Bebo Advertising.

[ilovefashion]

Hey E-bidders

Ive just opened my store here Ilovefashion. Any tips would be great.
If any of you have a bebo and are registered you can make a group under your user name promoting your store. ive done one for my store and have put logos of ebid up to help get more people here with a link to my store.

Here is The link: http://www.bebo.com/ilovefashionebid
Potentially it could be good for stores who supply younger items.

Oh and Ebid ROCKS!.

[rokins_toys]

Here's a post I put in another thread, but if you want tips on advertising, this will help:

Hehe, thank you JudesNiceThings. I try my best to offer useful advice on advertising and useful advice with actual listings. I've still not followed my own and others advice on the listing side yet by switching some off from Run Until Sold to around end in 10 days etc but I will get around to it this week.

But I do strongly urge shop owners to advertise their own shops online still, if you had your own websites, you'd have to promote them other wise no one would ever know you're there! Banner advertising is the best way for advertising online obviously, and if you have a shop up your local high street or mall etc, then putting up signs in-store with your eBid shop address will be helpful, especially putting it on flyers that people can pick up off the counter in-store. Or, if you can afford to, Royal Mail can help assist you set up an advertising promotion with flyers, but it will cost a lot of money to do it, but maybe worth the cost in the long run, obviously, people outside the UK it's jsut a matter of getting in touch with your national postal service to see if they offer a similar service.

Getting banners on website will be a good start as well as in-store promotions as well, maybe in your local papers too, especially if it's free hehe. Royal Maikl do offer "Campaign Solutions" as well as a "door to door" thing. If you can afford it, getting an advert in popular managzines will help too. You can buy a quarter page, half page, full page, same with national and local newspapers I think too. All of which will contain your eBid shop address obviously. And if you do have a shop up a local high street, in a mall, then the postal address will be helpful too with such advertising in magazines and papers, even more so with your local papers.

Billboards, quite costly for your typical independent store, but I do agree eBid should at least look down this avenue for all countries that have billboard advertising. I feel eBid should also invest a little in some radio ads as well as maybe TV as well. TV being the most costly form, but only if you aim for prime time veiwing, it would be cheaper for eBid to advertise on TV in the mornings and afternoons as the evenings are prime time and a lot more expensive, especially when the cost depends on how many times a day you want the advert on. So the more it's on, the more it will cost. I'm sure eBid are already aware of that fact anyway. My work in the music industry has served me well to have knowledge of such things so I know how costly it can be to advertise on both TV and Radio, but Radio being cheaper, and as said in previous post, it's not like eBid would have to hit every independent station in the UK, just the main ones like BBC Radio 1 & 2, Heart FM for South and Midlands.

But anyway, for you shop owners, local and national papers, even the free papers you get are a good place to hit too as those papers exist on government grants and the people paying to advertise in them, popular magazines would be a good place too, but remember magazines will be more expensive than your local and national newpapers, but at least with both, you can have quarter page, half page and full pages, but I would only recommend having half or full page ads if your going to fill it with pictures of stock items. Having an insert in magazines would be good also, like how Aldi and other supermarkets do. Magazine inserts are quite good and effective as people do read them and you'd be surprised how many as well. TV Guides would be good for a quarter, half or full page advert. And there is a good choice of TV Guides around. Some will cost more than others.

And obviously, getting a banner on other websites will be good. Which type of websites depends on yourself really. For myself, I tend to sell more to collectors than parents lol, so I'd be better off hitting fan/collector websites to advertise my shop, but hitting other websites like HMV, maybe Boots and other websites that receive a lot of traffic but do not sell what you're selling is a good place to start.

I think, for UK business owners, local councils I think do a business guide or something (other countries might have something similar as well), which can be advertised in as they list local businesses of every nature within that councils area. I know where I am, there is Birmingham business guide and I think a more local one as well to do mostly with the area in which I live in Birmingham. Something I'll be looking into myself.

And obviously, there is the word of mouth, but that only works if you're getting the sales in the first place for people to tell their friends, family etc, that they shopped with you and had a good experience etc. So when you think about it, there is a lot shop owners can do to promote their own stores online, but obviously it comes at a cost which is why I suggest working out an advertising budget of what you're willing to spend month on month depending how long a banner will stay up for on another website, and how many times you'll get a reprint in a local or national paper (magazines too) as they do deals in the sense you can buy x amount of advertising in a paper or magazine and they'll repeat it for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, just depends what you can afford, what you can afford to set aside for an advertising budget.

And you can always ask how customers heard of you after they have bought from you, then you will see which adverts and where are working for you and which ones are not. So I hope this post helps you out a bit more too

PS: I've listed an "advertisement" on Greedbay hehe. Cost 40p for a 30 day listing. So, 40p for a months worth of advertising on Greedbay is the way I see it. I refuse to actually sell on Greedbay, so I thought, how can I keep a presence on Greedbay, be in search results etc, but without actually having an item for sale on there? So I figured, why not do an "advertisement" listing. I designed a listing, picked which items I wanted to advertise (pictures as well), and provided links to their pages on eBid. I've made it clear at the top of the listing that it is an "advertisement" and that to actually purchase the items, they need to come to my Shop on eBid. It's already had over 40 views in 2 days, so hopefully, the viewers will pop along to my eBid shop and buy from me here instead. It's worth a try and if it generates some sales, then worth it I suppose..

Like yourself, I use social networking sites as well, but it takes a lot of time and work to keep thing up-to-date on them. I'm on MySpace, MSN Live Spaces, Bebo, but I rarely do anything with them because of the time it takes to sort thing out with sorting out which stock items to promote, sorting the details, pics etc.

[paully58]

Hi ilovefashion,
I have just been and signed up to bebo but never having ever been on let alone used a social networking sight I don't have a clue what I'm doing I have set up a couple of basics there heres my username what do I do now ( in laymens terms please) thanks
paully58

[booksforsale]

I had been avoiding Bebo for a long time, but have now decided to give it a go. My page looks far from exciting just now and it is clear that I don't know what I am doing.

Pop over, have a look, put me on your friends list or whatever they call it, I will reciprocate this with other ebid bebo users.

Like i said i have a long way to go before it approaches being interesting

[Huddylion]

Hey E-bidders

Ive just opened my store here Ilovefashion. Any tips would be great.
If any of you have a bebo and are registered you can make a group under your user name promoting your store. ive done one for my store and have put logos of ebid up to help get more people here with a link to my store.

Here is The link: http://www.bebo.com/ilovefashionebid
Potentially it could be good for stores who supply younger items.

Oh and Ebid ROCKS!.

Both of your links on your page lead to the list of stores page on ebid

[booksforsale]

Hey E-bidders

Ive just opened my store here Ilovefashion. Any tips would be great.
If any of you have a bebo and are registered you can make a group under your user name promoting your store. ive done one for my store and have put logos of ebid up to help get more people here with a link to my store.

Here is The link: http://www.bebo.com/ilovefashionebid
Potentially it could be good for stores who supply younger items.

Oh and Ebid ROCKS!.

Is that your profile link or a group you have set up.
Sorry if I appear unknowledgeable of things Bebo.