Are You Missing Out On Opportunity?

I recently decided to clean out my garage, and sell off a few tools that I don’t use any more. One day after I did some pricing research to determine what I could sell the tools for, I logged into my yahoo mail account, and started getting targeted ads from the very sites that I was researching!

Well, besides the fact that they somehow yahoo magically ‘knew’ what I was looking at, they made one BIG mistake.

You see – I was looking at those sites to get a price range that I could SELL my tools, not Buy. I applaud them for their efforts, but – they are targeting the wrong person, if they expect me to Buy. – a wasted ad impression that cost the vendor money.

So – are you ‘Getting It’ or are you needlessly wasting money by paying for ad displays (impressions) that are being targeted to the Wrong Audience?

So how can you tell if the ad delivery service is giving you the full demographic details or not? In my case, there is no way. No one asked me if I was buying or selling, they just assumed that I was buying.

I would guestimate that 99.5% of the visitors to the tool sites I went to usually get buyers, not sellers. So I may be the .5% category that is considered a necessary expense to get to a buyer.

But, if I were in the tool business, which is very competitive in pricing, I would look outside the box to develop even the .5%.

In a nutshell, I would offer something like this:

Selling Used tools? We will buy them from you! We will offer %35 of the retail value (better than you can get on Craigs List or at the pawn shop), if the tool is in good shape. We will donate it to someone that needs it and can’t afford a new tool. We will give you that amount as credit towards any purchase you make with us in the next 3 months.

You win by knowing your tool goes to someone in need, you get a discount on your next purchase and the company obtains a valued customer!

Now this can work in almost any business. You help recycle things to people in need, and you get both buyers and sellers to your business.

It doesn’t even have to be anything that pertains to your business. For example, if you support local community things, such as a pee-wee league, scouts, food banks, etc., offer to collect items, and give a discount to your product/service. You get new customers, they give to a viable need, and get a discount from you.

You can also ‘promote’ this with a press release to various news sources (TV stations, Radio, on your website, Social Media sites, etc.).