Revisting the Etsy MARRIAGE Proposal : Social Networking Bridal Style

I originally posted this article on Handmadeology, however; someone has started a Marriage Team up on Etsy because of my article, and it's helping Etsy sellers--- so if you haven't read it yet, maybe you should!



A wedding doll of mine is probably on her 10th marriage by now.



"Will you marry me?", asked RetroBabs. After I thought about the idea of marrying her for about thirty seconds, I agreed.  After all, I was already married to a few others too.  In fact, I'm the one who suggested getting hitched in a few articles.  Of course, I've never met any "my so called wives", never obtained any marriage licenses and certainly husband doesn't even realize I have these other marriages, so perhaps I should explain...now as crazy as this may sound, I am taking the time to share this secret with you because it DID work for me!



My Definition of an Etsy Marriage:
Essentially, an "Etsy Marriage" is my idea on increasing your shop sales by teaming up with another member wherein the relationship mutually benefits you both.   This is where you must seek and find a shop owner who is as passionate about selling as you. By proposing this idea of faux-marriage to them, you both agree to promote each other's shops, blog about each other, and social network each other's items in and outside of Etsy.  Now let me explain further.

Dino Love Cake Topper by Jennifer Marsh shop theaircastle shows the perfect mate!

Your Ideal Marriage Partner:
Your goal is to find a shop who has more sales than you. This is most likely going to be someone who has been on Etsy longer than you, and has learned a thing or two. Read their profile and their announcement, and see if they blog, twitter, or have a Facebook because that is key. 

What Your Potential Husband or Wife Sells is Very Important For Success in Marriage:
One of the key questions I get asked all the time is, should you find someone who sells the same as you? My answer is no.  Someone complete opposite?  No, but this is a tricky question so I'll get more in depth with my answer.

If you make and sell lucite rings, it will do you no good to marry another lucite ring seller. This would be a total conflict of interest, and quite frankly, your direct competition is not going to help you. I'd hate to see you in divorce court before the honeymoon period is over.   Your goal is to find indirect competition where both shops can benefit. Here are a few ideal marriages:

• The lucite ring seller who makes bright and cheery rings marries a scrabble tile pendant seller whose look is the same. 

• The baby onsies seller (with baby hats and clothing) pairs with the baby plush toy seller.

• A necklace shop marries a ring shop.

• The crocheter pairs with the needlepoint seller.

• Someone who wire wraps jewelry marries a metal artist. 

•  A handmade tote bag seller marries someone who sells a lot of homemade cosmetics, hair care products, or someone who sells beach wear.  It would be very easy for the beach seller to promote the bags! 

•  A seller of homemade dog treats marries a dog coat maker. 

•  A ceramic or clay tea pot maker marries someone who sells herbal tea and natural herbs.

•  A bridal veil maker marries a wedding scrapbook or party favor themed shop.

• A handmade upcycled notebook maker marries a handmade greeting card artist. This is easy to cross promote and they have a common love of ephemera.

• A supply seller who sells charms marries someone whose main supplies are jewelry findings. Both cater to people looking to make jewelry and have a love for supplies.

• A jewelry maker whose work is steampunk designs may seek out and marry a gothic hat maker, or clothing maker.  Better yet, what about a clock shop?

• A vintage jewelry seller marries a vintage clothing shop.  Accessorize those retro clothes!

• A green herbal remedy shop marries a green food shop. Buy some food and healthy alternatives too.

• A person who sells recipes which include desserts marries a cake supply seller. 

• The soap seller pairs with the lipstick seller.  Beautify yourself!

• A shop that sells handmade hats that look like they are from the forties should find a vintage shop who specializes decor from the same era.

• A furniture designer who makes retro looking furniture could marry a vintage housewares shop--the thought process here is someone who likes retro design would shop both.

"The Lovers" Ceramic Wall Platter by AdrienArt of Seattle.

