Creative (and Free!) Marketing Ideas

I've already talked about one free way to promote your business. If you are a small business with a tight budget, bartering (especially with other small businesses) is an excellent way to gain exposure.

You can barter items for professional photography. Professional photos of your clothing with models of different ages can help sell your items. The photographer gets free items for her kids and exposure for her business, and you get beautiful, professional pictures of her items.

If you sell accessories that would make good photography props (tutus, diaper covers, baby hats or cocoons), make a deal with photographers. You can supply them with some photo props in exchange for professional photos of your items. You would also be promoting their photography business when you put their pics in your listings, and they can keep a stack of your business cards on hand in case any of their clients want to purchase your cute accessories.

Business card/Promotional Materials Swap- You can swap promotional materials with other businesses who sell different items to your desired market to include in customer packaging. For example, if you sell children's clothing, you could swap with somebody who sells children's shoes, decor or toys.

Blogging- If you have a blog, you can swap blog features with another shop. There are lots of bloggers who are looking for people/shops to write about.

Giveaways- I don't recommend participating in online giveaways, but sponsoring giveaways at fundraisers or events is a great way to gain exposure. Just make sure the event will be attended by people in your target market.

Teams- Etsy has teams that work together to promote each other. I've posted before about EtsyKids. You can see more Etsy Teams here.

I hope these are helpful! Let me know if you have any other free marketing ideas!

Spring Flowers and Baby Showers

I just wanted to share some of my favorite baby items from other EtsyKids Team Shops! Aren't they adorable? Keep these in mind the next time you are invited to a baby shower, and give the gift that everybody remembers!

Helpful Tagging Tips for Etsy Sellers

I created this post to share with my EtsyKids Team regional group.These are some things I've learned along the way that will hopefully help newer Etsy sellers label their items in a way to get more exposure. 

Each month, Etsy publishes a merchandising report that lists what is trending at that particular time. Treasury curators will choose items that fit the keywords in this report, because it maximizes the chance of their treasury being chosen for Etsy's front page. The items in these treasuries get tons of views! Even if your item doesn't make it to the front page, being featured in a treasury gives you lots of exposure. You can increase your chances of being chosen for a treasury by tagging your items with the keywords from the Etsy merchandising report (of course you need to make sure these words accurately describe your item).

I use all 13 tags in almost all of my listings. Make sure the colors of your item are tagged, because curators use a certain color theme in their treasuries. Be specific about the shade of the color if possible, especially if the color is mentioned in the Merchandising Report. For example, if your item is mustard yellow, or phlox purple, then tag those specific colors, don't just tag yellow or purple. Other things to tag are the season, any holidays or current trends that your item represents, possible recipients (boy, baby, woman etc), occasion (anniversary, birthday, new baby, etc) and anything else you can think of that accurately describes your item. You never know what random thing people will be looking for to curate a treasury. A personal example is a tie I have listed that is made of blue fabric with orange fish and there are small white bubbles. That item was just featured in a treasury today called "Babies and Bubbles". I'm glad I tagged "bubbles" even though it was not a significant part of the tie! Please note, you cannot use tags that describe a potential use for your item like "gift" or "stocking stuffer". (You CAN suggest these uses in the Description section of your listing).  For a complete list of the new tagging rules, click here.

The November merchandising report can be found here. The Pantone Color Trend Report for fall can be found here.

If you have any questions, please ask, and if you have any listings you need help tagging, post them here, and we can all give suggestions.

Christmas Shopping EtsyKids Style

Are you looking for a unique gift for the special children in your life? Are you sick of crappy plastic toys and sweatshop clothes from the box stores? Perhaps you want to buy a handmade gift and support a small business, but purchasing online makes you nervous.

Etsy is the solution to all of these problems! For those who may not be familiar with Etsy, it is a website where crafters and artisans sell their handmade products. Everything in Etsy is handmade, with the exception of vintage items and craft supplies. This is NOT your grandma's craft bazaar! Most of the items are very high quality, and there is a wide variety of items and crafting styles. You'll find clothing for all members of the family (yes, the pets too!), toys, jewelry, art and home decor. The crafting methods range from sewing, knitting, crocheting, wood-crafting, metalworking, graphic design, paper-crafting, painting and much more. Some of you are still hung up on the fact that I said most of the items are high quality. Yes, there are some items that are literally 2 pieces of trash hot-glued together. There are many strange and borderline pornographic things on Etsy. There is actually an entire website (and book) that is solely dedicated to pointing out all of the bizarre and trashy things on Etsy.

This is where EtsyKids comes to the rescue (well only for kids' items, you're on your own for the rest)! The EtsyKids Team is made up of over 600 different shops selling a variety of quality children's items. In order to be approved for membership, shops must have excellent feedback ratings, sell only family-friendly items and abide by the Etsy rules and regulations. Approved shops must also have been in business at least three months, stock a minimum of 10 children's items and actively participate within the team. This means that EtsyKids is made up only of shops who produce high quality products, have excellent customer satisfaction and are dedicated to the team and to their shops.

So go ahead and look here for some unique handmade gifts for your little ones this Christmas. You can also check out the EtsyKids blog to get to know the people behind the great products and to read fun articles and craft ideas.