Employing cutting-edge digital marketing and time-tested advertising, Bright Star uses techniques like Google ad campaigns, glossy postcards, flyers, catalogs and more. We supply a wide range of options for those interested in liquidating operations, selling equipment, or real estate homes.
For your convenience, Bright Star will shoulder the work of advertising and auction set up so that you can relax, knowing that your property is in good hands before and after the auction. From small to multi-million-dollar operations, Bright Star Realty and Auctions utilizes time, local and national interest, and the customized advertising methods you need to help your auction succeed.
We Take Timing Seriously
Before we move into our advertising methods, let’s address one of the most important factors of helping your auction succeed—timing. It might not seem like a big deal, but even the best advertising methods might fall through if there isn’t enough time to implement them.
Simply put: more time equals more advertising opportunities.
Bright Star has hosted auctions with only a two-week notice, but a longer timeframe widens the scope of our advertising. Auctions scheduled 4-6 weeks before the auction date give Bright Star additional time to raise local and national awareness by using digital marketing, setting up signs, and mailing postcards.
Giving us more time to advertise also provides the opportunity to:
- Send out emails 3 weeks before the auction to our 20,000 (and growing) subscribers
- Post more often on Facebook and Instagram
- Attract more buyers through newspaper ads and flyers
We won’t hold it against you if you schedule an auction on short notice. We’re just letting you know that—as effective as our advertising methods are—they work best when you give us more time to publicize your auction.
We Advertise Locally Yet Extensively
Now that you understand the importance of timing, let’s jump into Bright Star’s advertising methods and how they apply to our three main auction types: real estate, equipment, and equipment liquidation auctions. Although our advertising methods overlap for all three of these auction types, there are a few differences.
For real estate auctions, Bright Star advertises extensively in your community. We put up auction signs, send emails to those interested in what you’re selling, and posting on our social media pages to reach local buyers, other sellers, and even phone bidders.
Bright Star’s Facebook and Instagram pages include pictures and posts that link back to your auction page on our website, where the auction catalog and descriptions are shown. These advertising tools help your auction succeed by bringing interest and online traffic to your real estate auction weeks before the auction date.
In a nutshell, the nine standard advertising methods we use for real estate auctions are:
- Creating a $2,000 advertising budget (we pay the difference if we go over our limit!)
- Putting up a sign on the auction site and 5-6 signs in the community and at main intersections nearby
- Placing a box of flyers on the sign at the auction site for interested buyers to take
- Placing ads in local newspapers
- Mailing out magazines with auction images and descriptions
- Delivering 500-600 shiny postcards in the mail route surrounding the auction area
- Providing the seller with flyers that he can hand out as he pleases
- Posting auction images and descriptions on Facebook and Instagram
- Posting videos on YouTube and Facebook (linked to our website)
Our Advertising Reaches Buyers—Nationwide
Like our advertising for real estate auctions, some of our advertising methods for equipment and equipment liquidation auctions include posting on Facebook and Instagram, putting up signs, and providing flyers.
However, one of the things that sets us apart from other auction companies is that we provide the Bid Book for our equipment auctions. This book contains the complete auction catalog with pictures and descriptions of each lot in the auction and is mailed nationwide to interested buyers. Since our list of phone bidders request this auction catalog, this advertising method is guaranteed to help your auction succeed because buyers want what you’re selling.
For Equipment and Equipment Liquidation Auctions our breakdown looks like this:
- Covering the cost of advertising (yes, the cost is on us!)
- A comprehensive digital marketing campaign. Our website traffic is growing by leaps and bounds!
- Putting up 3 signs in the community and at main intersections near the auction site
- Placing ads in local and popular publications like Lumbermen's Equipment Digest, American Lumber & Pallet, and the Equipment Showcase Catalog
- Sending out the Bid Book to our list of phone bidders all over the U.S.
- Providing the seller with flyers that he can hand out as he pleases
- Posting auction images and descriptions on Facebook and Instagram
- Posting videos of larger sale items on Facebook (these link back to your auction on our website) and YouTube
- Placing the auction catalog in front of the thousands of buyers on our exclusive bidding platform
- Placing the auction catalog on popular equipment bidding sites like Proxibid, Equipmentfacts, and Bidspotter
We Tailor Our Advertising
You’ve now seen our local and national advertising methods; but you’re probably still wondering, “Do these advertising methods actually work?”
In short, yes, they do! And this doesn’t just happen by coincidence.
One of Bright Star’s priorities is to make sure that our followers—your customers—are receiving the content that they want to receive. There’s a reason our 20,000+ email subscribers have stuck with us: we don’t like spam, and we’re sure our customers don’t either. Because we tailor our advertising methods and try our best to avoid spam, our credibility brings buyers who trust that your auction has the product or products they want. This, in turn, generates the sales you need to help make your auction a success.
Aside from our carefully crafted mailing lists and social media groups, our paper ads contain our website name, and all Facebook ads and emails link back to our website. Linking back to our website brings a lot of attention to your auction.
Customers can “window-shop” on our website by browsing through the complete auction catalog, which includes with pictures, descriptions, and videos of the high dollar items. This advertising method sets the stage for your auction’s success because, once more, customers have a clear picture of what you’re selling and can confidently show up to your auction knowing that you have what they want.
Keeping your best interest in mind, here are more reasons why Bright Star’s advertising methods will help your auction succeed:
- We email interested buyers 3 weeks before an auction and a day before the auction.
- We send out emails the morning of the auction to all registered online bidders, reminding them that the auction is that day
- We listen to feedback to learn where customers saw an auction advertised, so we can keep improving how and where we advertise
- Auctions are posted on our Facebook and Instagram page and kept up even after the auction is over
We Analyze Our Advertising Results
To keep generating interest for future auctions, after an auction is over, we put the results on our website and the sale price of each item. This feature is extremely popular, because other buyers or sellers can check what items sold for and get an idea of what their equipment, operation, land, or house is worth. For this purpose, we always keep auction results on our website, Facebook, and Instagram.
Additionally, we try to trace where interest is coming from by asking people where they saw the auction advertised. We also evaluate monthly Google Analytics, so sellers can see how many views their auction received and to track which links customers use most frequently. Analyzing our results shows us the effectiveness of our advertising and whether we need to improve our paper and online ads for the success of upcoming auctions.
From tailoring our marketing techniques before an auction to tracking phone calls, links, and views afterward, our goal at Bright Star is to continue improving our advertising methods for the benefit of our customers. We don’t think sales are made by coincidence.
At Bright Star, we firmly believe that our faith in the Good Lord and tested techniques—timing, interest, and tailored marketing methods—are undoubtedly why our customers’ auctions succeed.
Let's Get Started
We would love the opportunity to help you with your auction. Give us a call, and we can discuss your goals and how we can best serve you. You can call us at (574) 825-0704 and start the conversation today!