 Propose to the Potential Husband or Wife and Suggest 4 Ways the Marriage Will Work: 
Convo them on Etsy and be honest. Tell them you are asking for their help. Tell them you like their products, and think you could work successfully together on promotions. Offer them an item free from your shop or samples of your products if they help promote you a bit.    Here are ways they can help you and you'll want to suggest some of these at first, but save some for later.  (Don't overwhelm your new husband or wife all at once...)

1) USE YOUR PROPS IN THEIR LISTINGS

• Send them samples of your product and ask them to state this in the item description. I use Mattie Reid's handmade rings (above) and showed them on my glove molds. I use the rings a lot, so she gets credit in the listings over and over again. Note that I used them in a few photos, and make sure to steer people to her shop in the description itself. Your marriage partner could word it a bit differently, but the overall aspect would be the same.

2) SHOP ANNOUNCEMENT REFERRAL: 

 

• Ask them to list your shop in their shop banner as a shop they love. "Shops I love : YOUR SHOP HERE  (see examples above....) A lot of sellers say "For great purses go here, for jewelry go here...." and they have a few shops listed in their announcement which is okay!  After this shop added me my sales went up.

3) TWEETING, FACEBOOK, & SHARING YOUR ITEM:

Tweeting gets people to look at your items.

• Tweeting is very easy on Etsy, there's a share button now when you go into any item! If they are big Twitter users, ask them to tweet your items in question form to their followers ie:  "What do you think of this great rose made from a tie at TranzendentalArts?  If not, maybe they use Facebook?

Today on my blog we're reviewing Bags and Purses like this great one from LizzieCaye!

4) BLOG or GIVEAWAY:

• Ask them to review your products on a blog!  Nothing looks better than the free purse they've sent you smack dab in the middle of their blog!  If they have a HUGE blog following, ask them to do a giveaway for you! This means lots of people looking at your shop. 

Give it Time:
Remember Rome wasn't built in a day and neither is any Made-in-Vegas style wedding.  It may take you a few tries to find the perfect for shop to wed, but if you keep trying, you will and the benefits can pay off. I hope you'll try it and with some practice that it works for you as well as it's worked for me.


Sincerely,

LizzieCaye's First Craft Show

My first craft show was a huge success, and at the same time a bit disappointing. The show was in a church in Dallas. It's a well known craft show, but the volume of "re-sale" type items has grown over the years. By this I am NOT talking about cool vintage stuff. There was quite a number of booths that had fashion jewelry and items that were made in some other country and sold here. There were only a handful of truly handmade items. I think this is what contributed to it being disappointing. So on to the good stuff!!

I love my display and I have to thank my Mom & Step-Dad for helping put it all together. A REALLY close friend of my mom's is an artist who was recently changing up her display, and gave all the grids to my mom. There in turn my mom and I talked about how they could be used for my display. So my Step-Dad cut them down, sandblasted them, and re-painted them. I'm quite lucky my Step-Dad has so many hobbies (Much to my Mom's chagrin). The red cover for my table I got at a clearance sale at a large catering companies sale (they were getting rid of allthe stuff that either wasn't been used, or was a bit too worn). Whoohooo for me.

The Gray topper on it came from some sheets that my hubby and I purchased for our bed, but were a dismal failure (They were so thin that when you sat on the bed the fitted sheet immediately popped off...). We got them at a flea market so couldn't return them, so what you see is the fitted sheet draping nicely over the elastic as it clings to the table.

To create some elevation, I took to plastic bins that I use in my studio to keep projects sorted and put them underneath the sheet to raise some of my purses up.

Here in the Dallas area we have this place called Sam Moon, which has really cheap accessories, I got several purse hangers there to be able to hang my bags from the edge of the table. I used S-hooks of different sizes to hang all of my purses from grid, and I used the basket there to put all my iPhone covers. The first day of the show I ended up making 10 more of them. Came home sewed them together and added them to inventory the next day!

Working on things was definitely a draw for many people. I'd suggest that if you have the ability to work on small things at a craft show - DO IT!! People get curious and want to come and see what you are working on.

