Promotion Tips Please

[HoneyBeeBears]

My Etsy shop has never been very successful and yet I get grest reviews on my knitting patterns everywhere else!
I need to know what I should be doing to generate more sales please x

[Former_Member]

im in the same boat. i get pretty many views, and a ton of favorites, but no sales

[Former_Member]

honestly this is my biggest pitfall...I just don't *want* to spend a lot of time/effort/money promoting my shop but ultimately that's what needs to be done.

Promote your stuff, be it at craft fairs or a facebook page or buying ads on Etsy, just anything to get yourself more exposure. If you're getting a lot of views and a few sales by doing nothing than it stands to reason that a bunch more views equals more sales...you still might have a grossly uneven amount of views to sales, but every little bit counts.

For me, I just don't have the money right now to put into buying ads, so I'm trying to be pretty active on my facebook page and having my friends and husband promote me to their acquaintances by word of mouth...this has gotten me my two biggest commissions (one was pre Etsy though) and really who is going to be better at telling how awesome you are than your nearest and dearest?

I'm still straggling along in sales too, but hopefully that will pick up pretty soon with everything I'm doing.

[Former_Member]

I'm experiencing the same. I have found with my biggest seller though it took 109 views before someone bought it, and since then I've sold 5 more.

Things have slowed down though. I did a fair this past weekend and it was aweful. I sat there for 6 hours had a ton of "oh that's amazing", "I love this", "So great", etc. I only sold 2 items. Compliments are wonderful but....

[Former_Member]

Part of running a successful business involves doing the marketing and that generally involves putting together a marketing plan of some sort.

First thing to consider is WHO is your target market? How old are they? What is their income level?

Second thing is to figure out WHERE your target market tends to hang out. Do they spend time reading blogs? On forums?

Once you've figured out the WHO and the WHERE, then its time to reach out to them. Some people use Facebook to reach their market while others use other forms of social marketing.

Some people use constant renewing of their items as a way to bring in business. Yes, this will put your items at the top of a category for a short time but is it cost effective? Only you can figure that out.

Personally, I use a mix of social marketing, being active in forums outside of Etsy, being active in the community in various artisan guilds and by word of mouth. I also have a very successful newsletter that my buyers can subscribe to.

It takes time to get a marketing plan put together but once the basics are there, you can tweak it as needed.

[Former_Member]

CrochetCeci says

I'm experiencing the same. I have found with my biggest seller though it took 109 views before someone bought it, and since then I've sold 5 more.

Things have slowed down though. I did a fair this past weekend and it was aweful. I sat there for 6 hours had a ton of "oh that's amazing", "I love this", "So great", etc. I only sold 2 items. Compliments are wonderful but....

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I'd be estatic if everything in my shop sold after 100 views!

And to all of those people who 'Ohhed' and 'Ahhed' I sure hope you gave them your business card with your shop URL on it!

[Former_Member]

HI
I'VE had my sales in my shop pick up by handing my esty card with every
time I'm out shopping in department stores. church, socials and keeping it handy at doctor offices it helps alot. my husband has stacks in his wallet and promots my shop to his socials, business, and friends.

[HoneyBeeBears]

Thank you all for your time and suggestions....I do have a facebook page *Knitted Cats and Knitting Patterns* and I have promoted here on Etsy too. I will keep at it and good luck to everyone xx

[Former_Member]

I've been on etsy since July or so. I've sold lots of stuff, but not knitted items. I sell yarn and African violets as well as my knit items. I'm not sure what the secret to selling handmade yarn items is. But, I have EVERYTHING I do connected to each other. I have a yarn website, sell on ebay (to end by the end of the year...had enough of that nonsense), bonanza (very poor performance), and a website (free) on ecrater. Two facebook pages, one for yarn, one for violets. Blogs connected to yarn, knitting, crocheting, and African violets. One also for Buddhist malas that I make. The facebook pages, I paid to advertise to get followers. You control how much you spend. The blogs, they get traffic from me promoting them on facebook pages and people who come along them from ALL OVER THE WORLD. I'm on blogspot and I can see where viewers come from. Usually from facebook, but literally from all over the world. Do they buy? I'm still trying to figure that one out. But my point is, everything is connected. There are links to etsy, facebook, bonanza, ecrater, and I post things on the blog and let people know on facebook. I also put in my ebay listings I'm leaving ebay and moving to other sites. I get inquiries from people on there where I'm moving to. I give them a list as well as one goes in every shipment. I have seen that produce sales.

I have google analytics for Bonanza. Literally hundreds of views and practically no sales. I think the format of buy it now or best offer confuses people or they don't want to "join" something else.

It's a ton of work. I have to keep coming up with interesting content for the blogs and facebook to stay in faces.

[Former_Member]

This is another bit of thought. Join a lot of circles on here. Choose people with lots of circles. One thing that I'm involved in, I'm questioning the value of. I joined a team that promotes each other by mandatory clicking on favorites to get everyone's products in the activity feed. Besides taking time I really don't have (all the promoting, listing, and trying to find time to make things and tend plants) it seems it jams up activity feeds with the same type of items....all from one seller. I'm wondering if it discourages looking at the feed just because it is overwhelming. I often have over 500 listings in the activity feed. That just may happen to the members of the team, but it annoys me to see the same items repeated several times and 30 items from one shop, etc. I'm assuming because they are in my circle, people in my circle see that too. If anyone has any thoughts on this, I would love to see them. I'm trying to decide if it is worth staying with this. I don't believe I've seen any sales from this blitz of favorite clicking. Many of the other members haven't had increased sales either. Other than a couple of sales the other day, which the person is convinced it was because of a massive blitz, no one has really seen increased sales.

I'm thinking of starting a team that promotes each other's items in this way but with a limit of 3 items, no repeats from members, and only having the requirement that it is reciprocal. Someone promotes your items, you promote theirs. If they don't, don't bother with theirs. Unfortunately, I would need at least a 28 hour day to create this.

[Former_Member]

I find networking on teams like this is beneficial and have also had a few sales arise through featuring the buyer in one of my treasuries or someone buying from me after I was featured in a treasury.