Machines4U Academy
13-Part Series To Help You Get The Most Out Of Machines4U
Module 3
Content is king. You’ve probably heard this phrase before, but what does it mean? In this article, you’ll learn:
• What you need to make a perfect listing
• Why quality content is so important
• What photos to include on your listings
• How you can use video to increase buyer engagement
• Why pricing your listings is so important
• How to write effective descriptions
• Why you should upload PDF brochures
What you need to create a perfect listing
When you add a listing to Machines4U, you’ll notice in your edit screen that it will have a coloured bar. This coloured bar is only visible to you and your account manager, and it indicates your Content Quality Score.
So what do you need to make that bar green?
• A set price displayed
• 10+ photos
• 1 Video
• A PDF brochure uploaded
• 250+ characters in the listing description
If your bar is green—fantastic! Your listing is fully optimised for buyer engagement and is set up for success.
If your bar is orange—it needs more work. Hover over your bar to see what you’ve missed and how to fix it.
If your bar is red—statistics show any listings with a low content quality score will not perform well and will receive less engagement and leads than a listing with a high quality score. Hover over your bar to see what you’ve missed and how to fix it.
If your bar has no colour—your listing will not have much success as is. Add a price, photos, a video, a PDF and a description to give your listing a much-needed boost.
An overview of your Content Quality Score is shown as an average across all your current live listings in your MyMachines4U dashboard under content overview, as shown below. If you have any questions about the CQS, please reach out to your account manager.
Why is quality content so important?
Think about what you look for when you’re browsing ads online. You’ll likely judge the ads based on the content available, including:
• Photos • Description
• Videos • PDF brochures
• Pricing
And for machinery, it’s much the same. A buyer will judge an ad on the content available. So if your listing is bare, or doesn’t have relevant information, you’ll lose that buyer’s interest. And, if you don’t have enough engaging material to draw them in, your ad will be lost among the others.
So, if you want to get more leads from your ads, uploading quality content is vital. Check out this article for your ad checklist!
Things to remember:
1. Content needs to draw buyers in
2. Without quality content, your ad will get less clicks
3. You’ll get more leads from an ad with quality content
What photos to include on your listings
Ever seen an ad with no images? If you have, you probably scrolled past without a second thought. And that’s exactly what your prospects will do if you don’t include quality images on your listings.
But, what makes a good photo? Let’s look at these 2 machinery photos side-by-side.
| • White Background | • Machine is onsite |
| • Pixelated | • Photo is clear |
| • Doesn’t look like their own machinery | • Can tell this is their machine |
When you look at the image on the left, you probably don’t think that machine is actually in stock because it looks like a generic brochure photo. Meanwhile, the image on the right looks like it’s available because you can clearly see the workshop in the background, and it’s obvious the seller took the photo.
Ads showing images with a white background tend to get less click-through than those with a regular background. So if you’re taking a photo of your machine, take it in front of the workshop, or somewhere that won’t be too distracting. You want buyers to focus on your machine. That way, it’s easy to see you have that machine in stock and buyers can come check it out. So, upload as many photos covering as many angles as possible to get the best results.
For more tips on taking quality photos, check out this article.
Things to remember:
1. You can upload up to 20 photos to your listings—do so for the best buyer engagement
2. Don’t upload images with a white background and avoid uploading images you’ve downloaded from a brochure
3. Take clear photos of your machine onsite to maximise interest
How you can use video to increase buyer engagement
Videos are one of the most powerful tools you can use to increase buyer engagement. Ads with videos achieve up to 88% buyer engagement. That’s massive.
Why does engagement skyrocket with video? Well, a video allows buyers to see and listen to the machine working. They can hear if the bearings are worn or if the engine sounds good, they can even tell if something doesn’t sound quite right. And all of that will give the buyer the information they need to make a purchasing decision. It also means less questions for you to answer when they do make contact.
All you need is to have your best sales person walk around the machine, pointing out the good, the bad and everything in-between. Think about it: if you could watch a video and see the machine in action, wouldn’t you be more likely to enquire?
Read 6 tips to making great machine videos fast, here.
Things to remember:
1. Videos can get up to 88% more buyer engagement than ads without video
2. Videos allow buyers to hear and see the machine working
3. Buyers will watch videos before they look at anything else
Why pricing your listings is so important
How do you feel when you see an ad for a car, or a house, that doesn’t have a price? It feels a little fishy, like the seller is hiding something, right? That’s how most people feel when you use POA instead of an actual price on your listings.
On Machines4U, a buyer will sit on our site for more than 2 hours and make an average of 3 enquiries. With so many listings available for similar (if not the same) machine, it’s no surprise that you need to get a leg-up on the competition. And if you’re not pricing your ad, you’re basically letting your opposition take leads that could (or should) have been yours.
We constantly see sellers listing machinery without a price. But then, the sellers tell us the leads are no good, that they’re a waste of time. And they point to our platform, saying it doesn’t work.
But what is the real reason? A lead is a lead, right? Not quite. If you don’t qualify the prospect before they become a lead, all of the enquiries you get are “how much?” price enquiries. Which wastes everyone’s time—including your expensive salesperson.
You’re much better off putting the best price you can on your machinery listings. Even if you put a price range on instead, so that buyers can see if your machine is somewhere within their budget.
Things to remember:
1. Our data tells us that ads with no price or POA generate less leads
2. If you use POA, the leads you do get will likely be about how much the machine is
3. Buyers tend to scroll past ads with no price as you’re withholding information
How to write effective descriptions
Your description is an important part of your listings, but you don’t have to be a writer make it effective or generate leads from it. Here’s how you do it:
• Include key features
• List the benefits of the machine
• Give a quick history of the machine
• Include the make, model, year and hours
Think about the major things your buyer would want to know and the major specs people are looking for in the market; include all of that in your description. Specifically, try to get the most important information in the first 3 lines. We’ve found that most of our users browse through the first 3 lines of the description before making a decision whether to keep reading or not.
Check out this article for more tips on writing effective, lead-generating descriptions!
Things to remember:
1. Focus on the features, benefits and major specs
2. Include the history of the machine
3. Write for the buyer
Why you should upload PDF brochures
PDF brochures are an important part of any ad. They not only give your buyers more information, but they also help you get the buyers details at the top of the sales funnel.
When people are on our site, they’ll watch a video, look through photos, read the description, and then they’ll go to the pdf brochure for more specific information about the specs. And to download that brochure, they need to give you their details, including their: name, phone number and email address.
By having this information, you have a soft lead that your salesperson can get in contact with to ask if they’re still interested or if they need more information. So, having a PDF on your listing is a great strategy for capturing buyers early on in their buying cycle.
Not sure how to upload a PDF? We’ve made it easy in this how-to article.
Things to remember:
1. Include more specific specs in the PDF brochure
2. PDF brochures catch prospects at the top of the sales funnel
3. You get the contact details of people who download your PDF brochure
Things to avoid
To get the most from your content there are a few things you should avoid doing.
1. Don’t use brochure photos on your ads
2. Don’t upload the same video to multiple ads
3. Don’t put everything in your description
4. Don’t duplicate ads—this is against our terms and conditions
There you have it! That’s all of the key things you need to know to create the perfect listing. In the next module, you’ll learn how to position your ads for the most exposure on Machines4U.
Creating your first listing