The things I learned that I didn't know are that this was not the best forum for me. I need something a bit more artsy and unique, with the expectation that you are paying for quality, craftsmanship, uniqueness, and originality. I also learned that I need to get ACTUAL signs made... I laugh at myself here..... while shaking my head AND rolling my eyes (at myself....). I met some really cool artists that I believe that if I keep in contact with them, they will be great mentors and advocates for me. I also became aware of how I like talking to people and sharing my craft with them. So even though I didn't make the money I wanted to, I met great people and had a great time!

See these creations up close and personal at LizzieCaye.

Random Act of Kindness: Beat Up Creations & Article Writing Sales Tips

I'm proud to salute Angela, our very own Team Member's shop Beat Up Creations as she was featured in this little blurb I wrote in Environmental Graffiti, a UK online publication that's gaining more and more exposure every day. 

It's nature related, and a great way to talk about recycle artists...more team members coming soon.

There's a place to share the article on Facebook, so show some love for your team member. 

SELLING TIP FOR YOU:  Writing articles on sites like this isn't going to get you rich, -- articles must get ZILLIONS of page views to really pay off.  However, EXPOSURE if what really matters.  Spreading the word like this will raise awareness for team members and in turn, drive traffic back to you and your shop.  So why not write an article about a shop that does not sell what you sell, and in turn help each other out.   TranzendentalArts was writing for her local Examiner paper.  Contact Cynthia  for tips!   Don't know how to write articles about stores, no problem.  Maybe you are good with recipes, craft ideas, or pet knowledge...just about anything is a go at places like Ezinearticles.com  and GoArticles.com, wherein you write free articles in exchange for putting a blurb on the bottom about YOU and there you can link your STORE or WEBSITE.


Promote each other!

SEO and Sales Tips, and Experiment from a Backwoods Barbie : Part I

CASE STUDY: PART ONE

Sigh.   I'm always learning this technical crap and reading up to see what changes I can make in my websites, stores, titles, and tags to sell better.  Considering a year ago I didn't know what a "blog" was, I think I'm doing darned good at learning the ropes and now even make sites and blogs for others which is just insane.  The moral here: don't be scared of learning what you don't know, just make it a point to study harder!

When I first opened my first Etsy store, Retro Chalet, I wasn't "dedicated" to maintaining or cross-promoting as I have grown to be in the past year and a half. One, I didn't have the time. 

Two, I was clueless. I didn't know about tagging, titles, and keywords like I do now. 

Three, my photos sucked.  I remember traveling and taking camera-phone grainy photos and uploading items and wondering why they didn't sell.  Those same items, I my relisted with better photos and better keywords and they sold quickly.  My second store I almost titled the same Retro Chalet Studio but separated my handmade this way. 

PHOTO STUDY:  Let's take a moment.

Does this photo jump out at you?

A good picture is worth 1000 words.  (Arnold, I love you.)
  I'm just saying, this photo makes you look, right?

SUCKY PHOTO!

Cheesy photo, this will never sell my item.  I was in a hurry, and it shows. No detail ACK.


BETTER BUT STILL HORRIBLE, NOTHING TO BRAG ABOUT:
I was experimenting with different backgrounds, this would have been okay had I cut just the focal point on the photo out and did it closer so you could have seen the detail.  Who wants to see my dirty table?   Too much going on!  I'm not selling the flower I'm trying to sell the sculpture!


GREAT PHOTO BY LIZZIE CAYE!

I liked her photo so much I used it as a team search tag and added the cheesy "bags and purses" underneat.

SAME WITH MEMBER ADRIEN ART!

LOVE HIS PHOTOS!

I added the cheesy" Ceramics and Pottery" to the bottom and used this photo as a team search tag.  Note how Adrien's teapot clearly stands out, and the focal point of the photo IS the teapot only!

The thing is, all this reading, watching, and investigating, I learned about things, and hard work does show. You aren't going to get noticed just listing items in your Etsy store and letting them sit.   I spent days in the winter reading all of the Etsy "quit your day job" articles and really making a top ten list of what key sellers did that I didn't do. It's different for every seller.  For me, it came down to photos, promoting, social networking, and keyword-tagging.

