In the first part of the Secret to Etsy Sales series, we looked at 6 core areas of your business. Small gains in each area can lead to a significant increase in sales.

Let’s dive a little deeper in the first of the 6 areas: Lead generation. Getting more eyes on your stuff. More visitors to your website. More views in your online shop.

Lead generation is all about getting more folks to know who you are and what you do. The good news is there are hundreds of ways to get the word out. The not as good news is that it may take you some time and trial and error to figure out what works best for you.

The thing to keep in mind with lead generation is that you aren’t only trying to reach buyers– you are also trying to reach people that may spread the word about you, or may tell you about an opportunity. You’re looking for leads. Leads to opportunities.

Some ways to get the word out:

1. Add your website or shop link to your email signature. Maybe your cousin knows you make those lovely handbags, but she hasn’t yet seen your etsy shop.

2. Blog about your items and creative process. Blogging is really critical for building relationships and a solid fan base, but blogs are also great for getting the attention of search engines. Search engines, like google, love blogs. People who google for items like yours may find your blog.

3. Add photos to flickr. Be careful here– flickr does not allow blatant promotion or sales language. But flickr is an excellent way to reach bloggers and people interested in your craft/art. Set your flickr preferences to allow people to use your photos in their blogs (the photos in their blogs will link to your flickr photo stream).

4. Get a free trunkt portfolio or upgrade to a paid portfolio.

5. Submit to craftgawker.

6. Create a facebook fanpage for your creative business. Facebook isn’t my personal favorite thing, but some people love it and swear facebook brings them sales.

7. Use twitter. Again, you may like twitter as promotional tool. Or not.

8. Share the love. Create a gift gallery at Scoutie Girl Gifts and include one of your pieces that complements the other items.

9. Submit your work to Cloth, Paper, Scissors and the Somerset Studio magazines.

10. Contact bloggers and ask them to write about you.

11. Buy advertising on blogs.

12. Include freebies (that include your shop name and website address) with your items that buyers may share with their friends. I send a few postcards of my photography with purchases of my prints. And give a big stack of those postcards to your mom.

13. Get hits from google. Optimize your etsy shop titles and descriptions for search engines. Be sure your item titles include words that describe what the item is. If it’s a necklace, put the work “necklace” in the title. If it’s a photograph of a red truck, put the words “red truck” in the title. The first couple of lines of the item description is most important to google; put information on shipping or policies further down in the description.

I recommend you pick a few venues that you think won’t drive you crazy and work them regularly.

Some of these venues could be updated with each new item you create. For example, at one time I was disciplined and would post new photographs on etsy, trunkt, flickr, 1000 markets and my blog. New work always got posted to five places. I’ve fallen out of that habit and I think it would be a good habit for me to get back into.

Other methods for lead generation are better suited to occasional review. Blog ads. Keyword strategies for your etsy shop. Creating postcards or other promotional items.

What other sites do you recommend for getting the word out about your shop? Where do you post your new items?

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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.

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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The wonderful folks at Mailchimp have posted a 36 page pdf: How to Market Your Etsy Shop with Mailchimp!

You do have a mailing list, right? It’s one of those things you can start now. Ask your buyers and fans if they would like to be added to your mailing list. (Don’t add folks without their permission– that’s a big no-no.) If you have a website or blog, put a sign-up form in the upper-right corner. (The upper-right corner of a webpage is ripe for action– your brain just wants to go there and click.)

Ask your buyers if they would like to be added in your “message to buyers” that etsy sends to each buyer from your shop to confirm the order. (The text for “message to buyers” is in Your Etsy -> Appearance.)

Get the pdf. Start collecting names. Do it now.

Nothing lights a fire to online shop sales like a feature in a popular blog! How do those lucky folks get featured? In some cases, the stars may be aligned just right. But if you can’t wait for a celestial event, you might just take matters into your own hands and send some friendly emails.

First, spend some time blog surfing. One of the best parts of an indie business is surfing that can be called “research.” But this is real research. Look at the blogs you like to read. Are they a fit for featuring your items? Do those blogs feature products like yours? Do they feature only vintage or art or children’s items?

Take notes. Build a list of target blogs to contact. Note the name of the editor. Is there a contact email address listed on the blog or a contact form? Expand your search, check out the blog rolls on those blogs.

Second, write each blog an email. Compose a short, friendly email introducing the blogger to you and your items. Greet the editor by name– it’s a nice thing to do. Start by saying something about the blog– a comment on a recent post, perhaps. Be genuine and let the editor know you’re interested in her blog.

Introduce yourself and your items. What’s unique about your items, your process, your shop? Let her know. Who’s your market? Keep it short– a paragraph or two. Any specific information you can provide about your items and market may help the blogger see that your shop would be a good feature and give her some solid information for the post.

Include your shop URL and other website URLs. Do you have a fan page on facebook? A blog?

Attach a few SMALL images to the email. Don’t fill their box with 10MB of image files, but 2-4 small images, sized for a blog post, may be appreciated.

[Update: Daisy Janie wrote a wonderful post dissecting an email submission step by step.]

You may not hear back from some of the blogs. But don’t despair, the editor may like your work and is waiting for your work to fit a theme on the blog. Or maybe your work is really good, just not great. You’ve still accomplished something– you’ve gotten your name out there and your name will be more recognizable the next time the editor sees it. A recognizable name is a good thing. And you can always send another email in 6 months or a year.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with single step.

The usual suspects. A list of some of my fav fabulous indie blogs and their editors to get you started:

Decor8 – Holly
Gathering Spriggs – Heather
Going Home to Roost – Bonnie
Indie Fixx – Jen
Modish – Jena
PaperNStitch – Brittni
PoppyTalk – Jan
ScoutieGirl – Tara
sfgirlbybay – Victoria

For more information, check out these resources:
- Modish did an article on contacting bloggers.
- Grace at Design Sponge gathered input from several design bloggers in her Biz Ladies series.
- Connie at The Tiny Fig wrote a post in the etsy forums.

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If things are going great with your art (or craft or consulting or whatnot) sales, tell everyone!

If things are not going so well, for the love of all that’s good in this world, find something positive to say! Please please please don’t tweet that your sales are slow or post in a forum that you have slashed your prices in hopes of getting a sale.

I’m reading a fabulous book: Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive. In it, the authors discuss the principle of social proof– people will do things that other people are doing. Things that are popular are somehow more intriguing, more interesting. The buzz grows.

How could a simple change in words in sales pitch increase sales? In the book, they point to an accomplished copywriter and how she made a small change to an infomercial that resulted in a significant increase in sales.

“Please call now. Operators are standing by.” It’s a call to action, and, it is convenient that operators are standing by…

But this is better:

“If operators are busy, please call again.”

What’s the mental image? They are busy and people are buying their stuff. Genius. Read the book.

What does all this have to do with your tweets? With your forum posts? Everything! Don’t give folks the mental image that you are desperate for sales. Don’t lie, but you don’t have to tell everything you know.

Always find something positive to say about your business. Feed the buzz.