1. Start reading eBay Marketing Makeover for free right here!
  2. Do you really need an eBay store to be a successful seller?
  3. Know your limits
  4. Writing as a marketing tool: Proofread & punch-up ALL your copy from listing text to form emails
  5. Work on encouraging repeat business and word of mouth before you do any other marketing
  6. Analytics & buyer tracking are the key to focusing your selling efforts
  7. There’s someone out there who just loves what you’ve got for sale. Zero in on them!
  8. Know your limits: Sometimes it’s better to hire someone
  9. Work to keep & grow the customers you have now before you look for more
  10. Focus your marketing & selling efforts by setting up visitor tracking & traffic analytics
  11. Identify your ideal customers and tailor your selling to them
  12. Rethink your social & selling persona to increase sales by speaking directly to your ideal customer
  13. Collect your keywords: Exactly what is SEO & how do you take advantage of it?
  14. Optimize the keywords in your eBay listings themselves for more sales & traffic
  15. Guide buyers to your items by using your top eBay keywords on all your sites and social profiles
  16. Prepare a description of your eBay store in varying lengths to give your buyers the best first impression
  17. Give your eBay selling or store a memorable logo and avatar for visual consistency
  18. Use the power of writing voice to speak directly to your ideal customer
  19. Nothing says unprofessional like spelling & grammar mistakes in your eBay store
  20. A quality product is easier to market and sell
  21. Good customer service means more word of mouth, sales and repeat buyers
  22. It’s true! A good return policy is a marketing strategy that courts word of mouth
  23. Shorten & simplify your item listing text for the TL; DR generation of buyers

Encouraging Repeat Business and Word Of Mouth

Before you go nuts trying to get new eyeballs on your store, do a little work to both keep and grow the ones you’ve already got. If everyone who buys from you now came back and bought more, that would mean more sales too. And a repeat buyer is more likely to develop brand loyalty, which can lead to even more purchases in the future. Beyond the additional sales, repeat customers are also your best source of Word of Mouth marketing, and the more often they’re pleased with a purchase they make from you, the more likely they are to spread the word.

talking photo

Photo by pedrosimoes7

Word of Mouth is the single most effective type of marketing there is, and that’s because it happens naturally. Bad Word of Mouth can destroy a business just as good can make it. When a happy customer tells a friend about your store or an angry customer warns others to stay away, personal recommendations like this from their friends and networks will have a much greater effect on your business than any specific marketing campaign you could run yourself. While the middle tends to stay quiet, customers on the two furthest sides of satisfaction will talk about your business in ways you can’t control. Add to this that an unhappy customer will get their negative message out to more people than a happy one, and it’s a very good idea to keep your customers satisfied.

While you can’t stop people from talking or make them return, you can increase the chances that they’ll talk about your company, and that such talk will be favorable and increase your sales. We’re going to focus on those two things for this first section because it will make every other marketing strategy you try that much more effective going forward if you’ve got strong Word of Mouth amplifying your every effort.