Project Wonderful : Anything to Raise Team Funds

Perhaps some of you have noticed some of the ads from sponsors on the sidebar that are always changing. Today, there may be no ads, tomorrow some, then poof gone again. The ever changing ad boxes are the works of Project Wonderful.  I am honestly tired of trying to sell direct advertising for our blog, when we have so much else to do and I'm sure you know time is limited!   So, I handed the ads off to Project Wonderful for the time being.

At first they were free, so a lot of people tried them out. I have now put a cost associated with them, some from 3 cents per day to 10 cents per day.

I am not sure if any of you use this service, but I have actually a few ads out there myself though it.  It's cheap advertising, but if you do your homework sometimes you can find a niche site that works for you.  Ultimately if you sell handmade , advertising on a site like Handmadeology for $50 for 3 months will get you a lot of views.  If you don't have $50, you may wish to try a smaller niche site for say, $5 and see what happens.

Get your Ads in Gear with Human Body in Motion by sevilyadesign

I want to reiterate that things aren't going to fly out of your shop, (I'm on Design Sponge and I'm not selling out) so.....this is for people who want to put $10 or $20 into an advertising account and test the waters. Find a niche.  For just ten cents a day, $20 may last you some time! What's nice is you have reports --if you research and read them you can find something that works for you.  You can search for blogs  (both business and personal) that fit your keywords.  Some blogs have a lot of page views, others are growing .....A crochet seller may have very good luck advertising on a yarn site and get advertising results for less , than if they were to advertise lost in a sea of ads on a larger much more read big-boy site.  You really have to do your homework and search by keywords. The best part is you can cancel it at any time and you are not committed.

You can really do research for free before committing to Project Wonderful.

It took me awhile to find the right place to advertise my vintage shop via Project Wonderful.  I found some places really cheap just weren't a good fit for my vintage shop.  One vintage site wanted $11.13 a day to advertise, I must say they were a widely read blog but if an ad is going to cost me that much I'll go to Design Sponge!   I found a spot that worked for me, but over time my click though rate cost me about 60 cents a click so I dropped it. Now I'm on a site that costs me about .18 cents when they visit my shop.  What that means is , a vintage reader who loves vintage is costing me less than a quarter to visit my site.  Would YOU pay a quarter to get a new customers in your niche to visit your Etsy shop and look around?  The best part is you can set a spending limit like "Drop me when I used up $5".

You can easily get lost in the WWW full of advertising. This pendant by Girl Geek Boutique!

Project Wonderful is a bid system.  You bid the most you will spend per day on any given ad. I "park" my bid and leave it up. Today, I may be the winner and featured for a few days for .10, but Wednesday comes and someone bids .12 and knocks me out.  They then leave on Saturday advertising elsewhere and I'm back in because no one is bidding against me.  So, it takes me a heck of a long time to blow though $20.

Ironically what you can't see is the fact it targets four country zones. People reading this from Canada may see ABC Calendar's shop wherein someone in the states may be seeing XYZ Supplies.  It is based on target audience. 

Project Wonderful makes their money when you deposit funds from your paypal in there, taking small service fees.   A lot of people say to me, "I have not had any luck using Project Wonderful."  I say to them, did you do your homework and really read the reports, and if not, how do you really know?  Someone who clicks though today may come back and buy tomorrow.

Advertising can be confusing.

I'm putting together more compiled results in Advertising in the future, but for now I thought I'd tell you that I'm letting Project Wonderful handle our blog advertising from now on.   We may not get rich quick off selling these ads, but over time we should have some money deposited into the team shop funds.

So please support and visit our sponsors!  They will be constantly changing :)

Everything Etsy, Handmadeology Ad Campaigns and Welcome New Members

Welcome Earthling! 
Graphic by GirlGeekBoutique

We wanted to send a special thanks to Kim and Tim at Everything Etsy for working with us again, we will have advertising up with her on the site momentarily!   Make sure to visit Kim's cool site!  We love this lady!

We are Big Kim Layton Fans & her shop Flashy Fish!

We also have advertising currently up on Handmadeology and you know how much we love them :)   Both campaigns will run three months long, and lead right to the team tag.  This way, it makes it fair and unbiased, whomever has listed items last will show first.

