Promotion and the Art of Sales

 Sales: the act of exchanging items for money.

There, that's plain and simple. Easy to understand. Nevertheless, it is sometimes easier said than done. So, what can you do to improve YOUR sales? Let's start with the obvious:

1. Have good, well-priced products. A wide variety of items increase the chance that you have something that somebody wants.

2. Present your products with good descriptions, good titles in the listings, and good photographs. Items that look good do sell better than those with bad descriptions and bad photos.

3. Promote the products and your Booth. (Psst...promote where the buyers are)

4. Rake in the dough.

Well, that sounds simple enough. If you can handle #1 and #4, we will concentrate on helping you with #2 and #3 over the course of this series.

Titles and Descriptions - The Key(words) to Sales

1) A lot of prospective buyers search ONLY titles when shopping, so give some thought to your listing's title. If you were looking for your own product, what would you type into a search box? Keywords are very important in your listing title and in your description of the item. When writing these, make sure to include words that buyers would use to search for your items. A keyword is a word that forms all or part of a search engine query--the word or phrase that Internet users type in a search box when they are seeking information in a search engine. The more a user matches words in the search to your title/description, the higher up your item is displayed in the search results.

In the description of the item, include additional text that would describe your item, since many search engines also search more than the title of the item.  In fact, Google will even help you generate keywords by suggesting keywords to use based on words or phrases you enter. Try THIS website for Google help: 

2) Consider putting attributes (currently invisible to viewers, searchable on Google) into your descriptions. Use keywords throughout your description (especially if you're using stock descriptions that a drop ship company or other supplier provides). These will differentiate you from other sellers. See HERE  for help from other Bonanzlers and a great thread from the Bonanzle help section HERE. Click on the "Learn more" link next to the "Set search attributes" option for more detailed information.

Photographs - If it Looks Bad, Will Anybody Buy it?

I won't reinvent the wheel here. You can read the PHOTOS 101 blog series titled "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Dollars" HERE for technical tips on creating better photographs. However, I will briefly touch on the topic. After making sure that the photos you post in your listing description are technically good, consider adding additional photos. Use close-ups, different backgrounds, or different angles. Have your photographs stand alone in the search results instead of being one of many.

What was that third thing, again? Promote? How?

1960: Toot Your Own Horn.  2009: Tweet This!

Oh, the years have gone by fast. Many years ago, if you wanted to tell somebody something about yourself, you "tooted your own horn." Today, you Tweet 'em on Twitter, you put your best face(book) forward and you tell somebody to "come into myspace." You can spend countless hours worrying about your SEO, Google Base, and can spend your nights wondering whether your attributes are up to par. On top of that, it seems like a new promotional group is tugging at you every five minutes. "Sign up to promote your Booth. It's FREE" or "I've got the way to get billions of people to see your Booth. Just link with me."

What does it all mean?  It's called P-R-O-M-O-T-I-O-N and it's the hottest thing on the Internet. Does it work? Yes. Do you know how to use it all? Probably not. Well, buckle up... give me some of your time and this series will do its best to toot ya! Oops, I mean help you with tweeting, help you understand Google Base, explain Search Engine Optimization, and generally make you a better promoter of your Bonanzle business.

SEO in a Nutshell

For Bonanzlers, SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) is a variety of techniques applied to reach the goal of increasing the chances your items will show up (near the top of the list) on Internet search engines like Google, Yahoo, and others. Google Base, Twitter, and other products are the strategies you use to help you achieve that goal.

First Up - Google Me This!

The most effective strategy is the use of Google Base to submit your items to the world's largest search engine provider, Google. Google Base is a service provided by Google and can result in your items prominently displayed when prospective buyers are searching the Internet for items they wish to purchase. Submitting your items to Google Base is a fantastic way of increasing the on-line exposure of your items, since your items will be included in search results that prospective buyers see when they submit an item search to Google.

The best way to increase sales on Bonanzle is to draw buyers into your Booth from outside of Bonanzle and Google will help with that. As many Bonanzlers in the forums have stated, there are sellers on Bonanzle selling the same items. So, not only might you be competing with other venues, you are competing with other Bonanzlers for the same sale. It is imperative that your items appear on Google searches and that the pricing on your items puts you in the price range of other sellers. I believe this is especially important for sellers who are selling drop-shipped or commodity items that many sellers have available to sell. Outside promotion is essential since there are millions of potential buyers outside of Bonanzle.

Submitting your items to Google Base is not difficult and the detailed steps in the links below will allow you to set up a Google Base account (with Google) and submit the contents of your Bonanzle Booth to the search engines. In addition, there are tips that will optimize your Bonanzle Booth and could put your items near the top of search engine results, instead of getting lost in the mix. 

On the next post in this series, I'll try to make sense of Google Base for those Bonanzlers who need help setting up a Google Base feed by compiling it all in one place with examples, screen pictures and a FAQ section. Meanwhile, if you're ambitious to try it on your own, these Bonanzle pages do a good job of walking you through the process.

To create an account with Google or to log into Google to start using Google Base, click HERE.

To set up a Bonanzle feed to Google Base, click HERE.

What About the Other Ways to Promote?

Of course, there's more to promoting your Bonanzle Booth than just Google. I didn't forget Twitter, facebook, Squidoo, RSD, etc. Some of these will be covered in the next few blog posts in this series. I will start with the tools that provide the most bangs for the buck and work down the list. Have you figured out yet which technique is the #1 method of increasing traffic to your Bonanzle Booth? You could always GOOGLE it. 

Of course, you can always find helpful Bonanzlers online in the forums if you can't wait to hear about the other tools.

Don't forget to check out the other BOP articles at www.bonanzle.com/bop