How does different auction advertisement avenues affect attendance?

A question in the craigslist forum made me wonder if attendance is higher or lower depending on the way the auction is advertised.

Around here in North Alabama I haven't noticed any craigslist advertisements for auctions.  So The question is in your experience which form of advertisement leads to the bigger attendance at the auction?

Legal ads? Craigslist? auctionzip? or private website?

Well, most states require the legal notice to be published in a newspaper; however, a storage facility can use vehicles like Craigslist to attract more people to their auctions. If the facility uses an auctioneer, they can have their auctioneer place an ad on AuctionZip. Auctions advertised on AuctionZip usually have a high attendance. Private websites can also have an effect on attendance. On my site, just a simple recommendation can drive an extra 20-30 people to an event.

AuctionZip definitely drives up attendance, corporate chains with their own websites have heavier attendance.

For obvious reasons, any sale conducted by American Auctioneers (Dan & Laura Dotson's company) will typically have large crowds.  People watching Storage Wars will look at the auction schedule on their website and show up, looking to buy that one magical unit and make their millions.

A question in the craigslist forum made me wonder if attendance is higher or lower depending on the way the auction is advertised.

Dustin might mean this thread:

http://storageauctionforums.com/craigslist/do-storage-facilities-in-your-area-list-their-auctions-on-craigslist/msg32629/#msg32629

I find that the places that only post in the legal section of the newspaper have much lower attendance. Sites that are listed on auctionzip.com have a much higher attendance level. HOWEVER, the higher attendances levels do not bring in more serious buyers, only more lookey loos or the overpaying one hit wonders.

I find that the places that only post in the legal section of the newspaper have much lower attendance. Sites that are listed on auctionzip.com have a much higher attendance level. HOWEVER, the higher attendances levels do not bring in more serious buyers, only more lookie loos or the overpaying one hit wonders.

You're right about that. You know what's worse than an auction advertised on AuctionZip? A Saturday auction advertised on AuctionZip. All the lookie loos & overpaying one hit wonders are off work.

Locally the auctions have not been posted on Auctionzip lately. I find that the legal notices posted in the county news paper have a big turnout. There are a few city papers and one for lack of a better word "rag" that some use to advertise their auctions. The turnouts for those are usually very small. I spilled the beans to one longtime regular last year about the "rag". Really wanted to kick myself when they said they didn't know that there were legal notices posted in it.

In NC, the law has been changed and storage facilities no longer have to post an ad in the legals. Now the law sees advertising on auctionzip.com, craigslist.org and other sites, including the facility's website, as equal forms of advertisement. A facility also no longer has to call the delinquent customer on the phone if the customer agrees that the facility can contact them by email.

I would expect that trend to grow throughout the country.

The way I can best explain attendance in correlation to the medium of advertising is this.. If you do a Google search for storage auctions in your areas, the first sites are going to have the biggest turnout. Auctionzip.com controls the space in this area, thus they have the largest turnout.

the least attented auctions in my area are the ones where the facility conducts the auction themself. maybe they have a small contact list of people to call, maybe they place the required newspaper ad but not much beyond that. on the other hand the auctions who hire an auctioneeer have big crowds. probably because a. the auctioneer has their own following and own website and does their own advertising outside of what the facility does. aslo oftentimes these are done on a circuit so to speak where a caravan of cars goes to all the auctions. maybe one facility is sorta out of the way so normally people wouldn't attent but because its a caravan you cant exactly skip one auciton and then catchup with the group later because you never really know how long things will take