Q: How can you maximize your exposure?
A: List or relist an item every so often so you can make sure you are somewhere in the first few pages !

Q: How do I know if I'm getting any hits?
A: Track your analytics via Google, (find out how on our Helpful Links page) and look for referring sites !


Q: What does this do for me?
A: Advertising makes people aware of our team's offerings on Etsy. Our hopes is they find your shop, like it, and visit it often. Just because they don't buy today, doesn't mean they won't buy tomorrow.

Q: How did we pay for this?
A: Our team works hard to raise money via selling advertising on the blog and items donated by lovely team members that are in our Team Shop. All Team Shop funds were applied to these campaigns. Sometimes we get grants from Etsy also. We have pretty much spent all the money in it so we hope that we can keep spreading the love and donating more.  You can view team shop funds at any time on our "Helpful Links" page. Contact Sarah at relove to Donate to the Team Shop!


That said, we have closed up the open enrollment due to a big "influx" of members.  Woot Woot. They made it in!  Let's welcome them now!

Do check out their shops!

Sweet Lucies *Vintage and lovely, sister shop to IntotheTrees
Eco Friendly Freckles Upcycled Decor Decoupage , and some natural herbs too!.
Ametista  sister shop to the Clay Shoppe clay & decor :)
Lovely Vintage Buttons =ARepurposefulLife jewelry creations!
Girl Geek Boutique - Upcycled jewelry creations Fun ! Fun!
DeComp -wearable art unique and chic check it out!
Eco Friendly Potato Pouches - Jams, Jellies and more! dasweetzpot
Relogyyy- Eco Conscious Women's Wear From Greece
RetroBabs  Vintage and ReMix : Mid Century Vibe!
SoulRust great Vintage Clothing from Bismarck!
ReForma - Upcycled Jewelry from Discarded Goods from Brno Czech Republic!
Naturally Heartfelt all the way from the UK with beautiful altered art Jewelry!
TheGlambox: Two sisters with handcrafted jewelry and fashions!
LCVintage has beautiful vintage jewelry from NY!
Slapsymaxi great Vintage Clothing from Lake Michigan!
Smart Designing - great book purses! Connecticut!
HeidiMoon from Scotland with beautiful upcycled Jewelry Creations

Anyone missing? Contact me.

We also have "pending invitations out" such as  MyFairMaiden, sister shop to Broken Ghost Couture! Any of our teammies that have a second shop are welcome to convo me even if it's not open enrollment.  As you know we don't ask much of you, only to particpate making one treasury a month and try to cross promote your team in any ways you can.  With that said, I'd like to share this wonderful treasury by new member EcoFriendlyFreckles, and show it some love please!

'Baby Lambs and Blue & Pink Buttons' by ecofriendlyfreckles

Here is a place where little girls never grow up, where a tea party is an everyday activity, and where cute, furry friends make us giggle!

Pink Silver Baby Party Dress... Brokenghostcou... $52.00	Vintage Pink Grey and Pearl ... RetroChalet $12.95	Coral Shabby Chic Cuff Brace... MyFairMaiden $11.95
Vintage Pink Graduated Bead ... luvvinjewels $5.00	Pair of Small Aqua Blue Flow... beadsbuttonsan... $4.99	Vintage 1960 Soft and Sweet ... PaperPicker $8.00
Sweater Kitty Pink and Blue FeltedWoolies $48.00	Vintage Petite Powder Blue G... AlpenglowVinta... $14.00	Rule the World Mixed Media M... rekindleme $13.99
Toboggan Noggin NobleUpcycling $38.00	SALE Vintage 70s Pink White ... soulrust $29.99	Vintage 1970 Retro Candy Tin recycledwares $8.00
Denim Jumper (custom fit) AnnaBGreen $36.00	Felted Brooch Le Chat Pink R... LeChatCrochet $6.50	SALE - the four-birds-a-runn... sweetanddirtys $34.00

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com.

Etsy Recyclers Guild Team on Everything Etsy - Winter Promo

Make sure you are using our team tag for your items.  This is how you will be found, the link goes right to our team tag, to make it fair for everyone - those who add items frequently and relist will gain the most exposure.  Let's track analytics and see if this is a place we may want to advertise again. 

PROMO RUNS 2 MONTHS FOR TEAM . 

 

SO WHERE ARE YOU?

.   

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.