You have spent hours organizing, cleaning and pricing your items for your estate sale, and you have chosen a date that is not on a holiday weekend. You have made some eye-catching signs to entice people to come by and shop, and you have told every family member and friend about your upcoming sale. Now, it’s time to harness the power of the Internet and get the word out about your estate sale online.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so make the photos great
To promote your estate sale on your blog, website or social media, take and post plenty of eye-catching photos of the available merchandise. It’s not unusual for online ads for estate sales to have 500 photos or more, so don’t stop after 10 or 20 shots. Take as many clear photos as you can of most of the items that you have for sale. Focus on posting photos that you know will tempt shoppers, such as antiques, artwork and collectibles, and add them to your sites. To really grab the readers’ attention, consider adding high-quality and professional videos to your website that go along with the theme of the sale. For example, Shutterstock has some amazing vintage footage that would complement photos of antique furniture, rugs and art.
Consider advertising on estate sale websites
Unless you are a professional estate sale company — and most people who hold estate sales are not — you don’t have a large following of buyers who are waiting for the sale. To help get the word out, post the details of your sale on websites that are devoted to advertising estate sales online. For example, Estatesale.com, Estatesales.net and Estatesales.org are three popular and effective sites to advertise your upcoming estate sale. For best results, post your sale one to two weeks ahead of time and have those photos ready to share.
Tweet & share the details
Social media is an outstanding way to advertise your estate sale. You can post the details on your Facebook account by creating an album and event on Facebook. Then, invite your friends and family members to join. Every day, post a new photo of something that will be in the sale, and be sure to include basic information like the address, date and time of the event. Don’t stop at Facebook though. You also should tweet the details of your sale on Twitter, post photos on Instagram and make a YouTube video featuring some of the inventory. You can then post the video on all of the other social media sites.
Don’t forget Craigslist & other local websites
Craigslist has a “garage sale” section that you can use to post the details about your sale as well as photos. Make it clear in your listing that you are hosting an estate sale; this will separate it from the pack of generic garage sales.
If you live in a neighborhood with a Homeowners Association, contact them to see if you can post your sale on their website, or if they can include the information in a weekly or monthly email blast to residents.
