COUNTRY FAIR FEEDBACK

[LaughingCabinDesigns]

Please use this forum thread to provide your feedback in regard to the North Georgia Country Fair event. Your constructive comments are helpful when it comes to planning future events of this kind.

Thank you to Catherine who was tracking some of the statistics during this event. The team made 23 Country Fair treasuries. Thank you to those who took time to create the treasury lists and who actively promoted this event on social networking throughout the week of the event. Awesome!

It was not our best event in terms of numbers of visitors or numbers of participating team members, but there was an excellent effort put forth by everyone to promote this. It wasn't for lack of trying! We had 255 visitors to the North Georgia Made blog during the week of the event and and total of 4 giveaway entries.

My own shop stats were boosted during the two days of the Team Blitz on October 24 and 25. Thank you to those who took part in the Blitz!

Let's hear your comments and feedback below.

[FairfaxDavis]

Our stats were up during the blitz also.
Thanks to everyone who posted, re-posted, faved, liked, treasured, tweeted & otherwise blitzed during the event. Every little bit helps!

[LoveandPetFurCrochet]

My stats were up but I only saw team members favoriting or following me which I am thankful for but would like to be seen outside the team as well. All the 4 people who signed up for the giveaway were friends of mine which is a little concerning to me. Does everyone feel comfortable promoting these events on their personal FB pages or through personal email or are you only promoting through your fan page? I understand that most of us don't want to seem overbearing or annoying but if we are only doing it during our North Georgia Made events then I think your friends will understand. I've certainly not lost any friends by promoting my business and North Georgia Made to them. In fact, all my friends are super excited they won the give away prizes.

Anyways, I guess I would just encourage team members not to be shy about promoting the team events. It helps you and everyone else. I personally did not have any sales that I could link to this event. I am glad, however, that our team offered 3 free months of advertisement on the North Georgia Made blog by entering a give away item of $30 value or more. So because of that I feel like I gained something.

The treasuries are great but I think the focus should be greater on promotion outside of Etsy. Thanks for listening:)

[Former_Member]

This was my first team sales event, so I can't really compare to other sales promotions and how this one was vs others. But I do want to say that I had a lot of fun promoting all the items, creating treasury lists, and seeing what kind of promotions and items everyone was offering in their shops.

My views spiked during the blitz, especially the first day. They tapered off during the rest of the sales event and went back to an average number of views. But I did see that I had quite a few views from the North Georgia Made blog, so that was an exciting surprise for me!

Personally, I was actively promoting my items, team members' featured items, treasuries, and North Georgia Made on social media, including both my personal page and business page on facebook & pinterest. I sold 4 items during the sales event. These sales were from a few of my internet friends in other states that had taken an interest in my shop before the sale, but finally bit the bullet and bought items because of my coupon code. I am thankful that I was able to offer the code and they could get some items that they had been eyeing for a while.

Overall I had a really good first sales event experience and am thankful that I am part of such a great team that holds events like this and actively encourages the team to participate. Thank you to everyone who took the time to include me in their treasuries and to favorite my items. It is appreciated :)

[FunkeysFinds]

Thanks again for creating the event. At the minimum, it helps the team get to know each other a bit better and it makes me look forward to a future sit down.

At the most, it failed to generate any sales. I cannot speak for other TM's, but I placed what I thought was a clear welcoming message at the top of my store with the coupon code and a link to the blog.

I realize now in 'stepping back' and looking at it from the customers point of view, the words North Georgia may have confused customers. Is the coupon code for everyone? Or just folks in North Georgia? While I thought it was clear, it should have clearly said everyone more than once. I saw similar announcements on team members pages and wonder how they fared (no pun intended).

Also, it didn't dawn on me at the time that many folks won't look at the main page of the store - some will, some won't. For those that don't, they will not see the Coupon Code and discount offer. In doing some research yesterday, I read a helpful hint that suggested putting the Coupon Code / Sale at the top or in each listing, which is a great idea. It is more work, but if you want sales and customer visibility, so be it.

