Marketing is the lifeblood of any startup – without it, your company will sink.
Here is a list comprised of the top 5 marketing tips for your handmade business, categorized by top Etsy sellers.
1. Pinterest Marketing
By Samantha Hughes from HappyMoonPads
“Optimize the description of a pin by adding keywords and hashtags that users might use to find your product in Pinterest‘s search. Write descriptions as a useful and searchable piece of information, including keywords related to the pin and your business. Keep it fairly short; just enough to spark a user’s curiosity so that they will feel compelled to click through to your website for more info – don’t forget to include a **full** URL back to the content within the description to boost its SEO.”
2. Instagram Marketing
By Samantha Ranlet from BySamantha
Twice now I’ve ran a sale on my Instagram account @by.samantha for stock I had left over from a wholesale order or that was returned, and I just listed a photo of all of them offered at a discounted price with free shipping. I’ve had really good luck with this kind of sale. I posted one today with 20 prints and have already sold 8 of them. Just a tip for any of you who have some extra merchandise to sell – the customers will love the sale and will attend to the sense of urgency (claim it before someone else does), and you’re likely to gain followers when people realize they can get in on that sort of thing by following your posts!
3. Other Online Places To Market
By DuvalTea from DuvalTea
So here are the top ten of the many places that I advertise my Etsy store.
- Wanelo – sales went up
- Craftjuice – views went up
- Craftori – views went up
- Craftersbuzz – views went up
- Facebook – followers went up. With etsyfacebook $50 coupon plus another $200.00 I gained 3,200 followers in 18 days
- Twitter – followers went up.
- Pinterest – create a board for your listings and use the pinterest button on your Etsy listings to pin them
- kijiji.com (Canada) – make a listing in their “for sale” section, it’s free to place an ad, why not.
- Make flyers with your contact information and link to your site and hang them up in shops that will allow them and anywhere else you can think to put them.
- blogger.com – Make a product blog and maybe even add some tutorials or articles that are relevant to your product.
- Flickr – add photos of your products and add links in the description area.
4. Promoting Etsy Shop Items
By Kimberly Holmes from klady3818
Promoting your Etsy shop items is very important. People will not just know that your Etsy shop is there. There are many ways for you to promote your business. Promoting will seem to be hard at first but it is really easy to do. After you try some or all of these steps, you will find what works for you and what does not. Here are some steps for you to try:
- Make up business cards and flyers.
- Put your flyers and business cards in restaurants or other places you can put them.
- Find a craft sell to get in to and pass them out there too.
- Join groups on Etsy
- Talk in the forums
- Join social networks. Like Facebook, MySpace, and others
- When someone buys something send a business card with the item
- Start a blog
- You can make a profile on Google and yahoo
5. Getting More Sales
Michele Loftus from cortayloo
I’m just passing on a little information, as I was VERY lucky to have my niece help me this weekend (she has over 40,000 sales on Etsy, eeee!!) she helped me revamp my shop, so I thought I would give you a little list of the key things that we feverishly worked on. My views were 35 on Sunday, and 550 on Monday, and 1700 on FB. Here you go, maybe it will help a little!
- Social Media – FB – she set up a company page for me, my Darth Vader item was viewed 1400 times and shared 40 times as of 8 this morning 🙂 Tumblr – only share “IN and TODAY” items, as it relates to a nerdy crowd. Wanelo – which I didn’t know existed, this is like Pinterest. Better yet – App buttons on my computer – when I am in at Etsy listing, I just click and everything automatically posts to those sections – but I truly believe that Social Media is the key!
- Pictures – We purchased a camera, and several brightly colored fabrics that go cohesively with my new banner and avatar. I am trying to use several photos, and also taking photos from angles – in natural light only. Add a photo of your packaging! It’s super cute! During your preview – crop the photo in the upper right so that it is not straight on, but shows your entire product. Crop all photos square and adjust exposure. If they are cropped square, they will open large for the viewer.
- Listings – I removed “filler” listings. I am slowly adding only the listings that I want to sell, that mean something to me and my shop. That I can photograph properly.
- Shop Setup – I’m still working on it, but she stressed the importance of filling up the About me section and taking pics of doing the work itself. She also set me up for taking credit cards and Etsy gift cards, which I did not know about – or skipped without seeing.
- Titles – Separate title sections with a “dash, space, dash” – this helps searching.
- Tags – Still working on this – but her tip is to not use phrases, example – instead of “painted bodysuit”, use “painted” and “bodysuit”. Important to use all 13 of course!
- Shipping – we ordered adorable labels, business cards, bought shipping labels and packaging and print the labels right off of Etsy – so amazing and simple! Just create, print, and ship!
For those who are going along and in the beginning. Don’t give up, it will pay off. Keep learning and reading. You started your handmade business because you have a desire and passion as most successful Etsy sellers do. Don’t stop believing but keep on improving.
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