I've been selling on Etsy since April 2009, and I've tried several different promotional methods. Here they are, in no particular order:
Etsy Showcase
Ad on Craftopolis
Twitter
Facebook
Renewing listings on Etsy
Etsy Forums
Etsy Storque
Etsy Treasury
I've also been chosen for the Etsy Front Page and a Gift Guide.
Some are/were very effective, others not so much. Let's start with the one I'm not going to use anymore.
For me, the Etsy Showcase was not worth the money. I didn't get any sales; I did get a slight increase in site traffic, but not enough to justify the 15 dollars spent. One thing in its' favor, it did bring some new people to my shop, but again, only about 10 or so, nothing dramatic. This is the only promotional method I'm not going to try again.
The ad on Craftopolis ran from the weekend after Thanksgiving for 2 weeks. There was an increase in traffic to my shop, and some were new views, from the ad. It was $28 dollars for the two weeks. I don't know if any sales resulted from the ad. I had 1 sale during the time the ad ran, but I don't ask my customer's about where they heard of Dalkullan. Those two weeks definitely saw an increase in site traffic, and hearts. I'd like to run an ad on Craftcult and compare the results. If you have any experience on advertising on either site, or other promotional methods, I'd love to hear from you!
Renewing listings is something I do when I haven't listed anything new in the last couple of days. It puts your item temporarily at the top of searches, but that certainly doesn't last long in jewelry-world. The 20 cents doesn't sound like much, but they can certainly add up. I look at it as part of my advertising budget, and try not to do it too often.
Etsy Forums are a good way to meet people on Etsy. I've found a lot of gorgeous shops that way, and also learned a lot. You can start a thread, or just post to one. It gets your shop some recognition factor. It's a good place to start a thread in the Promotions section asking for twitter followers and also blog followers or Facebook Fans. Always try to be polite and upbeat on the Forums. There are some real sour lemons there, and some bullies, I can't imagine they're doing their business any good with that kind of attitude. But to each his own.
The Etsy Storque has some very informative articles, some lovely finds from various shops, and you can leave a pleasant comment and also hopefully garner a little buzz for your shop. If you're fortunate enough to get an item picked to be in the Storque, you're one lucky person! I'm still hoping to attain that happiness. Someday! :)
And the Forums and the Storque are free, which is a big plus. I'm going to leave the other methods for my next blog post. Thanks so much for visiting, and wishing you all the best!
4 comments:
It is always very interesting to hear from other Etsians witch promotions work and witch only cost money. Your article is very helpful.
I did a combined ad on Craftcult once (one week). It brought me more traffic and hearts and one sale. You can never judge the effect of the traffic at once, often (at least so I hope) people come back and maybe they buy the second or third time.
It is a pity we do not really know. Anyway, I will do an ad on Craftcult again in the next days or weeks.
Kindest regards,
Marcus
Lost Dream Machine
Hi Marcus,
Thanks so much for your very informative comments, I appreciate the input! You're so right about trying to evaluate marketing efforts. Google Analytics is certainly very helpful, but there's so much it can't tell. I'm going to run an ad on Craftcult in the future, hope your ad nets you many sales! Thank you so much for reading my blog. :)
Heather
Thanks for sharing, I like reading about other seller's experiences as I am just starting out myself. I haven't done any promoting in the way of paid ads. I'd like to find out more about which places are effective.
promoting your shop can be more work than anything else involved in selling online. I agree 100% about the showcase on etsy.. when I used to be on there it was only $7 and there were only two different showcases... people spent more time there.. it was a lot more worth it then.... A couple of things I like to do to promote are project wonderful ads... I get a lot of visits to my blog/shop from the ads I have up... I also love to visit a lot of blogs... the very best thing I have found for promoting my shop is to promote other shops... like on twitter... rt'ing others sales and what not.. a lot of people will then in turn rt my tweets... having a network of friends who all promote each other is pretty awesome. I have also had some luck with different flickr groups and indie groups... finding what works for you is the hard part... what works for one person may not work for someone else... listening to what everyone says and then trying new things and what not is the trick :) Lots of luck.. I love your shop :)
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