Hello everyone and welcome to the third installment of The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing workshop series. In this presentation, we'll help you design listings that sell faster and make you more money. We'll cover critical presentation and visual techniques, including layout, design, buyer psychology, photography and more. This second presentation and Q&A session is titled “Critical Visual and Presentation Techniques.” My name is Phil Dunn, marketing and advertising writer for Fortune 500 companies. I’m here with Janelle Elms, eBay University instructor and co-author of our book, “The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing.” We’re not going to go over general eBay mechanics here. Instead, our aim is to assist you in going beyond the basic nuts and bolts of eBay and delve into some more advanced marketing approaches. Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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The same holds true for your eBay business. Customers judge your dedication to your business by the appearance of your eBay Store and listings as well as the off-screen materials such as your business cards and packaging. You want every aspect of your business to present a consistent visual image that expresses your business personality and reinforces your brand. These efforts lend credibility and professionalism to your eBay business that pay off in increased sales and profits. Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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Let's start by addressing an important concept here – graphic identity. Most people think of business logos when they think of graphic identity. Designing a great logo is a major step in the process, but creating a graphic identity encompasses much more. It’s about developing a complete system of graphical elements that represent your business. It’s also about making conscientious decisions regarding all visual aspects of your business. It’s determining a style, a look and feel for your business, and injecting that theme, with consistency, at any and every point at which you interface with customers. These decisions about your visual style help you create a harmonious visual message you can use in your eBay listings, eBay Store, printed materials, and beyond. Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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Think about the visual associations that go along with your specialty or niche. If you sell women’s beauty products, your visual style might reflect grace and femininity. If you sell scrapbooking materials, you might consider a style that is homespun or crafty. If you specialize in vintage art deco barware, a swanky retro look would be a great fit for your business. High-tech businesses obviously benefit from a streamlined, modern, or even futuristic appearance. Take a few moments with a pen and paper and brainstorm the sort of visual associations that fit your business. Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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With SMP, functions such as feedback and customer e-mails that once were handled individually can now be handled dozens at a time. A few simple checks of boxes and clicks of a button and you’re on your way. You can even set preferences to automatically send cus­tomers e-mail, notifying them of winning bids, payments received, or items shipped. Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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Different colors are associated with distinct emotional connections. Use them to cultivate your eBay brand. Color associations include, but certainly aren’t limited to, the following: • Green Calming, environmentally friendly (Simple Green cleaning products) • Red Intense, exciting (Red Envelope gifts, Red Hot Chili Peppers band) • Blue Businesslike, contemplative (IBM “Big Blue,” Miles Davis’s album “Kind of Blue”) • Purple Mysterious, regal (musician Prince, the L.A. Lakers) • Pink Femininity, innocence (Victoria’s Secret, Johnson’s Baby Lotion) • Yellow Joyful, cheerful (Curious George books, rubber duckies) • Orange Energetic, industrial (the Home Depot logo, neon signs) Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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Next topic... Logos.. A great way to determine the style of your logo is to search and compile a reference file of other logos that you find appealing. You can find examples of existing logos that you see every day, from the food packaging in your pantry, to advertisements, letterhead, and packages you receive in the mail. The Web offers another great resource. Google the word logo, and click the Images button on the menu bar to perform an image search. In less than a second, you see hundreds of logo images to peruse for inspiration. Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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Consider the adjectives you use to describe you business. This helps guide the style and form these elements take in your logo design. Are you looking for a retro or classic look, a feeling of technology and the future, or something sleek or elegant? Brainstorm these associations and write them down. They’ll be helpful as you proceed through this process. Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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The logotype design is a logo based on text only. Although seemingly easy to create, intense thought goes into even the simplest logotype designs. eBay, Dell Computers, and Yahoo! are a few examples of easily recognized logos in this style. Logotypes work best when the font selected embodies the brand. If you want to try this for yourself, revisit the existing font files on your computer, or go back to the font download Web sites, and take a second look at some of the creative fonts used. Reconsider some of the fonts that you found appealing but nixed because you couldn’t see an entire business card printed in that typeface. Could your logo be your business name forged in one of these expressive fonts in your signature color? If you decide to go this route, be sure to choose an easy-to-read complementary font for other text that appears in your correspondence. For the sake of your customers’ vision and sanity, use this complementary font for all text other than your business name in the logotype. Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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If you are artistically inclined, go ahead and create your own logo illustration. Copyright-free clip art is another possibility for logo images, but it should be chosen with extreme care. Most available clip art positively screams “I am clip art!” and using it for your logo can seem trite and cheesy, unless you choose an absolutely perfect match for your business. Again, some things are best left to the pros, so if you truly lack artistic skill, hire a graphic designer. Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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Consider these basic formats and the elements you wish to include in your logo design. Start with a pen and paper and sketch out as many possibilities and variations as you can imagine. Sleep on it, and then sketch some more. Share your logo musings with your friends for feedback—second and third opinions offer a lot of insight. From here, you’ll be able to build your own logo or pass on your sketches to a professional designer so she can turn it into something wonderful. Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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Let's talk about Web usability now. This an important practice when you start designing your eBay store and listings. Web usability refers to measuring the quality of a visitor’s experience on a particular Web site, including your eBay listings and Store. Usability addresses questions about how easily the visitor can find the information she is seeking and how pleasant her experience is on the site. It is the study of Web aesthetics, navigation, and accessibility of information. Co-author of "The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing" (McGraw-Hill)

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