Industrial Auction companies are always struggling with the issue of how to get more people to register for their auctions. Years ago, people would register for an auction two weeks before the start of the sale. 
Now we see the majority of people, not signing-up until the day of the auction. Late registration can put upper management into panic mode because they think no one is going to participate in the sale.
I have gone through several fire drills of pushing extra promotions out at the last minute, but in the end, every single auction has had registrants.
Instead of putting more money towards promoting the auction, be confident in your initial promotion so you will know people will register. Build a good marketing plan, and they will come. (Can’t help but think about the movie – Field of Dreams – Build it and they will come.)
Even though people are not registering until the last minute, you still have to market the auction a month before the start date.
I am a firm believer in cross channel marketing, but for this blog, we are only going to talk about Email lists because email has the best response for time-sensitive offers like Auctions.
To increase the number of registrants, you need to concentrate on Quality, not Quantity of people seeing your promotions. Here are two plans I discuss with clients all the time because they are mostly interested in the number of people they will reach.
Which of these options do you think would work best for your next auction? Before you answer that question you have to think about the equipment for sales - Who would be interested in buying it? How old is it? Where is it?
Rent an email list of 30,000 names and send an email once (with such a high quantity your budget might only stretch to a single send).
The open and click-through rate is reasonable, and your website receives 300 visitors to the sales page. Of those 300 visitors, only 3 register to bid in the sale, none of them make an offer.
With a single send it is hard to make people aware of the auction and then remind them when the auction is starting.
Rent a small, highly targeted list of individuals who have recently attended a seminar, for example, Senior management at pharmaceutical manufacturing companies.
On registration, the individual confirmed they have spending authority for significant capital assets, and they are interested in manufacturing equipment.
The list is quite expensive, but it is also much smaller, just 2,000 contacts, but you can afford to send it three times. Open, and click-through rates are higher, but the actual number of visitors to your site is just 50 after the first email goes out.
You send the second email and find that several recipients revisit the site, and some new people view the auction. By the time you’ve deployed your email a third time, a total of 110 people have visited your website, and 15 of those have registered to bid.
Five go on to place bids, two of them winning lots, but the other three helped raise prices significantly by providing the much-needed competition.
With the three-time blast, you can inform the recipient of the sale and then follow it up with two reminders so that the most interested people take action and register.
It does not happen exactly like this each time, but we have tracking history that proves that target multi-blast or cross-channel marketing can help you get the right people registering for your auction and placing bids.
Make sure you are targeting the right people Figuring-out what magazines they read and/or trade shows they attend will help uncover the right people that are most interested in the equipment you have for sale at the right time.
TIP: Look deeper into unusual / boutique sources. https://www.worldinnovators.com/b2b-postal-email-lists
Some of the small lists will be the most responsive because they are not over used. (Some publishers are posting Auction announcements from various companies several times a day so the recipients become numb to the promotions and do not open them up. - Do Not Waste Your Money!
