Josh Cutler
We all know that even if you create the finest things in the world, if no one can discover your business, you won’t sell anything, right?
Sure! But… figuring out how to be recognized on Etsy, let alone how to advertise your Etsy business, isn’t simple.
Although Etsy SEO may assist, you must also know how to advertise your Etsy business outside of Etsy!
But here’s the thing: not all methods of promoting your store are created equal.
There are loads of articles out there promising you “x methods to advertise your Etsy business” —but they’re simply a collection of random strategies that, quite honestly, would earn you NO results if you adopted them.
I intend to make this post unique and a lot more valuable by not only discussing the best strategies to advertise your Etsy Shop, but also explaining how you can determine whether or not this concept will be beneficial and truly create results depending on YOUR scenario.
How? So, for each marketing approach we’ll discuss in this post, I’ll ALSO show you if it’s better for stores with a little more experience and an established following, or better for a NEW handmade shop just starting started.
I’ll also look at which promotion methods are longer-term strategies—plans that may take longer to see results but have a snowball effect—and which promotion strategies will offer you a fast victory in the near run for those of you who are like…
“What can I do RIGHT NOW to assist myself?”
Finally, we’ll go through three techniques that I’ve seen handmade vendors take that not only don’t work, but may really make matters worse! So keep an eye out for it.
So, are you ready?
Let’s get started!
How To Promote Your Etsy Shop
So, before we begin, I’d want you to consider your Etsy business for a moment and answer the following questions:
- First and foremost, do you already have some traffic? As in, do you already have a large client base or do you routinely have a large number of visitors to your shop?
- Second, how quickly do you want — or need — your traffic to increase? Are you seeking for long-term development and methods that will position you for the future? Or do you want a traffic jam right now?
- Finally, do you have any funds to promote your store?
Once you have these answers, you will be in a much better position to choose which of the following 11 strategies to advertise your Etsy business is the greatest fit for YOU!
11 Best Ways To Promote Your Etsy Shop
The first topic I’d want to discuss is long-term marketing techniques. These will not immediately raise your traffic, but they will help it grow gradually but steadily over time.
These are the first four promotion tactics you will hear about the most:
- SOCIAL MEDIA: INSTAGRAM AND FACEBOOK
- WEBSITE OR ETSY SEO
- EMAIL MARKETING
All of them are fantastic—and I’d suggest them whether you’re just starting out with your store or you’re an established pro—but they are long-term tactics that will take time to pay off.
Getting traction on Instagram and Facebook takes time—you don’t start on Instagram tomorrow and expect to have 1000 clients the next day. You could have a surge now and again, but for the most part, it’s a gradual build.
So you should see social media as a long-term plan… you should publish often on each of these networks in order to be included in prospective customers’ feeds.
Remember, to be successful, you must be consistent… and consistency can only be achieved through time.
So here are few examples:
Time = success
It’s a gradual build with them, but it pays off in the end.
Pinterest is a key source of web traffic to handmade businesses, therefore it has great potential as a low-cost approach to market your items.
Consider Pinterest to be a “visual” platform. Google – users search for what they want and discover a variety of pins displaying items they may be interested in purchasing.
I can’t suggest Pinterest enough – but since it’s search-engine oriented (meaning keyword driven), it also grows beautifully over time.
It will not bring you thousands of visits in your first month! Everything is possible—you might have a viral pin and generate a ton of sales from it quickly—but this isn’t a short-term approach.
Website SEO and Etsy SEO are both long-term strategies. You won’t receive the immediate “rush” of seeing fresh visitors to your business, but investing a little effort in keyword research can pay off big time!
This job, like social media and Pinterest, has a snowball effect; if you are persistent and continue to put in the effort, all of your hard work will pay off and grow on itself over time.
Email marketing is another thing you must need, and it’s a terrific method to persuade customers to return to your store and purchase with you again…
BUT, in order to expand your email list… You will need traffic, which you may not have if you are just starting off.
So, although these four strategies to advertise your Etsy business are excellent, they will not provide you with fast wins or short-term benefits.
So, what should you do if you need a rapid bump in traffic?
Common Quick-Win Recommendations . . . That Really Aren’t That Quick
Before I give you the best ways to accomplish it, I’d want to discuss a couple methods that you may hear are fast but aren’t.
Frequently, you will come across articles or individuals advising you to arrange a giveaway or create a blog.
… to give you a short boost as you focus on your long-term goals.
And, yet again, these are excellent tactics… BUT ONLY IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A CROWD!
I see a lot of sellers organize a giveaway… but without someone to share it with, it doesn’t generate traction and doesn’t wind up being a success story because you need a base of followers to assist you spread that contest.
Blogging is similar; it’s great to have content to share on social media or Pinterest, and blogs help with SEO for your website, but people won’t find your blog just because you started one and wrote an article or two—you’ll need to promote that blog….or wait for the SEO keywords in your blog to rank on Google.
So, with that in mind, here are some instances where these tools may benefit your Etsy shop:
If you already have a small following that can share your contest on social media to promote it and help it gain momentum, a giveaway is an excellent promotional approach. So, if you already have a little following, that’s fantastic!
Blogging may help you advertise your store in the long run, but it is not a good short-term promotion tactic. It IS, however, a terrific approach to establish a long-term engaged following.
Quick Win Promo Strategies That Are
Best For New Etsy Shops With Zero Followers
So, let’s speak about fast win promotion techniques that are ideal for new stores with no following.
