Affiliate Marketing Tips

Bringing interested buyers together to competitively bid on assets is the key to a successful auction. As an affiliate of K-BID, there are certain tactics and marketing medias that you can take advantage of to enhance the competitive bidding within your auction. We have compiled the following auction marketing strategies to help affiliates that wish to further promote their own auctions.

Social Media: People love to share and consume media on social networks. Social media allows you to enhance customer relationships and build your own brand as an Independent Affiliate. Consider creating a Facebook page for your company and asking frequent bidders and sellers to follow you to stay up to date with upcoming auctions. Most social media sites give you the option to create paid advertisements that will allow you to directly promote an auction to customers by location, interests and demographics.

Tips

Social media users want to be engaged. Do not over post or over share the same information that does not interest your followers.
Whether using paid advertisements or general posts, choose your target market based on who would be interested in the assets that you are selling.
Be sure to verify that you are using the correct logo and presenting yourself as an independent affiliate. See here for more information.

Cost
- Free with paid option.

Seller: Use your seller as a resource for auction marketing. Experienced companies are an expert in their field and they know where their competitors would be looking for similar used assets. Many sellers would be willing to help out if they believe that it had a chance of enhancing the auction results.

Tips

Find out if your seller is a part of any trade associations or a local chamber of commerce. There could be potential for them to make an announcement regarding an upcoming sale.
If your seller is active on social media, ask them to share the auction with their followers or friends.

- If they have an active website, see if they would be willing to make an announcement or send out an email with a link to the auction.
Cost
- Free

Signage/Flyers: Flyers and signs are an effective way to direct local bidders to your auction. Finding local bidders will not only help you generate consignments and auctions, but can also help you find repeat buyers for future auctions. Make your presence known by putting out directional signs during inspections and load outs.

Tips
- Before creating signage or flyers, be sure to verify that you are using the correct logo and presenting yourself as an independent affiliate. See here for more information.
Cost
- The cost of signage.

Direct Mail Campaigns: A direct mail campaign is ideal for larger specialized auctions. You can determine a target audience by industry, location, NAICS/SIC Codes and send a direct postcard or mailer to promote an auction.

Tips
- Direct mail is very effective but also very expensive. Collecting a marketing budget from a seller prior to an auction is a common practice in the auction business, be sure to have the specifics in your contract so that you are able to recoup the marketing expenses.
- Coordinate enough time to effectively manage a direct mail campaign. Postcard creation, retaining a mailing lists, printing and sending mail is a process that can take up to a week.
- Once your marketing material is printed, it can not be changed. Be sure your dates, contact information and auction details are correct prior to going to print.
- There are 3rd party companies that specialize in direct mail campaigns for auctioneers. It is highly recommended that you seek professional help if you choose to utilize a direct mail campaign.
Cost
- $1+ per mailed piece, usually with a minimum of 2500-3000 pieces.

Affiliate Location Promotion: Popular search engines will allow you to register as a business in order to be found in relevant online searches. These pages are free and do not require you to have your own website. In order to register you will have to verify your location.

Tips
- People that are searching for services look for the assurance of good reviews or testimonials. This is a great place to capture reviews from previous customers that can be easily found in customer searches.
- People that are searching for "auction companies in (your city)" are highly qualified leads that are looking for information now. If you are not set up with locally, you could be missing these searches right in your neighborhood!
- Include up-to-date and relevant contact information. If you can not be reached your efforts are wasted.
Cost
- Free