For those who do not use the program, there is a fantastic free program that helps with updates like this, tags, titles, etc. called 'BetsiLite' or you can for a more advanced version called (Betsi).

I received the same number of favorites/likes during the fair that I do normally, because I participate in different teams. I did have a nice sale yesterday morning, the day after the fair was over.

[LaughingCabinDesigns]

Rachel brings up some good points that I would like to expand upon. Many team members contact me to ask how they can increase their sales, and usually when I look at their shops, the one thing that stands out is that they usually have very few "followers" and are also not "following" many other Etsy shops outside of the team. To have a "following" on Etsy is the same concept as having a lot of "followers" on Facebook. There are more eyes seeing the items that you are favoriting such as during a Team Blitz. BUT it is also important to have a lot of sellers who are also "favoriting" your shop so that they can also see your new or renewed item listings. You need sellers who are doing both -- "following" your shop and "favoriting" your shop and not just favoriting your items. This is how you expand your reach on Etsy and increase your potential for sales.

You definitely should have team members among your "followers," but it's important to go beyond the team and encourage other Etsy sellers to "follow" you, too.

A lot of the difficulties we're having as a team in terms of being able to reach out to customers beyond our own circles is that we each have to take time to increase our individual Etsy presence by gaining followers outside of our own team.

The same is true of social networking. If all we are doing is "following" other team members on Facebook and Twitter and not reaching out to expand our reach beyond our team members -- well then, we're preaching to the choir when it comes to promoting our events whether on Etsy or off.

A lot of team members do not yet have business Facebook pages or are unsure how to gain Facebook followers if they don't have many Facebook friends. These are things we can discuss in the forum pages and help each other overcome -- and we will be discussing these things as 2015 approaches.

So.... what I would like to encourage EVERYONE to do is to use the next few months to expand your reach on Etsy, Facebook, Twitter, etc., beyond your own team members. This way, when we have future team events, the promotional effort that is expended goes way beyond what we are currently able to achieve. It will feel less like hitting a brick wall!

Also Cory -- I am not sure what coupon code you were telling your customers to use, but the code for the event was COUNTRYFAIR. The title of the event was NORTH GEORGIA COUNTRY FAIR and it was advertised as such to let people know we were promoting North Georgia sellers. I realize you are a newer member and this was your first event since joining the team and that you might not have been aware of where to find all the specific information.

For the benefit of other new members, you can find anything you need to know about an event on the team's informational blog at: http://www.teamnorganews.wordpress.com.

Lindsey of A Beautiful Simplicity does an exceptional job of promoting the team on Facebook. Her way of doing so is very creative and captivating, and I would encourage team members to take a look at what she is doing so that we can all learn from her. Thank you, Lindsey!

[LaughingCabinDesigns]

I think it's also important to mention what goes into the creation of an on-line team promotional event. Here is an idea:

Team Leaders:
10 hours to create the event page on the blog
10 hours creating graphics and promotional ads for the event
2-3 hours to curate items for the Team Page event collection
2-3 hours to create advertising posts for Facebook and Twitter
2-3 hours to upload the item listings appearing on the event page

Team Contributions (20-25 members on average):
GiveAway prize donations
Content contribution for event page
Treasury lists
Blitzing
"Pinning," "sharing" and "tweeting"

[FairfaxDavis]

One easy way to find shops to like on FB, twitter, etc...go to your favorite items & favorite shops. If you like their items & shop, like their FB page.

[Former_Member]

Wow, thanks Susan! That means a lot to me :)

[LoveandPetFurCrochet]

I agree with Susan that Lindsey went way far and above on promotions for this event and I was thankful she was participating:) Thanks a bunch!

Also I appreciate everything Susan and Catherine do for us. I know it is time consuming. Thanks also for offering the free advertising. I can justify donating and item over just outright paying for it.

I hope my previous comment didn't sound too negative I meant it purely as constructive criticism and I do truly enjoy being a part of this team:)