Because… if you can’t earn followers until you promote your store…
However, most of the promotion tactics we’ve discussed so far do not function effectively if you don’t have followers…
What is a creator to do?
It sounds like a chicken or the egg situation.
If you want a faster win for your Etsy business, or if you don’t have many followers since you’re just starting started, here are a few ideas.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO RETURN TO THIS ARTICLE LATER? DO YOU ENJOY PINNING PRETTY GRAPHICS TO PINTEREST?
First and foremost, implement some of the longer-term ideas we discussed before; you’ll thank yourself afterwards. While they are getting traction… you can:
- PARTNERSHIP WITH OTHER BRANDS/SHOPS
Find another store that sells similar items to yours and collaborate on a collaborative giveaway.
Working with a store that has a somewhat larger audience than you, but making it a win for the other business. You might, for example,
- Offer to help them arrange the behind-the-scenes of the giveaway.
- Offer an additional product in addition to what they are already selling.
- Make it apparent that you’re delivering something extra to compensate for the lesser audience size.
- MICRO INFLUENCERS
Influencer marketing is huge, but let’s be honest: if you don’t already have some sort of brand awareness, it’s difficult to attract a large name or major account to promote your items. This is when micro-influencers come in handy!
Micro influencers are Instagram accounts that have a tiny yet engaged following.
They may not have tens of thousands of followers, but if they have 2000 really engaged followers, they have a winner!
Giving your product to a micro influencer to use and promote on social media, or paying them for a sponsored post, may be a terrific approach to reach a new audience.
So…look for smaller accounts; these extremely specialized influencers often have more engaged followers and may get higher promotional exposure for your business.
- BRAND AMBASSADORS
Brand ambassadors are comparable to micro influencers, except they are individuals who use and like your product.
Examine the social media followings of clients who have bought your items. Contact them to see if they would be interested in becoming a brand ambassador if they have a huge following that seems to be a suitable market for your product.
Then just deliver your product(s) to them for free in exchange for them promoting it on their social media pages.
You may provide them with a discount coupon to share with their followers for purchases from your Etsy store.
- PRESS
Obtaining publicity for your store necessitates some research.
First, develop a list of media alternatives that your target consumers read or watch—you don’t want to put in all this work if they don’t see it!
Next, think of a narrative you can tell about your items to make them media-worthy. Are they, for example, environmentally friendly? Grungy? Where do they fit into the magazine’s schedule? Is it anything that would be appropriate for Valentine’s Day? Summer? Christmas?
You are far more likely to succeed in pitching your product to the media sources of your choice if you have a strong strategy.
- PAID ADS
This one is self-explanatory. Make sure you do your study and take your time to really grasp how advertisements function so you can develop a great approach.
Consider your budget – your advertising will not perform perfectly right away, so allow for some experimentation while you figure out which wording, keywords, or graphics work best.
Your advertising must be professional from start to finish, including targeting strategy, imagery, and text. If you don’t do it properly, isn’t it simply money down the drain?
Top WORST Ways to Promote Your Etsy Shop
Finally, I promised to teach you about the top WORST methods to market your Etsy shop!
Here are some of the most common errors I see individuals make while advertising their business:
- PAID ADS
“Wait Deb, you just included them on the GOOD list!” you’re undoubtedly thinking. You are correct.
They CAN be excellent… but only if done correctly. You’ll be wasting money if you don’t properly plan them out, which means spending some real time thinking about the strategy for your advertising before you even start spending money on them.
Many vendors, for example, come to me stating they “boosted a post on Facebook or Instagram” but had no results. A few likes, but no purchases – that’s not a sustainable plan, and it’s simple to prevent if you do your homework!
I have a post on Facebook advertisements for your Etsy business that will teach you all you need to know about Facebook advertising.
- ONLINE SELLER COMMUNITIES
Any kind of like-for-like, favorite-for-favorite, or share-for-share on large Facebook groups or online communities comprised of OTHER SELLERS is a bad idea!
You must interact with CUSTOMERS, not other merchants.
When other sellers visit your shop, you won’t earn purchases since they aren’t your consumers, and it might hurt your conversion rate and store SEO if you sell on Etsy.
It’s also a waste of time if you’re on your own website. You must prioritize your time and advertise your items to prospective buyers, not other vendors!
- FIVERR PROMOS
Although Fiverr promotions are inexpensive, they might have a negative impact on your shop’s Etsy SEO ranking and seldom result in sales.
The issue is that the traffic they deliver to your store is NOT interested in purchasing your goods!
And when no one buys… your conversion rate plummets, signaling to a site like Etsy that something is amiss with your offering…
So they’re not going to push it up in search results anymore since they’ve seen thousands of views to this item but no one has bought it.
And you’re worse off than you were before.
So I would absolutely proceed with caution when it comes to Fiverr promotions—in fact, I have an article that discusses why you should be cautious when hiring marketing professionals from Fiverr.
Do You Know How To Promote YOUR Etsy Shop?
Remember, it’s not so much about HOW to advertise your Etsy store as it is about which approach to promote YOUR Etsy business!
One thing I want you to take from this post is that there is no one “optimal” technique to advertise your Etsy store while attempting to find out how to get noticed on Etsy.
It will be determined by how long you have had your business, how many followers you have, and many other factors.
So, in some ways, this is similar to so many other concerns with handmade shops… don’t look at what other sellers are doing since there is no assurance it will work for you!
YOU have established a fantastic handcrafted company, and you must make choices that are best for YOUR business and YOUR items!
By reading this post, you are already on the right route!
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and until next time – au revoir!