The Secret to Etsy Sales

My very best tip for marketing your online shop is not sexy. It’s not a magic bullet. It’s not going to make headlines. My best advice to set your etsy sales on fire is to work your business in 6 core areas. Small gains in each area will add up. This is my secret to etsy sales success and I know it will work for you too.

The 6 core areas of your business to develop (from my hands down favorite marketing guru Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz) are:

1. Lead generation. (More people seeing your stuff.)

2. Conversion. (More people buying once they see it.)

3. Dollars per sale. (More money per purchase.)

4. Personal relationships. (More people who really like you.)

5. Personal effectiveness. (More good work done in less time.)

6. Repeats and referrals. (More stuff down the line.)

What improvements can you make in each area? Make a list. Write it down. You need to come up actionable steps for each area. These do not have to be huge, take-over-the-world tasks. What are the small, almost painless things you can do in each area?

I started making significant gains in my etsy photography shop after I wrote down this list and came up with specific, achievable actions in each area. It’s an ongoing process; I should revisit this list regularly (and schedule that in my business calendar).

1. How can you get more folks to your online shop? Twitter. Facebook. Paid ads on blogs. Your mailing list (see How to Market Your Etsy Shop with Mailchimp).

Don’t stop there! A mistake I see many etsy sellers making is thinking that marketing is all about getting people to the shop. That’s just part of the equation.

2. How can you turn browsers into buyers? Etsy usability testing shows that the number one reason people don’t make a purchase online is that they don’t feel that they have enough information about the product. (Data gathered from Etsy’s online workshop Turning Browsers into Buyers.) Are you using all five photo opportunities in your etsy listings? Are your descriptions answering your buyers’ questions? When you are writing your descriptions, pretend that there isn’t a photograph in the listing and describe your item.

[Update! Danielle of Etsy.com was gracious to point out that previous statement is not quite correct. The Turning Browsers into Buyers workshop featured information from a Deloitte report on Customer Conversion. On turning browsers into buyers that report reads:

Surprisingly, “price too high” is often among the least mentioned factors in determining conversion success. The most frequently mentioned reason typically is “unable to decide.” This suggests that retailers can help shoppers the most by organizing their merchandise and informing and assisting their customers.

3. How can you increase your dollars per sale? I increased my dollars per sale in two specific ways. 1) I offer sets of prints at a special price (for example, four 8×10 photographs at a lower price than four 8×10 photographs priced separately). 2) I targeted my larger prints (higher price point items) for marketing efforts. Both tactics are paying off for me.

4. How can you connect with more friends and fans? Use social media. Work to build relationships, not just bigger numbers of followers and fans. Blog. Facebook. Twitter. (Haha, I used “facebook” as a verb.)

5. How can you streamline your studio? What can you do to get more good work done in less time? For me, one task was to organize my photography prints in my flat files. Simple. But somehow I hadn’t done it before. Maybe I hadn’t really considered how the small task of organizing my flat file would contribute to my online sales success.

6. How can you encourage repeats and referrals? Offer discounts to repeat buyers. Ask people to tell their friends about you.

The key is to make a list of easy, actionable steps. Do it now.

I got this fabulous list of 6 core areas of your business from Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz in an email explaining the the marketing magic she and Sonia Simone would be covering in their course Marketing for Nice People. If you are ready to get serious about marketing your business, I recommend IttyBiz’s Marketing School.

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Tagged as: etsy, ittybiz, Marketing, secret, selling on etsy, tips