I also had to think like a buyer.  This is your "free lesson" of the day.

I see many of you with great items just sitting in your store.  Look at your item title and tags. How would someone else FIND this item. 

LET'S DO A TEST: 

For instance, if you are selling a pink polka dot purse:  how would I find it? 

This one, by Embroidery by Melissa, is tagged pretty well!

STOP RIGHT THERE. 

DO NOT OVER THINK THIS.

DO NOT UNDER THINK THIS. 

JUST THINK.

LET'S DISCUSS!

Who on earth is searching for a pink polka dot purse?  Very few people at this very moment.   However, you want to sell me that purse whether I need polka dots or not, right?  We know of course people on earth searching for a new purse is LOTS and LOTS OF PEOPLE!

So your goal is to tag and sell and title this pink polka dot purse correctly MARKETING it to everyone looking for a new purse!

What I mean is, don't be a tag waster!

NO NO NO ---  pink polka dot purse, polka dots, circles, pink, large purse, dots, circles,

IN THIS PARTICULAR BAG YES YES YES:

bags and purses --main category
hot pink  --- will cover the "hot pink" people and "regular pink" lookers
fuchsia  --- another word for your color
tote   --- another word for this items, it is an over-the-shoulder tote
canvas  ---material is a plus even though you have room to list this in material area
mod pod -- off the wall but is 'era related' to the style,  other words: modern , chic, urban
handbag --- another word for someone looking for a bag
pouch -- another word for someone looking for a bag
TEAM TAG HERE ---better chance of coming up in your team or group area for visibility
polka dot &-- descriptive

THAT LEAVES YOU SEVERAL MORE KEYWORDS!

Let's brainstorm.  Was it made in your home state? Why can't that be a keyword, for people who aren't using the GeoLocator, maybe they are searching for your state.  Does this purse have enough room to be a travel bag of sorts?   Can it fit your beach sandals, book and towel?  Will it fit a laptop?  If so, possibly a LAPTOP or BEACH BAG or TRAVEL BAG would be other ideas, when you could clearly explain this in the description.  " Big enough bag to take on your travels, to the beach, or fit your laptop in!"  Is is the best gift idea ever? GIFT is a great tag.

So, when your item is up for renewal, change a few tags.  Does it help?  Are you getting more views? 

You have to multi-market your item!~

 
Facebook was a big thing for me to learn how much it helps.  I have to admit, on my personal FacebookEtsy shop. I have no qualms doing so , every once in awhile.  (So sad to hear the "My Etsy" tab is going away soon...)  If just a few of those 1700 friends share my link with other friends, and the sharing keeps going and going, well, that's the best networking ever and sooner or later people will visit my store and buy my items.  Using Google Analytics, I found that about 11% of my visitors were coming from Facebook.  So, you decide.

Social networking is a huge thing and something that I clearly don't have enough time for.  If you set aside just a few hours a week, you can drastically improve your visibility. It works.

Figuring it all out took some sleuthing and help from others. I talked to some sellers along the way and if I liked a shop that was selling more than me, I had no bones about using the Etsy Convo to ask them questions.  What kind of camera do you use? What kind of lighting is best?  Most were happy to help and looked at is as a compliment.  I was shocked that some sellers use make-shift paper setups to take their photos when in fact I anticipated them having some huge studio room and professional lighting like in the movies.Perhaps, illusion is everything!

On top of that, you have to make sure the customers you do get walk away happy.  Give them incentive to visit your store again. If someone is unhappy, fix it. 

So I started thinking about Search Engine Optimization, and reading all about THAT and trying to improve my exposure. Quite honestly it's confusing but from what I get in a nutshell is certain keywords give you certain rank on search engines and there are tips and tricks for better "optimization" .   Let's break this down a bit, if you search for Vintage on Etsy, you get over 800,000 results at any given time, and on Google, well, just imagine.  However, if you label your item Vintage Red Pyrex Bowl, it's going to narrow down results and you have a better chance of getting discovered, but then who on earth right this second is searching for the bowl you have?   I wondered, how to get MY items higher in search ranks in Google?  

