Those of you who know me know that I spend my of my days dealing with in antiques and collectibles. I love feeling the history in my hands. This is in stark contrast to the way I sell these treasures… through the internet. Nothing tangible, and I have to try to reach my audience amongst a sea of ‘noise.’

There was a time that I was spending a large part of my budget on google adwords to try to get people to find me. And yes, I was getting clicks, but the conversions were very, very low, which was both costly an ineffective. This is why I came up with a new plan. Here are the 7 ways I get people to find us without using adwords. And guess what? It costs a heck of a lot less!

1. Create a mini-site. What is a mini site, you may ask? Well a mini-site is a ugly little site with a niche-specific domain name that forces people to make a decision. My shining example of this is www.HummelsHumels.com. First of all, the name is very specific to the Hummel Figurine, which is highly important. The search engines find it easier than my main domain, ‘vintagerarestuff.com’. It has a lot of good words in the top bar above where people can type in a new web address, which also gets google’s attention. But the most important mini-site thing is that it’s SIMPLE. It addresses the question “Do you have a question about selling your hummel collection?” and then it gives the person a place to fill in their name and email address to find out how. Very simple. One page. Ugly little site, but does wonders
2. Start building a list. Once you have a few mini sites out there with forms to contact you, make sure you save their info. I use mycontactform.com and contactology.com. This way, when you have a product of interest, you can send it directly to people who would actually want to know about it. Sending an email to 500 people who care about a subject is better than getting 1000 clicks of people who are just ‘curious’ on adwords.
3. Have a presence on eBay. I know, eBay has become a bit of a pain in the you know what lately, but they are still the largest e-commerce site, period. Having a presence on their gets you higher in google by virtue of the fact that eBay gets higher on google.
4. Get an account on Linkedin.com and join groups. There is a group for nearly anything you can think of on linkedin.com and it’s a vastly underused feature! Recently I posted in 4 collectibles groups “looking for people to interview on collectibles corner tv.” In 48 hours I had 5 responses. Do you know how long it used to take to find someone to interview? The same can be done for anything. You sell panini grills? Join the restaurant owner group and start a discussion about commercial grills, then casually mention that you sell them. The exposure is really targeted. Make sure to check to the box to be emailed if someone replies so you’re able to follow up.
5. Write a free guide in your niche. Distribute this in every form imaginable. Post it as a page on your web site, devote a mini site to it, sell it for 99 cents on eBay with free shipping in the niche you are catering to. Giving free information is one surefire way to get people to trust you, consider you an expert, and notice you.
6. Write articles and go negative. You can write articles for free on a lot of different sites, and you can also write directly onto your own blog. But negativity often works better. In our panini grill example - a good title would be “Why you NEVER want to buy a 240 Volt Flat Grill made in China”. Then explain why and offer them a solution - something that you can provide

7. Get Video. This is the MOST superior alternative to google adwords. Search engines love good videos that are well tagged. It’s actually quite amazing. There are services out there that can do this for you for under $600.00 and will literally take care of everything from production to distribution. When you think about how quickly $500-$600 can go on adwords, it’s a no-brainer.

Here is an example of a marketing video:

I get asked this a lot so I thought I’d address it here:
Feel free to use this information on your own sites, but please keep all my links intact and link back to this original post:

http://www.collectiblescornertv.com/7-superior-alternatives-to-google-adwords/

Some of my favorite marketing gurus are Barry and Dean: BuzzProfits

Those of you who know me know that I spend my of my days dealing with in antiques and collectibles. I love feeling the history in my hands. This is in stark contrast to the way I sell these treasures… through the internet. Nothing tangible, and I have to try to reach my audience [...]

By: Tammy Kahn Fennell, host of Collectibles Corner TV

I know, it sounds crazy, right? How can 10 cents ever equal $300,000 unless it’s a sweepstakes?

In the world of collectibles this is entirely possible. My grandfather used to collect stamps. In 1938 he walked right past the newsstands to the Post Office and bought blocks of stamps….. Stamps were 3 cents at the time. I am said to say that nearly all of those stamps are still worth… 3 cents.

If, however, my grandfather would have stopped at that newsstand and picked up a new, bizarre looking comic with a man with a red cape on the cover, he’d be sitting on over $300,000 today. What I’m talking about is issue #1 of Action Comics, also know as the First Superman.  This comic is currently being auctioned off and it is fast approaching the $300,000 mark!

Back at the time when it came out stamp collecting was much more in fashion than comic collection. I guess the moral of the story is buck the trends, and take a chance on something unique! It may just pay off!

Tune in each week for a new episode of Collectibles Corner TV! Make sure to sign up on any page so we can let you know when a new episode is ready!

I know, it sounds crazy, right? How can 10 cents ever equal $300,000 unless it’s a sweepstakes? In the world of collectibles this is entirely possible.