Offline Marketing of your Trading Assistant business

Trading Assistants must market their eBay business for it to grow. So much focus has been to use online marketing methods, we tend to forget that there are many effective ways to market offline too.

Some effective methods of offline marketing are relatively cheap or free. As with any marketing effort you need to track your results. Always ask new leads how they heard of you. Write down your results to help analyze how effective each marketing campaign was.

Offline Marketing ideas:

• Business Cards: Every eBay Trading Assistant should have them. It is by far the best way to leave your business impression with anyone you come in contact with. I recommend not going too cheap with this. A professional looking card will go a long way. Use services like elance.com for design services and
  for print services if needed.
• Referrals: Your existing client base is a great resource for referrals. Keeping in touch with them will help generate new clients and remind them of your selling services.
  
• Flyers: Spread the word by using flyers. Tear-off flyers work best at local supermarkets. Some examples of printable flyers are available in the eBay Toolkit.
  
• Networking: Join business networking groups like your local chamber of commerce. These groups offer a great potential for leads and exposes you to new opportunities.
  
• Print Advertising: There are many options to advertise locally including the Yellow Pages, coupon mailers, placemat, newspapers, etc. You will need to budget & track your campaigns to ensure that you are getting a good ROI (Return on Investment).
  

A few more "Guerrilla Marketing" ideas:

• Classified Ad Screening: Monitor local classified & Craigslist ads for items you would to consign. Wait a week to pass and contact the seller if the item was sold. If it wasn't you can offer to help him sell the item. This tactic is effective but cold calling is not for everyone.
  
• Garage Sale Trolling: Visiting garage sales makes it easy to talk to potential clients. Simply offer to help them sell any higher end items they might have (not garage sale items) and hand them a business card.
  
• Home Sellers Direct Mail: Many people selling their homes are in need of TAs to de-clutter their homes before a big move. You can find them by driving around, newspaper ads, etc. A targeted flyer mailed to these prospects could prove well worth the cost of postage.

eBay To Go Widgets Marketing Tool

eBay recently released a new tool to help market your eBay listings and eBay Store. These creative tools make it easy for Trading Assistants and anyone else to showcase listings on a website or blog. Check out my To Go widget below:

These easy to create widgets are created by going to http://togo.ebay.com/ and following their step by step wizard. You can create widgets for individual items, multiple items, search, seller and eBay Stores. Take advantage of the free utilty now!

eBay Feedback 2.0 - Trading Assistant Status Hidden

Recently, eBay upgraded their feedback system. This upgrade features many improvements for rating sellers and overall useability. The only drawback I found with eBay's new Feedback 2.0 is that the identification of registered Trading Assistants is now hidden under the "More Options" drop-down menu (see below).

This makes it very difficult for users to know that you a TA. Two things that every eBay Trading Assistant should do is create a "me' page and let everyone know that your a TA on it. You should also use the TA Logo for listings that eBay has provided. I created a tutorial showing you how to implement the TA logo in your listings.

The more people who know what you do the better chance of getting more clients. Over the years I have landed a few clients just because they saw my listings or bought from me and were interested in using my services.