Maybe I think too much.  I wondered what if my Retro Chalet store would have actually had a name with " Vintage " in the actual title of the shop?  Would this have shown in the Google results better as in better rank?

So I went on Etsy and tried to open another shop. Just about everything Vintage was taken already.  If not buy sellers by buyers.  Vintage This , Vintage That, Vintage Sorry-I-Got-Your-Name-First.   Here is what it said when I went to search for sellers with the name Vintage in their title:

We found 3082 sellers whose names start with vintage.

OUCH. Okay, so obviously I hadn't been the first one to think of this....so I did another experiment.  I decided to look at the ones who had items listed, and see how they were doing-   It truly varied.  Some had great photos and and great priced items but they weren't selling that much. I couldn't figure out why.   Others were selling tons, but I wasn't sure why because I found the items cheaper and more interesting in some of the other stores. The ones selling however, at least two out of three of them,  did belong to networks, blogs, and some even teams. 

So I wanted to go to the EtsyWiki to see a list of top vintage sellers excluding supplies.   That redirected me to Etsy by Numbers, which redirected me to Craft Count!  So here you go:  Only 2 of 10 of Etsy's TOP Vintage sellers even have the word "vintage" in the title.

So , maybe it's not in a name.  I like to go against the grain so I'm doing my own experiment.  I've opened a new store with the keywords Vintage in the title, a blog, and I'm going to compare visits, views and sales with my other store in six months.  I'll get back to you.


Stay tuned. For more...

IN THE MEANTIME YOU MAY WANT TO EXPLORE FROM PROFESSIONALS:

TAXES-ACCOUNTING-FINANCE-ORGANIZATION
Are you clueless at running your Etsy business?  There are some sellers whose entire stores give you sage advice on running your business, such as JJMFinance, who offers bundles of files for the self-employed and has 100% positive feedback to date, having sold upwards of 756 sales.....I've never bought anything but with this type feedback from other Etsy sellers it's definitely worth mentioning. 




FOR TIPS-TRICKS-SELLING-MORE-ORGANIZATION
I see this seller BusinessMinded having a LINK on Facebook all the time!  This item is the main item they sell, for $24.95, and the feedback is great...check it out! 

Treasury Power!

I must admit, I was a big slacker when it came to treasury making on Etsy.  Maybe this was because I found the old process difficult because you had to copy item numbers.  Now it's easier than ever to make a treasury, and only takes a matter of minutes.  

The results are beneficial and plentiful:  a great way to promote items, create hub-bub, share your treasury on social networking sites and have a chance of getting your treasury on the "front page!"

 Today I created this treasury in a matter of minutes, by going to the main page on Etsy, and looking for "Treasury" on the lower left side.   You can then hit the "Create a List" button or click HERE.    

First, you create a title for your list.  Then, add a description.  I like to put my blog in and talk a little about the treasury, in this case, telling people I'm presenting treasures from the Etsy Recyclers Guild Team!

Make sure the privacy tab is set to everyone so that everyone can see!  Then, add tags so people will find your item.   Now it's time to add items.  Some people choose items based on theme, or color, or style.  Today I looked for upcycled wares from my team, however, the color blue was on my mind, so I picked things BLUE and UPCYCLED!


Adding the items themselves are now the easiest part.  You only need to cut and paste the URL, and NOT worry about the item number like back in the day....

Cutting and pasting the URL is easy as pie.  I use Mozilla Firefox browser so I can jump back and forth in between windows so much easier.  Once your items are all cut and pasted, then you click on SAVE.  Now you can share your items on many social networking sites and you should at the very least twitter it and post it to your facebook profile!

As a courtesy and for more promotional value,make sure to notify the people that you have included, so that they make share the treasury, and tell their friends, who will tell their friends....and watch and track your results.  See how many people "viewed" the treasury or how many people "clicked" on items. 


