Get Your Shop Holiday Ready
Before you promote your shop, you'll want to have your shop ready for the holiday season. Have a section in your shop for winter holiday items. Title it something like "Winter Holidays" or "Christmas" and keep your winter holiday themed items there or items you think would make good gifts.
Tag your holiday themed items with appropriate tags such as "Christmas" or "winter". If you don't have any holiday themed items, tag a few your items with the tag "gift" or something similar. If you want to mass tag items, I recommend using the Etsy on Sale feature (if you use this link, you'll help me get free credits). Put Christmas items or items you think would make great gifts as your "Featured" items on the top of your Etsy shop.
Blog and Newsletter
Promote your shop on your blog for the holiday season. For example, you could do a gift guide like I did here and post about items in your shop you think would make good gifts for certain people. If you have Christmas items, post about them or how you made them. Post some personal things too such as how you decorate for the holiday season or what you're planning to do to celebrate.
A newsletter is another good way to promote your shop for the winter holidays. Send out an issue with a winter holiday coupon just for newsletter subscribers. If you don't have a newsletter yet, learn how to make one here.
Advertising
Consider buying advertising or swapping ads to help promote your shop. If you look on blogs, you'll usually see an advertise button or information on advertising. Some blog advertising costs money while other blogs offer advertising free or want to swap ads. Pick the option that best works for you. If you want to spend money, set a budget for yourself.
To find blogs, start by looking at blogs you read. Google keywords related to your shop followed by the word "blog" to help find good blogs to advertise your Etsy shop on. For example, since I sell journals in my Etsy shop, I googled "art journaling blogs" because people who like to journal would be more likely to purchase journals from my shop. Project Wonderful is a good website you can use to find blogs and post your ads on them. I offer blog advertising on my blog. Click the "Advertise" button on the right hand side of this page.
You don't just have to advertise on blogs. Etsy has a Search Ads feature that could be useful to you. Craftster is a good craft related website where you can advertise your shop.
Social Media
Social media and message boards are a good free way to advertise your shop. For example, if you don't want to buy advertising on Craftster, you can use their message boards which have lots of good craft ideas. Have a link to your Etsy shop and blog in your signature so every time you post, you're promoting your shop a little.
Keep any social media you use, such as Facebook and Twitter, updated. Post about holiday items, coupons and items you think would make good gifts. Don't forget to post some personal things too so it doesn't seem like you're spamming. For my Facebook page, I like to put holiday themed items as my cover photo.
Gift Wrapping
Now that you've promoted your shop, you just have to wait for the orders to come in. Offer free gift wrapping in your shop. Consider posting a photo of how you gift wrap items as one of your item photos or on your blog so customers know what your gift wraping looks like. Make sure you are well stocked up for the holiday season in case you get a big rush. Have items such as wrapping paper, tissue paper, packages and tape available.
I hope you find these tips helpful. Let me know your best tips in the comments!
1 comment:
Great idea to have a newsletter. I've thought about it before but never taken the time to set one up.
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