The advertising industry is an ever-expanding vortex of buzz words, promotional materials, markets strategies, and intangibility. It can be confusing and tricky to get clear directions of the best way to advertise for your needs and see results. In this article, we will go through the specifics of advertising for an industrial auction and cover what works and what doesn’t!
When you wanted to advertise an industrial auction in the old days, you could pop an ad in the local paper and be done with it, but times have changed and so has advertising for auctions. Print advertising is on the decline and while it does still have an audience, that audience is confined to the views of the paper it’s printed on whether it’s a newspaper, magazine or billboard ad. With proper targeting and consistency, print ads can still have a positive fact on sales but digital advertising is making it easier to sell, identify your market, and analyse the best tactics for continuous sales growth.
The Calculated Benefits of Digital Media Ads
Digital advertisements trackability is a major plus that is lacking in print media advertising. Buying a $3000 advertisement in popular trade magazine may get you increased sales, which is, of course, a good thing. However, there is no way to track the effectiveness of that ad. Sure, you can see the readership of the magazine, but there is no way to tell from that readership who is actually responding to your ad.
With digital ads, the results are clearly laid out. Dependent on the platform with which you advertise, digital ad analytics will provide you with the CPM (Cost per impression – how many people are seeing the ad), the CPC (Cost per click – how many people are clicking on your ad for more information), and, platforms like Facebook, can even tell you who is responding to your ad with breakdowns of respondents’ demographics. So setting a digital ad campaign with a budget of $3000 will tell you exactly where that money is going – who is looking, which ads are getting the most clicks, and how many of those clicks are turning into leads.
Another benefit of digital ads is the flexibility of spending. You spend $3000 on a magazine ad because that is what the magazine says the ad is worth, but with digital advertising, you can chose what you spend. If you want to put $15 towards an ad and test its effectiveness for 3 days, no problem! This level of control allows for more experimentation, less monetary loss, and the ability to more concisely develop your industrial marketing strategy.
Targeting Your Potential Buyers
All of that information gathered from the digital ad campaign will not only lead to sales, but can also be used to narrow the targeting of future ad campaigns. Knowing who is clicking your ads and which ads get the most attention is invaluable to marketing. Instead of blindly releasing ads into the world, you can pay to only reach those who have been proven to show interest in buying your industrial equipment.
Don’t waste money presenting your industrial equipment ads to thirteen year olds in New York City with interests in basketball and baking. Set your money to specifically show your ads to the age group, location, income level, and interests that are sales qualified. That is the power of ad targeting in the digital age. These targeting techniques can cut your ad spending dramatically and allow you to strategize your ads to the most effective level.
Where to Digitally Advertise
The internet is a big place and there are many way to advertise your auction virtually, but where should you chose? There is no one answer to this question as it is all about experimentation and variety, but here are some tips to get you started.
The big three in digital advertising platforms are Facebook, Linkedin, and Google AdWords. Then there are banner ads, video ads, email marketing and other options, but as an overview, we’ll stick to the big three.
Facebook ads are a good starting point as they have many targeting options to get a detailed or as simple as you’re comfortable going. They are simple and easy to set up with helpful tutorials available through the platform. While Facebook ads can be used for B2B sales, they are better for targeting individuals as they reach out mostly to people’s personal pages. So in terms of finding those interested in industrial auctions, Facebook is a good place to find your audience of individuals before moving into more specific targets. Spend is very flexible on Facebook and optimization very advanced.
Linkedin ads are better for B2B targeting as it is a much more professional, business-oriented platform. Here is where you can find the businesses that will be long term customers at your auctions. Spend is also very flexible on Linkedin and it is a good place to utilize the audience targeting discovered on Facebook.
Google AdWords is a good catch-all ads platform as it uses keywords used in search engines, in this case, Google, to boost your website to the top of the list of search options. For example, when using Google AdWords, someone searching “machine live auction” will see your website first. These are paid either by CPC or CPM, making them extremely cost effective since you are only paying when your ad is seen or clicked.
Now that you can see the benefits and options that are out there, go explore the world of digital advertising for your next industrial auction and join the industrial marketing world online!