This is such a free and easy way to promote our team and your own items (it used to be that you were only allowed to include one of your items in a treasury at at time, now it appears they suggest on the "Create" page that you should not include any of your own items) so really you should be making treasuries as much as you can!  Use it as often as you can!

Was It a Great Craft Show to Be In or NOT?!?

For many crafters and artists, summer marks the start of the annual craft show circuit. If you're like me, you've done 3 or 4 a year, thought about doing 5 or 6 other shows and agonized over whether it was the right showcase for your artistic products. I recently came across this article that provides such an interesting twist to determining whether a show is "Good" or not, I felt compelled to share it with all of you.

"The best and worst thing about vending at a craft show is that you have absolutely no idea how you'll fare, sales-wise, at the show. Signing up to be a vendor at any given craft show is a crap shoot. You pay your booth fee, however small or nerve-wrackingly large that may be, and then you show up that day and hope for the best. No matter how well you've planned for the day--all the work you've put into making amazing products, tagging and packaging each one, devising meticulous displays--you can't control about a zillion other factors that go into whether or not your day will be a success.

Generally, the goal is to sell (gross) about 10 times what the booth fee was for whatever show you're selling at--which is to say expectations will vary from show to show, of course. How did I arrive at this number--10 times the booth fee--and really, do I exist on another planet with that expectation?

Here's something to think about . . . .

When you sell your work through a gallery or boutique, whether on wholesale or consignment terms, the gallery is going to pay you anywhere from 50-80% (typically), and take the remaining as a fee for not only paying for the overhead costs of rent, utilities, marketing for the gallery, etc., but also to provide displays and staff the shop to actually sell your work for you. It's something of a luxury fee for not having to do the selling yourself.

When you sell your work online, you typically pay the venue you're selling through a smaller percentage of your gross. For example, we all know etsy charges 3.5% + $0.20 (or more, depending on how often you renew your items to stay visible in the never ending flow of relistings). Let's call it about 5% of your price. Then paypal charges another similar fee on the amount paid to you for processing the payment. So, let's round that up and say that 10% of your price has gone to web fees. This makes sense--they provided you the service of hosting your items while you provided "displays" (in the form of your photos), salesmanship (in the form of the item listing information), and delivery (actually housing the product and getting it to your customer).

In many ways, a craft show is providing a similar service to an online venue, in terms of selling your work to the general public. They have a venue, they do some marketing and advertising, and they give you an opportunity to make your wares available to the adoring masses. So 10% is a perfectly reasonable cut to expect to give them of your total sales for the day. And that is how--drum roll, please--I arrived at the magic number that 10 times the booth fee is a fair goal.

Can a show be worthwhile if you make less than the magic 10 times number? Absolutely! You can make great connections, form relationships, give shoppers an opportunity to see your work in person (thus inspiring confidence in future online purchases) and much more. So making say, 8 times a booth fee (in other words, giving an organizer 12.5% of your gross) isn't such a bad deal, either, of course.

All of which raises the big question--Is there a point to all of this? Of course there is! At a few shows I've done lately, I've heard other vendors mention that they thought a show was "okay" and they'd consider vending at it again, since they made back their booth fee. Now, let's REALLY think about that--if you sign up for a show, pay a booth fee in advance and then show up the day of the show to sell and then only sell the amount that you paid for the opportunity to sell there, you've just given away however much the booth costs in products, and much more if you consider time spent making the products, schlepping the products there, and sitting and selling (not much) all day. You might be a charitable person, but you would have done better to just pay your booth fee and not even shown up, really!"

I don't know about each of you, but I've been known to say, "Well, at least I made my booth fee back--that wasn't so bad!" So the next time you're considering which shows you want to vend at--especially if you've done the show in previous years--you may want to ask yourself, "Is this a 10 times the booth fee show?"

Have a great and productive summer show season!!

How to Promote Other Members While Promoting Yourself - "Straight Up Pimpin' Plan" by Ira Mency

I am in the middle of travel and chaos and busy season, but wanted to address a lot of convos and emails asking "How can I promote members?"  The name of this plan may upset some of you but in this case, the Straight Up Pimpin' Plan is just that- all above board 100% legal promotions of another shop besides your own.  

