In November 2008 I posted some ideas about how to promote an Etsy shop online and had great feedback from the Etsy community, which has encouraged me to continue with a second part of my series “How to promote an Etsy shop online”.

In my previous post I really concentrated on Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools. But social media isn’t everything. The next few paragraphs will show you the other side of getting your Etsy shop known.

• A simple email

Write an email explaining about your new venture and include a link to your Etsy shop. Send the email to all your friends and the rest of your contacts. This should already add up to a decent amount of people. Ask these friends to pass on your link to their contacts.

Especially do this again a few weeks before bigger events, such as Mothers’ Day, Valentine’s Day, Christmas or Easter. Remember those are dates where everyone (especially males) are looking for presents desperately and people are more likely to spend their money then on your lovely item, rather than in a highstreet store.

• Create a blog

A great example for such a Etsy blog is Akane Designs, which I think is a really lovely blog and really well executed. If you visit the site you can see this lady has put in a lot of hours creating and maintaining this blog. The blog has also a large group of followers. You can create a blog for free either at Blogger or Wordpress. With blogger you can start blogging after 3 steps:

1. Create an account
2. Name your blog
3. Choose a template

With Wordpress you are only required to fill out 1 form and you’re ready to blog. Note that with Wordpress you can also host the blog yourself with a domain name of your choice but this will require for you to purchase a domain name and webspace and may not be very straight-forward for anyone who is not too internet savvy.

Then start blogging about new items you’ve created, post pictures and link back to your Etsy shop. Tell all your friends about the blog and also share the new blog posts on your personal Facebook page but also on your company Facebook page and Twitter.

I would like to see some more examples of Etsy sellers’ blogs. Leave a comment with your link on this post!

written by Feli \\ tags: blogger, blogging, E-commerce, email, etsy, wordpress

My new year’s resolution to blog once a week is a lot more difficult to accomplish than anticipated. The worst part is that I have tons of interesting thoughts to share at the moment.

As promised last month, here comes another book review. “Guidelines for online success – The Dos and Don’ts of the internet  from the best interactive agencies around the world” by Rob Ford and Julius Wiedemann.

First impression, especially if you like to judge a book by its cover (I know it’s very shallow but I have to admit on occasion I do!), it is indeed a very aesthetically pleasing book.  Funky big pink letters on a greyish paperback, with a white elastic band holding the book together. Very different! Each of the 6 chapters are colour coded and tabbed, so it’s easy to find the chapter you are interested in.

The book concentrates on these 6 key areas:

1) Interface & Design

2) Marketing & Communication

3) Technology & Programming

4) Technical advice

5) Content/ Content Management

6) E-commerce

I thought “wow, this could be essentially “the” bible for the internet world!”.

Each section  within a chapter has an explanatory introduction, followed by 3 Dos & Don’ts. They are easy to read but don’t give you a very in depth analysis or explanation on important aspects of the web. Not “the” bible then… The information given in the book is really not appropriate for anyone having worked in an interactive agency for any length of time. The suggestions are often repeated and most of them don’t really tell you anything you didn’t know before, such as “Know your audience”.  Hmm, that’s a thinker!

However, the pictures and images of example websites are a sight for sore eyes! Each chapter has outstanding glossy imagery of some of the best sites I’ve ever seen and alone for that the book is worth a look.

In overall, I was slightly disappointed with the written content, as it was voted “Book of the month” a while back by .net magazine and as I personally could not really take away major value from it. But I now own an unususal book with some amazing artwork in it. I would only recommend the book to anyone who is very new to working in a web agency as an account handler, it will give some sound (superficial) advice and a rough overview of what is  part of the web development cycle and some online marketing aspects. If you are experienced in this area, only buy the book if you like great looking websites.

written by Feli \\ tags: E-commerce, internet, online marketing, web development

This post about how to promote an Etsy shop online,  is inspired by my friend Mairead, who decided after 10 years working in the financial sector to pack it all in and dedicate all her precious time to her real passion – making handbags!! I really admire her dedication and guts to leave her job and just go and be her own boss at Breagha – Handmade bags.

Now Mairead doesn’t have her own e-commerce site and sells her bags on Etsy, a website, which allows anyone to create their own shop within the site and sell their handmade goods, like handbags, jewlery etc. It pretty much works like Ebay, where it’s possible to create a shop and Etsy will take a cut of any sold item, with two significant differences:

1) Etsy takes a smaller percentage of the sold goods

2) There is no auction-style selling.

My friend has not the option of having her own website at the moment, now, how could she still utilise the web to promote her Etsy shop with other means?

The site offers the option to sign up for an RSS feed, so it’s possible to keep up to date with any new products a certain seller puts up, but Mairead at this point wants to spread the word.

Mairead shared the link to her Etsy shop on Facebook. Another option to show this link at all times is to add it to the information, which appears on the right-hand side on below the profile picture.

These are all valid ways of reaching a very small group, only direct friends. If looking at the Facebook Advertiser tool, the following statistics are pretty interesting. In the UK alone, there are 6,860 females interested in handbags, in the US 5,720 and these are just two examples, as Etsy is used world-wide.

Further options are:

• Creating a shop page on Facebook, this can reach more people who are interested in handbags
• Stumble the Etsy shop page (which I have already done)
• Create a Twitter account and keep it public, updating people on new products posted. I’ve undertaken a handbag search and already quite a few other people utilise Twitter for this purpose
• Become a member of various handbag fan pages and leave comments, directing people to your shop

During my brief research for this, I’ve also seen that there are many shop and fan pages on Facebook for people who are interested in handbags. Mairead could also be cheeky and invite these people with her Facebook shop page, however, this could be seen as “unethical”, as it could be perceived as spam or unwanted contact by Facebook users. I’d be intersted to hear your comments on this.

Anyhow, I hope that Mairead’s business succeeds and as I can see she’s already been making a few sales, which is great! Good luck, Mairead!

There is now a second part to this “How to promote an Etsy shop online” series called How to promote an Etsy shop online – Part 2.

written by Feli \\ tags: E-commerce, facebook, SEO, Social Media, twitter