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Site Promotion, Advertising Strategy?

pmitchpmitch
in Closed Suggestions Vote Up1Vote Down
I am very happy at BO (my only sales venue), but of course more traffic would be welcome.

I know this is a very niche market, so reaching prospects through advertising would be very tricky, but I would like to know if there is a current plan or strategy. I assume the SEO optimization has been done and continues to be refined, but is there any direct marketing, such as booths at various LEGO conventions/events, adverts in the serious AFOL publications, or even paying for google (for example) for the clicks on 'AFOL', etc.

I know the topic of raising fees is very touchy, but I would be happy to pay extra for increased site promotion. Perhaps it could be voluntary with the reward of your store being highlighted on the BO home page or with a special badge (visible and prominent to the buyer).

Along these lines, I would suggest transparency. That is, show the budget for advertising along with the change in unique visitors, etc. This could easily and quickly show that a slight raise in fees are well offset with the new sales potential.

Comments

  • 3 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • LawrenceLawrence
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    I'm happy to be transparent about this. We put effort into on-page SEO during the creation of Brick Owl. Off site SEO like liasing with other websites to promote BO has never been a strong point for myself unfortunately.

    We do have an adwords budget, but this has always been run at a loss, as the cost per conversion can be for example £2, for an order where BO will receive £0.15 in commission, but we still choose to spend a portion of the commission on this.

    We don't currently do any direct marketing, but this is definitely something I intend to explore further this year.

    If you as a store would be willing to pay more to have your store promoted, you may want to look into marketing your store directly. We purposely setup stores with their own subdomains so if stores wished to do any form of marketing they can print a clean URL like "noteworthys.brickowl.com".
  • CalibrickCalibrick
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    It would be my pleasure (and other stores may be interested - for US sellers, advertising is a tax writeoff) to chip-in money toward additional Brickowl-wide advertising, such as a one-time investment for hiring a marketing consultant, or pay a presence at LEGO con booth, etc.

    I am super-glad to hear we do SEO and adwords (I suspected we did that, as I see the data draw the rare times the site loads slower on the bottom left of my Firefox browser), that was smart up-front thinking!

    And I'm very, very glad to hear you are exploring opportunities in direct marketing later this year, Lawrence - more people should know about this beautiful site you've built and it's awesome, friendly, and supportive community!

    I definitely have the sense that numerous sellers would be open to additional contributions, be it $$, slight fee raises, or even volunteering (e.g., booth manning, more catalog work, drafting documents/advertisements, etc.) to enhance site promotion and marketing. I certainly would be open to helping out. I bet there is a LOT of untapped skills floating around among BO's selling community, e.g., I'm a technical writer, software manager, and engineering process manager (yup, loads of hats!) in my day job. I have ZERO experience in marketing though. :-(

    Anything that benefits BO, benefits us directly! :-)

    Thanks for responding to pmitch's message, above, we always appreciate your hard work as well as the insight you're always willing to provide!

    R,
    Sandy
  • fitbricksfitbricks
    Vote Up0Vote Down
    Personally, I use social media whenever I can. Sadly, too many Facebook Lego groups ban sellers posting links - no matter how helpful it is.
    I have also placed links on YouTube. I guess until something major is decided in respect of the OP I'd suggest we all keep directing fans here through whatever means are at our disposal. Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. Hash tag it: #brickowl #yourstorename.

    We've an army of sellers and a respectable number of happy customers - we all need to spread the good news that is BrickOwl.

    P.S. I know that many of us do - I'm not suggesting otherwise. The more the merrier.
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