Two auctions can sell the same skid steer a week apart and get very different money for it. The difference is how many people knew about the sale, trusted the catalog, and were already registered when the lot came up. That part is marketing, and at a lot of regional sales it gets squeezed into the last ten days, between hauling in consignments and setting up the ring.
This guide is a promotion plan for owners and marketing staff at Pennsylvania equipment and farm auction companies: consignment sales, live sales with online bidding through Proxibid, EquipmentFacts, HiBid or your own app, and online-only events. It covers how to promote an equipment auction week by week, what a catalog needs before you push it, which channels still work in PA, how to cut friction at registration, how to get consignors to share the sale, and how to measure which of it brought bidders.
We run the PA equipment auction calendar on Heavy Listing, so we read a lot of sale bills and catalogs every week. Most of what follows comes from what makes a listing easy or hard to send a buyer to.
Why bidder count is the number that matters
Auction marketing has one job: more qualified bidders on each lot. Two bidders who both want a machine push it up; one bidder buys it at the opening number. Consignors remember which of those happened when they pick where to consign next season.
Promotion has three steps, and each one can fail:
- Reach: the right people hear about the sale early enough to plan for it.
- Interest: they open the catalog and find the machines they need, with enough detail to set a number.
- Registration: they sign up before sale day, so nothing stops them from bidding.
A sale bill in every feed store will not get anyone registered, and a great catalog sells nothing if nobody finds it.
The promotion timeline: six weeks out to the week after
Here is the timeline we would hand a new marketing hire. A monthly consignment sale with regular buyers can compress the first two rows; a once-a-year farm dispersal needs all of them.
| When | What to do | What it gets you |
|---|---|---|
| 6 to 4 weeks out | Lock the date, location, sale format and terms. Post the sale on your site, your online bidding platform and auction calendars. Order signage and book print or radio ads with their deadlines. Send consignors a short “how to share this sale” note. Create the Facebook event and a Google Business Profile event post. | The sale shows up when early planners and farmers search. Print deadlines are met. |
| 3 weeks out | Publish the first catalog, even if partial, with photos, hours and serial numbers on the major lots. Email your list with the 10 to 15 strongest lots and the catalog link. Open online registration. | Buyers start setting budgets and arranging financing. |
| 2 weeks out | Add the rest of the catalog. Post lot highlights on Facebook (one machine per post, with the lot number). Share in local farm and contractor groups where the rules allow it. Put up road signs where local rules allow them. Send consignors their own lot links. | Buyers find specific machines, not just a date. |
| Final week | Second email: full catalog, preview hours, how to register, deposit and premium in plain numbers. Call or text last sale’s buyers about lots they bid on before. Run the radio spot. Confirm every catalog photo and link works. | Registrations come in before sale morning. |
| Sale day | Post the start time and the online bidding link in the morning. Keep someone on the phone and email for registration problems. Count on-site registrations by where they heard about the sale. | No bidder lost to a login problem or a missing deposit. |
| After the sale | Thank bidders and consignors by email. Post results the way your consignors are comfortable with. Note the next sale date. Fill in your bidder source sheet while it is fresh. | Next sale starts with a warmer list and real data. |
The row people skip is the first one. Six weeks feels early, but farm papers, radio and calendars work on lead time, and a farmer who needs a baler for spring picks a sale well before sale week.
Catalog quality: what makes a bidder set a number
The catalog is your strongest advertising, and the piece buyers forward to partners, lenders and mechanics. Nobody drives 150 miles, or bids online, on a lot that says “skid loader, runs good.”
For each major lot, publish:
- Photos from all sides, plus the hour meter, the cab, the engine compartment, tires or tracks, and the bucket or attachment. Shot in daylight, after washing if you can.
- Hours, read from the meter, and a note if the meter was replaced.
- Serial number or PIN, so buyers can check age, specs and options themselves.
- The basics that set value: cab or open station, heat and air, high flow, two-speed, tire size, attachments that go with the lot.
- Known problems, stated plainly. It saves you arguments at settlement and earns trust you will need next sale.
- A video of a cold start on the bigger lots, when you can manage it.
Example:
❌ Weak: “Lot 112: JD tractor w/ loader, good rubber.”
