Using a Contact Manager To Promote Your Sales!

Most auctioneers know their normal big buyers. Those who buy based on the item type, collector segment, antique store, flea market or other specialty interest. You may also know many frequent attendees by name or site who are more "occasional" buyers. The question is…how do you record that information and utilize it to boost buyer attendance at future auctions? A contact manager program could be a great new tool to manage and use this information to your advantage. Some of you may use various email programs to keep names and addresses or possibly send sales notifications, however, contact manager software goes beyond the "electronic rolodex" concept.

A good contact manager program will let you input the names, address, telephone, email and cell phone information. It will also let you customize pre-set fields so you can list the individual's item preferences. For example, you could have a field name for antique glass, antique furniture, toys, music, tools, sporting items and so on. You can also create sub segments to further specialize each group. Under "glass" you could also have "depression glass", "crystal", "leaded" or other types. Once you have this information compiled you will have a strong marketing tool. Prior to each sale you can use a contact manager to send emails, fax and text messages to the best prospects. Bidding competition drives prices which drives your profit so having several buyers with similar interest will help garner the greatest dollars for your customer.

Our Buyer Registration form helps you capture contact information such as email and cell phone numbers. As you review your clerking copies you can track who bought what type of items then log that information into your contact manager for future contact. Prior to a sale you can search for potential buyers based on the items in your listing.

Consider the following: If your next sale has a large grouping of antique glass could you increase the potential bidding by personally inviting 5 or more known buyers of antique glass? Would your primary buyers appreciate a pre-sale notification of specialty and unique pieces? If prior to your next sale you could contact past buyers within a specific zip code or city could you increase your buyer attendance?

Contact manager programs can be highly useful in building and maintaining buyer profiles for marketing purposes. Most are available for under $250.00 and function with Outlook and other email programs. Note: If you do plan to use email or text messaging be sure to read our post on these marketing medias as there are spam issues you need to avoid.