Marketing Your Business

As most of you know, I have two shops on etsy. I opened my first shop, FourDogDay, in July of 2008, and added MyOtherShop soon after. I quickly realized that I no clue what I was doing and closed the second shop after a short time. Once I felt more comfortable with the entire etsy process, I reopened MyOtherShop. I can't believe I've been at this for almost a year already!

The growth of my shops is S-L-O-W, which I've heard is okay. I would definitely like more than one sale a week, but it is what it is. To help get my name out there, I did my first craft show last weekend. Although it wasn't a huge financial success, it was an awesome learning experience and I plan to do many more in the coming months. You can read about my first craft show experience here.

People that follow the craft shows will start to recognize me and my shop names after a while of consistent attendance and that's part of promoting. Eventually I would like to have a sign in my booth that says something like, "You can also find me and my creations at www.fourdogday.com" or something like that.

My daughter, Tresa, sent me a link this morning to a wonderful ABC News/Good Morning America article all about etsy and turning crafts into cash. It highlighted five successful shops. It was a good article. You can read it here.

Between publicizing our own shops through means like blogs, craft shows, flyers and business cards.....and articles like this one.....success is attainable for us all.

Do you have an online business? If so, feel free to share any promotional or marketing successes you have had.

Less Promoting=More Sales??

Since getting accepted into the craft show....I have been SO neglecting my etsy shops, FourDogDay and MyOtherShop. I have really been feeling kind of guilty. I haven't been listing any new things, not so much because I want everything for the show, but because I just don't have time to photograph everything and list it. I've been renewing photos and cards in FourDogDay so they don't expire, but that's it.

I pop into the forums in the morning to say hello to my morning friends and never return. I have stopped twittering completely. I pop into Facebook in the morning and in the evening and don't talk about etsy at all, but get this....I normally am lucky if I have 4 or 5 sales per month total...and the past 2 weeks, I have had 7! Woo Hoo!

So, to what can I attribute that to? I am pretty much buried in the etsy search. I can't even venture to guess what page I might be found on...I just haven't had the time to worry about it. One of the orders was someone that works with Irv...the others are people I don't know. They have to be finding me through the search and that is pretty sweet!

The other funny thing is that I've sold photos, a journal, coasters, light switch covers and some wood and paper decor....some of almost everything.

My focus hasn't been on my shops or on selling or on marketing...it's all been on making the things I love to make for a craft show. That's it! I'm not saying I intend to quit promoting my shops, but perhaps it has more to do with where my focus is. Instead of thinking, "I have to make this work, I have to make this work, I have to make this work," I have been thinking, "I am having so much fun making all this stuff." Perhaps that is the difference. Maybe I need to change my entire thought process where all of this is concerned.

Do you find your sales are best when you work hard at marketing or when you do what you love and don't worry about marketing as much? Just curious.

Won't You Please, Please Help Me.....

Ah, lyrics from the Beatles....and yes, I am looking for some help today.

I'm stumped. I don't know how to market my etsy business. I really don't and I'll bet I am not alone.

When people in the etsy forums are whining about not having any sales, everyone always tell them that they need to promote off etsy by using Twitter and Facebook and Flickr and business cards and e-mail etc. etc. etc.

Then someone will always come in and say you have to find your target market or something like that. You have to find the people that would want to buy your stuff and market to them. Ok, that makes total sense....but where do I find them??

I don't really understand the difference between promoting and marketing. Are they the same thing?

I looked them up in the dictionary:

Promote: 1. to contribute to the growth or prosperity of 2. to help bring (as an enterprise) into being 3. to present merchandise for buyer acceptance through advertising, publicity or discounting

Marketing: 1. the process or technique of promoting, selling or distributing a product or service 2. an aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer

So promoting is part of marketing, and marketing is everything you do to move your products from you to the world???

I have decided that I am really not very good at this whole part of my business. I would guess that a lot of people are in the same boat I am.....and I feel like the boat is sinking sometimes.

I need a plan, but the plan I made that I thought was going to be so great consisted of twitter, artfire, 1000markets, business cards and a blog....but that really isn't promoting my business, except for maybe the business cards. Twitter, artfire and 1000markets aren't helping me with my etsy business, in fact they take time away from my etsy business. So, now that I have figured that out....what do I need to do to market my etsy business?

Where do I go to find the type of people that would be most apt to purchase my cards, gift tags, photos and home decor? Where are you people???

I think a trip to the library is in order. I'm serious. I need to learn about marketing and promoting if I am going to make my etsy business a success. Any books you can recommend?

Do you struggle with this part of your business? If so, what are you doing to learn this side of owning your own business? If you already understand this side of owning your own business, do you have any suggestions that might help those of us that haven't figured it out yet?

I am doing what I love. I have found unique and useful products to create. I love the look and feel of my shops...but how do I bring my own customers to my shop?