The name is bound to get your attention as it did mine once.  I received an email a year ago  ago (name withheld) that said, "I'm gonna pimp out your shop."  Now you must realize me reading that and being that I live in Baltimore City where "real pimping" is a sad realization of the street corners (sigh) I found it to be a strange choice of words and was almost offended.  

However, this person being in they younger genre did just that, she straight up pimped out my shop--- she blogged, talked about, linked and BOOM, after being on Etsy a year selling maybe 50 items in RetroChalet, the next year and a half I made 580 sales. So now after two and a half yeras I'm at  630.  After she put me in her banner and after a year on Etsy selling my sales increased 200%~!  I was honored to be "pimped out" and I ♥ u!


So to get down for it, here are a few suggestions:

1.) Add a member to your shop announcement.  It's a great way to show some love and help another member.  For the past few months I had promoted www.ChersPassion.etsy.com, www.ReduceReuseRepurpose.etsy.com, and www.42things.etsy.com.  This month I changed it up to www.GreenTrunkClothing.etsy.com.   It's fun to help other members grow their stores!  If you are worried about selling against that member, choose a shop who has different items than you offer. I plan to switch it up every so often.

2)  Use your listings as promotions. If you have bought something on Etsy from a fellow member, use that item as a prop in your listings.  Note this wonderful listing showing an upcycled journal I bought from Sarah @ Relove and mentioning her shop in the actual listing from www.ReLove.etsy.com!   Note: This is a highly classified double "pimpin" maneuver which is promoting her not only in a photo, but in the listing too! 

3.  Keep making treasuries!  These pictures are worth a thousand words. I love when members do this and feature people from our team.  Like this one back in April, featured so many members!

4. Share your favorite listings on Facebook and other social networking sites.  When you have a lot of friends, and you cut and paste a link to something cool on Etsy, this will pop up for all your friends to see.  What a great way to promote your favorite sellers!

5.  Talk about another member's stuff every chance you get in blogs or in online articles.  Use the buddy system, you promote their stuff on your blog and vice versa. 

Advertising 101 -What Google Anayltics Helped Ira Mency Learn the Hard Way

Question: What is the best advertising campaign that you can launch for your Etsy Shop?  

Answer:  Yourself.

I learned this the hard way, so now I will share the results with you. For one month featuring my RetroChaletStudio upcycled "art store" on Craftopolis, here are the results. First you must understand how it worked.

Cost: $54 for 4 weeks.

Users: Are mostly Etsians wanting to make treasuries.  I figured, those who use Etsy sell on Etsy and often shop on Etsy.

Ease of Use: Excellent, upload a small banner and you are all set. In this case it was this one:

Note: I kept it basic, though I had some other ideas such as these, I didn't use them:

Both of these ideas were nixed, though I liked them a tad better I wanted to keep it simple. 

So, when you clicked on the small banner I had uploaded, you could go direct to the shop.  Additionally, a "Mouseover Feature" enabled people to go direct to see one of my "3 Etsy featured items" 

Both of these features run each day for 4 weeks.

Note: The banner only shows a percentage of the time, according to Craftopolis, you get "at least 100,000 impressions a week. Most of the time ads get around 110,000, but we guarantee 100,000. "

Now for the results:  

new views = 57
New Hearts = 12 (unsure how many from Craftopolis)
Sales = $40, only $20 of which I could attribute to Craftopolis.
Percent of total monthly visits to my store = 7.25%

Overall I must say Shannon & the staff there were definately helpful and easy to work with.  Though I didn't see a huge increase in sales, I'm not extremely dissapointed, as my art has it's own niche' - and I was hoping for at least a 10% increase in traffic.   Realistically, I ended up with almost 2 new visits per day. 

Now, I wonder how it would work if I was selling something highly desireable , like upcycled purses or vintage items instead (and not funky artwork?).

