eBay is now the 8th most visited site on the internet and it has just one purpose - sales. With 40 mill visitors per month most ebay sellers are missing a golden opportunity. They are missing the opportunity to cultivate long term clients.

It is a proven fact in marketing that some will continue to buy over and over again from folk and corporations that they know, like and trust. Yet 95% of all internet marketers fail when it comes to the Bay. Most are looking for the fast buck. They have completely miss the opportunity to use the Bay as a lead generation tool. They miss the opportunity to create a list of folk that will be willing to consume the products over and over again.

Lead generation on ebay can be accomplished in several ways. The most popular way is by using the self liquidating ad. A self liquidating ad is one that pays for itself. In other words customer directly pays the advertiser the advertising costs. They purchase from the advertiser, some form of advertising.

Let me give an example of a self liquidating advertisement. Some friends of mine recently saw this in a magazine an ad for a pair of sunglasses. The ad claimed that the sunglasses were free, they just had to pay the shipping and handling costs. Their guess is that the advertiser potentially wasnt making much money on the sunglasses. But they also werent loosing any cash. The shipping and handling most probable covered their actual costs. What they really wanted was something far more valuable, customers contact information and folks permission to market to. In other words they are looking for qualified prospects - prospects that are interested in the products and services they are selling.

Once a concern has a customer's contact information and permission to market to, they will begin to establish a relationship. They will do this in a variety of ways including sending ads for other product and services the customer may be interested in. Over time most customers will be worth many times more than their initial purchase.

Since ebay is purely a commerce site it is a perfect place to do a self liquidating ad. Lets look at an extreme example. Lets pretend that some customer own a car dealership that only sells high end cars. Let's assume that folks average car sells for $65,000. One way the seller could use a lead generation self liquidating ad would be by selling a special report. For example people could sell a report on ebay.com entitled 18 Ways to Drive the Car of Your Dreams for Less Than the Cost of a Yugo.

Does anyone think a report like that would get some attention? The report is really nothing more than an advertisement for a customer. Of course the seller would have to write a report that had real content and offered up ways for the consumer to really do as the title suggests. A report like this however, would cost literally nothing to produce except time, and there would be no overhead, no inventory, and no headaches.

Since this report would be nearly all profit the seller could set a low Buy It Now price ($4.97) to attract a huge number of prospects. The revenue generated would easily offset the eBays seller fees.

In the report the seller could suggest several real ways for folk to drive a luxury car for little money. Seller could also list in the report a resource for them to research. The resource the seller suggest would of course be a car dealership.

The report did not cost the seller anything to produce or sell and it fully paid for itself with each person that ordered. The person buying the report is more possible interested in what seller have to offer and are therefore partially qualified. Anybody that contacts after reading the report is a fully qualified prospect and should be marketed to aggressively.

Once a seller have their name and contact information the seller could send them a weekly hot sheet of cars that they are trying to sell. Once they purchase, he or she could then sell them accessories and branded clothing. And the list goes on and on.

If a seller study the Bay there very few folks using it as a lead generation tool. Yet lead generation and specifically self-liquidating advertising is a proven winner. Nearly every type of business can benefit from lead generation advertising. If done correctly lead generation advertising can actually become another source of revenue for peoples enterprise. Special news are one excellent low cost lead generation tool that people can use. Look at the Bay as more than just a fast buck. Look to the Bay as a way to create long term clients. If worked properly ebay can be the best source of fresh leads and can really explode seller's sales.

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