✅ Strong: “Lot 112: John Deere 5075E, cab, 2,140 hours on the meter, Deere loader with bucket, rear tires at about half, serial number in photo 6. Small hydraulic weep at the loader valve.”
Publish early, even with gaps. A catalog that goes up three weeks out with 60 lots and grows to 200 beats a complete one posted four days out. Put the online bidding and registration links at the top of the catalog page, not three clicks away.
Channels that bring bidders to a PA equipment auction
No single channel fills a sale. Use a short list of them, on schedule, all pointing to the same catalog.
Your email list
The list of people who registered or bought at past sales is the most valuable thing your marketing has. Collect emails at every registration, online and on site, and send at least two emails per sale: the first catalog and the final reminder. Put lot photos and the catalog link in the email body; a PDF flyer is hard to read on a phone.
Facebook page, events and local groups
Post one machine at a time with the lot number and the catalog link, instead of one long album nobody scrolls. Create a Facebook event for the sale so people can mark “interested” and get reminders. Local farm, buy-and-sell and contractor groups reach people who do not follow your page, but many groups limit business posts. Read the rules or ask the admin first: getting a sale removed, or the page blocked, costs more than the post was worth.
Google Business Profile
Business Profile lets you publish updates, offers and events, and Google’s help page on posts says an event post takes a title and start and end dates and times. Post each sale as an event with the catalog link, and keep your hours, phone number and directions to the sale site correct.
Auction calendars and listing sites
Your bidding platform shows your sale to its own users, and regional calendars, including ours, show it to people searching by area and date. Give every calendar the same core facts: date and start time, address, live or online or both, and a direct catalog link. A listing without a catalog link is a dead end for a buyer. Our guides to equipment auctions in Pennsylvania and farm equipment auctions in PA link to the calendar, so a sale there can be reached from those pages too.
Print, radio and farm papers
In much of Pennsylvania, print still sells farm equipment. Farm papers carry auction listings, Lancaster Farming has a dedicated Auctions section, and some of your best farm buyers, Plain community families among them, will never see a Facebook post. Local radio reaches people in the truck. If your buyers are farmers, keep a print ad in the budget and put the phone number and catalog address on it in large type.
Signage
Road signs still work for local traffic, especially for a farm sale off a back road. Check township and PennDOT rules before placing signs in a right of way, and take them down after the sale.
Register bidders early and take friction out
The cheapest bidder to win is one who already wanted the machine and got stuck at registration. Buyers still registering at 9:55 for a 10:00 start are the ones you lose to a declined card or a deposit question.
- Put the terms in plain numbers, in the catalog, the email and the sale bill: deposit or card hold amount, payment deadline, accepted payment methods, removal deadline.
- Show the buyer’s premium plainly, including any extra fee for bidding online, with an example on one lot. Bidders do the math anyway. If they have to dig for it, some of them lower their bids “to be safe.” Our article on the buyer’s premium at equipment auctions shows how buyers work the premium into their maximum bid.
- Open registration when the catalog goes up, not the week of the sale, and say in every email how long approval takes.
- Explain the bidding options once, clearly: on site, online live, absentee, phone. Link to a short help page for first-timers. Our guide on how to buy at an equipment auction covers the buyer side if you would rather link to it.
- Have the tax exemption step ready. Farmers often buy tax exempt with a PA exemption certificate (REV-1220); our article on PA sales tax on used equipment explains when it applies. Tell them to bring it or upload it at registration, so it is not sorted out at the cashier window.
Example:
❌ Weak: “Terms: buyer’s premium applies. See website.”
✅ Strong: “10% buyer’s premium on site, plus our online fee if you bid online. A $10,000 tractor costs $11,000 before tax at the ring. Online bidders: card hold required, approval within [time]. Payment due by [day], removal by [day].”
Use your own figures. A buyer should be able to work out the full cost of a lot from the catalog page alone.
Work with consignors so they share the sale
Consignors want a crowd too, and many know buyers you do not: neighbors, customers, people in their church or their trade. Most never share the sale because nobody asked or made it easy.
- Send each consignor their own lot links as soon as their items are in the catalog, with a one-line message they can forward.
- Give them a photo and a short text sized for Facebook and for a text message. “My 2016 Kubota M7060 sells at [sale] on [date], catalog here” is all it needs.
