How can your auction marketing strategy increase the attendance to your next event? Is there a way that you can let everyone know when and where your auction is to be held? How can you entice potential attendees by teasing some of the different lots available in a quick and easy way?
The answer, of course, is adding marketing automation to your auction marketing strategy.
More specifically, many of these things can be done by using SimplyCast 360's SMS application for mobile phones.
Approximately 90 percent of Americans own a cell phone and of that 90 percent, many, if not most, enjoy communicating by text messaging. In fact, SMS messages have a 98 percent open rate, which all but guarantees that any messages you send potential auction goers will be received loud and clear.
If you have a website as part of its auction marketing strategy, you can easily ask visitors to that site to opt in to receive SMS communications from you. Simply create a signup form in the SimplyCast Editor and place it on a landing page on your site. All the contact information received from the form will be automatically inputted into SimplyCast's CRM to use for future SMS communications.
Text venue and time updates
An easy way to use SMS communication is to send out a text with the date, venue, and time when your next auction is taking place. Simply create your message in the SMS campaign functionality, and schedule it to be sent whenever you wish, either immediately, or closer to the auction date.
Sometimes people need to be reminded of events a few times before they fully commit to attending. You can schedule a series of text messages to be sent automatically once a day for a few days up to the auction, increasing the likelihood that your contact will remember to go.
Tease some of the items up for bidding
Another way to get people excited to attend your auction is to tease some of the items in the lots that will be up for auction.
Set up a series of text messages with facts about some of the items, such as the historical value and appraisal amount, or simply where the item is coming from. This way, your bidders will have more of a sense of the worth of the items and their interest will increase leading up to the auction. This means bidders will have more time to think about whether or not they would like to throw their hat into the ring – or paddle in the air, as the case may be.
Use keywords for information
One more way to encourage more engagement at your auctions is to implement SMS keywords that people can text to receive more information either about the auction itself or about the lots up for grabs.
Let your bidders know that they can text a certain word to a shortcode (six-digit number) to receive a response back that corresponds to the word they texted. For example, if you wanted to give people information in regard to what items are in a specific lot, have them text the word LOT16 (or whatever the lot number is) to 555555 and they would automatically be provided with information. Or, if someone wanted to know when the auction is to begin, they would text TIME to the same number.
Reply with automation
You wouldn't need to worry about responding to all these text messages manually. By using SimplyCast 360, you can write all the responses to each keyword in advance in the SMS Editor, and trigger them to be sent automatically whenever someone texts the keyword to the shortcode.
This will save you time and effort you can use in the preparation of your auction and all the responsibilities that come with it.
Increasing your auction attendance and engagement with SMS automation is both easy and beneficial to your auction business. With engagement, comes customer satisfaction, and with customer satisfaction, comes larger and more enthusiastic crowds at your auctions.
Try automated auction marketing for yourself
To learn more about how your house can benefit from auction marketing using SMS automation, try our 14-day free trial of SimplyCast 360.