Need More Customers? No Problem! (Sort Of)

It’s what we all want out of our creative businesses isn’t it? More customers, more fans, more people loving and enjoying all our hard work. Well, working on a small creative business is a lot of work and it’s nice when all that work pays off and you make some sales. The tough part is getting people to your shop and then getting them to actually buy something. It’s especially difficult for those of us that only sell online because you rarely have that personal interaction online. However, even online, there are ways to improve this.

This past weekend I had an above average number of sales in my Etsy store and I was ecstatic! But then I realized that one good weekend will not necessarily equal many great weeks ahead. I need to figure out a way to keep people coming back. After checking my shop stats – something that everyone with an Etsy shop should be doing – I realized that I had been doing a good job promoting my shop last week. Promotion is very important, whether it’s ads that you pay for or just through your social media channels, it’s going to be the driving force of your business. Focusing on promoting your creative business is how new customers will find your fantastic shop in a sea of internet stores and how old customers won’t forget you!

Of course, promotion just like everything takes time and effort to accomplish and especially to accomplish well. But it can be done, I swear! Here are some tips for improving your shop promotions online to gain visibility for your creative business:

• Watch your stats! Checking your Etsy shop stats or looking at your Google Analytics to see how people are getting to your shop is very important in helping you figure out which promotions are worth the most of your precious time. For example, if you notice that you’re getting 200 visits from your Facebook fan page a week, but only 12 from Twitter then you know which one you need to focus more time and energy on.
• Use Social Media- it’s free! Really, I can’t stress this enough. It’ll take some time to grow a following, but once you have a few likes under your belt, you’ll see that people are paying attention and, more importantly, want to see what’s new in your shop. However, keep in mind that Facebook and Twitter are 2 different audiences. You want to show lots of information on Facebook, but you want to entice on Twitter.
• Oldies but goodies. Promoting new items to your fans, followers, customers, etc is great, but if you have items that are constantly in your shop and being restocked make sure people are reminded about those too. Don’t assume that people will know on their own!
• Keep in mind who your talking to. Much like an editorial team, you have to make sure you speak to your audience of customers. Understanding the likes and dislikes of your audience will help you write more engaging and interesting updates and posts that will get them peeking into your shop. Whenever you go to write a promotional blog post, facebook post, tweet, etc remember “I’m writing to mothers with toddlers, single moms, women in their 20s, etc.”

Again, these are just some simple tips for helping boost visibility to your online shop. I also found this great article on how to help your promotions by focusing on your target audience and how to figure out what that target audience is! I’ll definitely have to try some of these tips.

How do you keep sales going strong?