SELF PROMOTION
Now, let's backtrack as for the same month I decided to "promote" my own shop, but my other shop that sells Vintage, which is RetroChalet.

RetroChalet sells some of my art and jewelry, but mostly vintage goodies.

So, I decided to use these avenues: Facebook, My personal web, and FLICKR

Here are those results:

Facebook brought me 78 visits, Flickr 24 and My own site referral at 56.  Altogether that's 158 new visits from my self alone.  So it just proves that you are your own best advertising. 

I should add you have to do some work on each of your sites to do this.

FLICKR - Upload photos and make sure you are using tags , so that people all over FLICKR can find your items.  For instance I tagged a Vintage Cast Iron Mailbox as industrial, blue, cast iron mailbox, griswold, etc.  So, anyone on Flickr searching for cast iron griswold mailboxes woudl have found mine.  Ironically, it sold quickly.

FACEBOOK - I used my main account which is under my real name, Cindy Fahnestock-Schafer, which has almost 1800 friends.  That's a lot of friends (some I gained by playing a facebook game, then to put your items out to.  I also  use the free application with "MY ETSY" on it. 

I also use both the Ira Mency (for the Etsy Recyclers Guild Team page) and Cindy Fahnestock-Schafer account to link to sites who have 10,000 or more users, sometimes commenting on a photo and saying "I love this item, (or this fabric, or this idea, etc) my shop
http://www.retrochalet.etsy.com/ sells a lot of these. Thanks for sharing this photo!".

Now you have added a link to your own store onto a site or page that gets thousands of views.  Of course you can't do this twenty times on the same page, but just once in awhile.   Also if the user allows you to add photos you can do so, and put something like "this wonderful item available in my RetroChalet shop on Etsy."

USE OF PERSONAL SITE:  Whenever you have your own website, make sure you are using keywords so that googlebot can find you.  If you are using a web hosting service, make sure they are taking advantage of that.  On Verizon, they use a really easy web builder which gives you a space under "Page Properties" to describe keywords on each page for the search engines to find you.  Also make sure to use a tab and redirect.   For instance, I used to talk about my Etsy shop on my website, show pictures of recent items, blah blah blah, but now I have a tab that says BUY VINTAGE in the sidebar on http://www.iramency.com/ and just to click on it, you are redirected RIGHT to the shop.  I do think a redirection works better and these results are proof positive it does work better.

ADDITIONAL MARKETING TOOL:

Cherri Miele of http://www.cherspassion.etsy.com/ had also told me about using the same type comments  with your URL links on other websites and on direct blogs that get a lot of users. 

In other words, go to a site that gets a lot of hits, for instance, http://www.everythingetsy.com/  (a very cool site by the way and one of her faves)  where you can browse around and leave a comment about something you like.  It will ask for your name and URL link, there you can put a link to your shop, blog or personal web.  (keeping in mind all of these sites should direct people to your Etsy store!!!)  Do keep in mind, most of the comments must be approved by the moderators so you want to keep it really on the up and up and not spam out sales and all that jazz.   

I really never tried this before until Cherri mentioned it to me, because for some reason it never crossed my mind that all these blogs and personal sites DO INDEED have places for comments on their articles or posts.  I must admit I tried it and went to Poppytalk (a cool design site on Blogspot which gets  a ton of hits each month) .  I later tried the Everything Etsy also.   I left a comment, a nice message and my URL. 

RESULTS:

As of now, I have gotten 3 referrals from each of these to my store according to Google Analytics in the past month.

SO REALISTICALLY:

If I had the time to visit 50 blogs a month and do this, and could get 3 direct hits from all 50 blogs, that's another 150 hits to my store.  

 If I could then visit 25 websites and do this, and hope for 3 new referrals that's another 75 hits to my store. 

Add that to my already 150 FLICKR'd, DIRECT SITED, and FACEBOOKED driven visits, and that's  300-325 NEW hits I could be expecting a month! 

That's better than most PAID advertising out there.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS:

I urge you to use this, it's wonderful and over time you can learn what everything means.  It has really helped me a lot.  Go HERE to read more.