way of building your list because it seems too awkward, or they don’t want to take the time to put an info-packet together.
If you sell a product online, then you’ve got to face the fact eventually that this is some of the most targeted, “buyer-frenzied” traffic that exists. If you’re not using this tactic, then you’ll not only be depriving your business of a constant stream of better-than-free advertising, but you’ll also be missing out on a large source of clients that you aren’t likely to be able to reach otherwise.
The fact is that everybody eBays nowadays. That’s why I can use eBay as a verb! In fact I’ve seen a statistic recently that showed $14 of every $100 spent online, worldwide, is spent through eBay now, and this number is still growing! It is clearly the single biggest mover of money on the planet.
People from ALL walks of life can be found there, right when they have their credit cards in hand looking to spend… I don’t even know of another source of traffic that comes close!
When used correctly, you can build up a niche market list on any topic with this technique, and reach an unprecedented 50% or more of that market over time.
Just another weapon you put up in your arsenal of "guerilla methods".