Ever driven on a road that looks like this? How many billboards are in this picture?
Or how about taking some back roads somewhere and finding a small business like this?
What do “hanging out your shingle” (photo 2) and “billboard mayhem” (photo 1) have in common? The second photo has only one sign, the first has more than you can count. The second sign is small, the ones in the first photo are huge. The guitar sign is hand crafted and custom made, the billboards in the first photo are all mass produced. The second photo is out on some country road somewhere, not going to be seen by hardly anyone. The first photo is on a major road seen by thousands of drivers.
But both have the same thing in common:
Hope.
In both cases, the companies advertising are hoping that someone will pass by, take notice, and walk in and buy something. Just like this guy spraypainting and hoping for the best.
How often is that true on GunBroker.com? How often do your listings look like this? 0 bids.
Yet, GunBroker gets well over 5 million unique visitors per month. Can you imagine if you had 5 million people walking through the front door of your store? How many guns could you sell?
The disconnect between no bids on your listings and millions of people looking at guns is hope. You post up a listing on GunBroker and hope someone will see it, stop in, and buy your gun. But there are a lot of other listings, just like there are a lot of other billboards out there.
So, what can you do?
Do more than hope. Take an active approach to building relationships with other gun enthusiasts and then let them know when you have a new listing. This drives targeted traffic to your listings and increases the chances that someone is buying from you and not from someone else.
How do you do that?
You find people who are active on social media, connect with them in Facebook groups, or follow them on Twitter, or produce a newsletter that you email to people. When you have a new product listing on GunBroker, you can let your friends, fans, followers, and customers know about it.
First things first
• Do you have a Twitter account?
• Do you have a Facebook account?
• Do you have an email list?
If not, go sign up. It’s easy. Once you’re in, start to follow some people who are talking about things you are interested, like guns and the outdoors.
Twitter
On Twitter, you’ll see a search box in the top right corner that will provide results like this below.
For more information on what is Twitter and how to use it, here’s a tutorial on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pkwOU90pos
With Facebook, once you have an account you can go search for topics of interest, like this:
You can create a page where you share information and promote your listings, alerting your potential customers and ensuring buyers are coming to you, like this Facebook post:
And, after they buy, they can come back and leave you a review, like this:
Twitter, Facebook, and Email are 3 simple ways you find a list of people interested in buying guns. As you develop a relationship with the people in these groups or that share the same interests, sharing cool products, cool videos you’ve seen, and your knowledge of guns, they’re more likely to trust you and want to buy from you. Remember, build trust first, then sell products.