- Ask large consignors to tell their contacts, especially in a farm dispersal, where the family’s name brings local buyers.
- Do not ask consignors to post your terms or your premium. Keep that on your catalog page, where it is correct and current.
Consignors who feel part of the effort are also easier to sign again next season.
Upcoming auctions on the PA calendar
This is how sales currently show on our calendar, each with its date, place, bidding type and catalog link:
McGrew’s 11/17 Timed Online Auction
McGrew’s 11/17 No Reserve Dealer Equipment Auction
CG Holsteins Complete Farm Machinery Dispersal
Turkeyfoot Fall Machinery Consignment Auction
If your sale is not there, it is missing from one of the places PA buyers look. Listing it is free.
Put your next sale on the PA auction calendar
Send us the date, location, bidding type and catalog link. We add your auction to the Heavy Listing calendar within one business day, free. To be featured first in your week and on the home page, the Auction plan is $199 a month, with a monthly report of views and catalog clicks.
List my auction →How to measure which promotion brought bidders
Without numbers, every sale ends with the same debate about whether the radio ad was worth it. A few habits, kept every sale, settle it.
| Measure | Where it comes from | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Registered bidders, online and on site | Your bidding platform and the office sheet | The basic size of the crowd, sale to sale |
| New vs returning bidders | Compare against your past bidder list | Whether promotion is reaching new people or only your regulars |
| Where each bidder heard about the sale | One question on the registration form and the office card | Which channel earns its budget |
| Catalog views and clicks by source | Your platform’s reports, your website analytics with tagged links, and reports from any calendar that provides them | Which email, post or listing sent people to the catalog |
| Bidders who placed a bid | Platform and clerk records | Whether registrations turned into real competition |
| Lots with only one bidder | Clerk records | Which categories need more targeted promotion next time |
Tag your links: a different link for each email, post and calendar listing (UTM tags in Google Analytics do this), so catalog visits show their source. And keep the “how did you hear about us” question to a short list of checkboxes. A blank line gets blank answers.
After three or four sales, a pattern usually shows: which channels bring new bidders, which bring regulars, and which line in the budget brings almost nobody. That is the one to cut or change.
Common mistakes in auction marketing
1. Promoting the date, not the machines
“Big equipment auction Saturday” gives a buyer no reason to come. “Two Cat 289D3 track loaders and a Kubota KX040-4” does. Lead every piece with the lots people search for.
2. Hiding the fees
Bidders who find the premium and online fee only at checkout remember it. Clear terms do not cost you bids; surprises cost you bidders next sale.
3. One link that breaks
Platforms change catalog addresses between sales. Click every link in the email, the posts and the calendar listings the morning they go out.
4. Treating the last sale’s buyers as done
The people who bid and lost on a lot last month are the best prospects for a similar machine this month. A phone call or text with the lot number is worth more than another ad.
Where to start before your next sale
If you change only three things, make them these: get the catalog up three weeks out with photos, hours and serials on the major lots; put the premium, deposit and deadlines in plain numbers on the catalog page; and add one “where did you hear about us” question to registration.
None of this needs a big budget. It needs a calendar, a good catalog and the discipline to do the early steps before sale week takes over. That is how to get more bidders at an equipment auction, sale after sale.
Dealers who sell between sales can compare where to list used heavy equipment online.
Frequently asked questions
How far in advance should you promote an equipment auction?
Four to six weeks out for most consignment and farm sales: date, terms and calendar listings first, then the catalog about three weeks out.
What is the best way to get more bidders at an equipment auction?
Publish a detailed catalog early, email your past bidders, list the sale on the calendars buyers check, and make registration easy before sale day.
Do print ads and farm papers still work for auctions in Pennsylvania?
For farm equipment sales, often yes. Many Plain community buyers do not use social media at all, and plenty of other farmers still find sales in farm papers and on local radio. Track where bidders heard about the sale to see how much each ad brings in your area.
Should the buyer’s premium be in the auction advertising?
Yes. Show the premium and any online fee on the catalog page and in your emails, with an example on one lot. Buyers do the math anyway.
How do I list my auction on Heavy Listing?
Use the list your auction form with the date, location, bidding type and catalog link. Basic listings on the Pennsylvania auction calendar are free and go up within one business day. The Auction plan, $199 a month, features your sale first in its week and on the home page.
