Do I Need To Advertise
Advertising has a bad connotation to the word. Instead, let's call it telling your story. After all, your customers are the key to having a thriving business. Your customers not only the keep the lights on in your business, they also enable you to grow and expand other areas of your life.
This is the $1M question for all sellers. Do you need to advertise or tell your store? The simple answer is yes. You should always be advertising. However, you should fist consider leveraging free and organic advertising before spending money on paid advertising. There are several reasons to use organic over paid ads. We’ll cover our thoughts in the following sections. Additionally, we use the word advertising here. What we are really saying is to tell your story.
ORGANIC ADVERTISING
Organic advertising is our main focus for having a strong customer base. Customers obtained through the organic means become and stay loyal customers. Also the organic method will test your content (your message, your story) to ensure it resonates with your customers. Remember the second and third steps in the marketing and sales funnel found in the article entitled: “How To Increase Shoppers” are the message (step 2) and the conversion from customer to buyer (step 3). This will lead to a stronger loyal customer (step 4).
The organic traffic is there for the long haul and your customers are not pulled in by the advertisement. We are of course saying to never advertise. What we are saying is there is a place and time for paid ads.
We recommend leverage your social platforms and grow your audience from those platforms and bring them into your store. The content you share on your social platforms will be the messaging that resonates with your organic customers.
PAID ADVERTISEMENT
Once you’ve confirmed your message or your story appeals with your customers, you can start leveraging paid ads to further boost your reach. Paid ads will expand your exposure to a bigger audience, and a bigger audience will in turn bring in more buyers.
If you try paid ads first, you would not fully know if the message or story touches your customers or if it were the advertisements. Also if you implement paid advertisements first, you will continuously spend money in trying to find your customers. In this case, your cash outlay will be more than what you would spend using organic content. Paid ads could increase your initial spend.
HOW THE MARKETPLACE ADVERTISES
We follow the same methodology as we described in the previous sections. Finding the right customers is key to our success. We use organic methods to find both our perfect sellers and their perfect buyers. We understand this specific marketplace is not for everyone and we acknowledge not everyone who joins will continue to stay as a seller or as a buyer.
We feel our process has been tested and we’re continuously learning and growing as our customer base changes, evolves, and scales. This is the same approach we recommend to all our sellers. Nothing stays the same and is always evolving. We also need to evolve as a whole marketplace to stay aligned with market changes.
SUMMARY
Yes, you, as a seller should advertise your store. In fact, you should always have the thought of expanding and finding the right customers in your mind. Just like this marketplace, not everyone will resonate with your message or product. The ones that do will be your customers for the long haul. Keep in mind, your customers are the life line for your business, and without customers, your business will not survive.