eBay Newsletter Feature - It's Free!

Don't worry, you don't have to write a newsletter right away. But it is a good idea to start building the list so you can send out newsletters to a captive audience when you are ready. Your newsletter can be about anything you want including special sales (using Markdown Manager), new products, or any cross marketing such as announcing a Facebook fan page or your Twitter profile. Here is how to add the newsletter promotion box:


This is just another free marketing tool that eBay provides. You might as well use it!

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How to Sell on Etsy – Part Two

Lisa, one of my coaching clients and an Etsy seller, continues her series on how to sell on Etsy.

Smart marketing on Etsy will significantly increase your chances for a sale. This article is designed to help you understand your marketing options and how to use them to your advantage. A Showcase is just one of the marketing services Etsy provides. There is a long list of general Showcase categories to choose from, for example jewelry. Each general category is broken out into a more specific category, for example earrings.

Customers are able to access the showcases through the Etsy home page. Because there are so many items and categories on Etsy, many customers choose to find items through the Showcases. The cost for a Showcase on Etsy is $7 for 24-hours. There are even more visible Showcases on Etsy that cost $15 for 24-hours, but I recommend you try the less expensive Showcases to start with.

There are a limited number of Showcase spots available for each day, so you will be seen by buyers, but it’s important to choose one of your most eye-catching items to use in your Showcase and excellent photos of your item are key to Showcase success. This will help ensure that buyers will be interested enough to click through on your item. Once they have clicked through, they are in your store. If the item they have clicked on doesn’t interest them, there is a good chance they will browse through your store increasing your chance of a sale.

Business cards are an inexpensive and relatively effective marketing tool. Be sure to send your business card or several business cards with every sale. Ask local businesses if they would allow you to put your business cards by the register. Some businesses even provide a bulletin board for local business owners to display their cards. While business cards shouldn’t be your only marketing tool, they are a great way to get your name out.

Today’s social media outlets are an incredible FREE way to market your Etsy business. Etsy even provides a tool that allows you to easily post every item you list to your Facebook page.

Tweet about your Etsy business on Twitter and add a link to your store. Since Twitter limits Tweets to 140 characters, you will want to take advantage of the FREE software available to shorten your url. This will leave you more room for your marketing copy. Tinyurl.com is one of many of these FREE software tools.

You can visit Lisa's Etsy store here.

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Strategy for Marketing eBay Items on Twitter

You have probably seen the share bookmarklet on your eBay items where you can automatically feed the links into Twitter. I don't find that strategy effective. Here is what I do:



Choose a product to promote

Search for the keywords on Twitter

Look for posts about the item you are promoting - how your product can help them

Send the person a message with the @ sign and a link to your item

You will need to shorten the eBay link with TinyUrl

Do this a few times a day to target specific buyers for specific products you sell

Be careful not to spam! Use discretion. For more cool tips like this, check out My Silent Team.

Good luck!

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How to Use Twitter for eBay Marketing - Part 3

Are you getting active on Twitter? Make this a daily activity. (15 minutes or so a couple of times a day. Don't get sucked in for hours.) When using social media for business, they key is to do a little bit every day. Keep following people. Some will follow you back. This segment will focus on how to "tweet" correctly.

One of the biggest things to keep in mind about Twitter is that it's a conversation. The fun is talking to one another. Reply often and be a real person with VALUABLE information to share. Everyone knows something they can share. Be nice, be professional, be sympathetic, be funny, and just be REAL. You don't have to just talk about your eBay store, I mean, you have other interests, right?

Don’t post updates from your eBay store, or otherwise, non-stop. Maybe a few a day, scattered here and there. I try to post mine at least an hour apart. Twitter users will stop following you if you update too often. Don’t be annoying. You can use TweetDeck to automate tweets at future times.

You want to entice your followers to click in your links and check them out. But make sure that your links are to quality information or something they can really benefit from, or people will stop following you.

Talk TO people, not at them. Interact with people by giving them an @ when you see something interesting on your feed. Maybe you will see a question you can answer. Maybe you will see a local news story that you can comment on. Or something makes you laugh. Give the user an @ reply and talk to them.

Click here to see the rest of the posts in the Twitter for eBay series.

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