Sell your crafts from other online stores like…
Use Social Media.
- Pinterest
- Post all of your craft items on Pinterest so they can be shared via pinning your images.
- Develop relationships with other Pinterest boards then swap pins between each other.
- Facebook
- Post the latest creations.
- Use Facebook Insights to learn about your visitors.
- Create Facebook ads to target people that only have interests in crafting. Targeted ads that only show up in front of specific people do better than ads that show up to everyone.
- Display contests and giveaways on Facebook.
- Twitter
- Notify people of upcoming art, music, and crafting events.
- Advertise on Twitter using catchy phrases like “Some of the craftiest people I know are hookers.” and “I shoot people then frame them. I’m a photographer.”
- Instagram
- Display your craft items for people to share via images and videos. There is a popular tie-dye video series that uses Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram to reveal their creations.
- YouTube
- Add how-to videos to YouTube for crafting.
- Share and swap videos with other YouTubers for increased exposure.
- Google My Business
- Create or claim your listing on GMB (Google My Business) then submit posts on there.
- Did you know that if you have a WordPress website that you can set it up with JetPack to share any posts you create on your website to automatically be shared to Facebook, GMB, etc.? Create one post and have it post to multiple locations at once.
- Forums, Q&A Sites, and more
- Help out the social media community and answer questions that people ask online. I started answering questions on marketing on Quora and received tens of thousands of views and many visits to my website.
- Do not sound spammy or be like a salesman! It is a quick way to get kicked out! Just help people and gain exposure.
Submit your business to niche directories.
Use Art, Craft, Farmers Markets, and Musical Events available to you.
- Google Alerts
- Set up an alert to get notified whenever certain terms show up on the internet like ‘craft show’ to have them emailed to you.
- Set up an alert with your name and business name so that you get notified whenever someone talks about you or your business online.
- Google Calendar
- Collect all of the events and put them in your Google Calendar, then display the Google Calendar on your website for all to view. Become ‘the source’ for event notifications.
Use on-page optimization for your website.
- Make sure the filenames of your images describes your image.
- If using WordPress go to your media gallery and write a description for each image. I’ve done this and got the images themselves to rank in the search engine.
- Utilize the meta title and meta description tags.
- Use alt tags for images if there are text contained within the image for screen readers and the search engines.
- Instead of just displaying an image, product title, and price be sure to include a description of each product.
- Have keyword research done to find out what questions people ask so you can answer them on your website for them.
Form partnerships with other bloggers, writers, and supply companies
- Swap blog posts between your partners
- Get your website listed on your suppliers’ websites.
- Find a popular podcaster and set up an interview with them.
- Contact local and national newspapers and submit stories to them for publication.
- Contact local and national magazines, send them a sample, and ask them to do a feature on your business/arts/crafts.
Collect testimonials from everywhere.
- Scour the internet to find people talking about you and your business by using Google Alerts.
- Display testimonials from Facebook, Google My Business, etc. on your website.
- Collect testimonials from happy customers to display on your website.
- Video testimonials are the best, audio is second, hand-written are third, and typed in are fourth.
- Add a form to your website so that people can leave testimonials that you can either approve or dismiss later.
Have your website work for you.
- Add how-to-videos to your website.
- Provide step-by-step instructions available for download on the website.
- Start a newsletter to have people sign-up and get notified about sales, events, and more.
- Use your website to collect and display testimonials.
- Display your class information on your website and keep it updated.
- Blog about your crafts with how-to’s, events, contests, giveaways, etc. then submit your website to blog directories. The last time I checked they still hold value in Google’s eyes. Niche directories especially.
- Add share and like buttons to all of your pages so that people can share your images and content easily.
- Hook up Google Analytics so that you can examine your visitors to see what is the most popular with them.
- Pick a business name and domain name that is catchy, easy to remember, easy to spell, and short.
Join organizations that help businesses
- The local chamber of commerce can help you market with other businesses if you are new and get your name out there.
- There are free and paid organizations such as the small business administration and programs out there that are there to help you get your business off of the ground.
- These opportunities can let you network with other business owners that have gone through the difficulties you may be having and tell you how they overcame theirs and in turn, you can help them out letting them know what type of advertising worked for you and which ones were just money pits.
I hope this article gives you some fresh ideas on how to market yourself. If you have any questions or would like to contact The Internet Presence, LLC on building a website, hosting it, or marketing we will be happy to help you!
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