Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

Online Shop Owner

Posted by Anonymous on 3/26/2009 at 6:18 PM ET 110 Points
I'm just recently setup a Etsy store to sell handmade body scrubs and I am seeking tips on how to effectively promote an online business to those not on the Etsy site. Could you assist me with promoting and/ or marketing my online business. My perspective customers are that of women, but not limited to. I have found a big marketing arena within the Blog world. Do you think there is a way to expand on that? Thanks in advance..
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Harry Hallman on 3/27/2009 at 8:47 AM Accepted
    Use Twitter, MySpace and Facebook to start. Ask your friends on these sites to spread the word. You can reserach to see if there are other social network sites that work for you as well.

    If you have a budget try Google Adwords to attract people to your web site.

    Visit forums and blogs and see if you can get your information out. Don't be salesy on social nets, blogs or forums. Try to offer something of value that will get them to visit your site.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 3/27/2009 at 8:51 AM Accepted
    Start from the inside-out:

    1) Make sure that you're first maximizing conversions (people that visit your site become customers): How many of the people that visit your site currently purchase from you? Have you looked at the analytics? How many have started to purchase from you but stopped mid-order? Why?

    2) Next, focus on how easy it is to find your store/site. How does your website rank on Etsy and Google? What words do people use to find your type of products?

    3) Finally, get the word out. That means identifying specific websites, magazines, newspapers, and/or clubs whose members are likely to be your customers. Not just women, but women of a certain age, demographic, location, who are looking for a specific "edge". If you're trying to sell scrubs to anyone, no one will find you. By narrowly targeting a niche (say, women ages 40-50, with 2 kids, also has a day-job, and is looking for something to make her feel special nights/weekends, for example) you can talk to these people in the right way (and find them).

    Good luck.
  • Posted by Tracey on 3/27/2009 at 12:54 PM Accepted
    If you can get your product recommended by a magazine (or a blog), it will boost sales. However, this is pretty challenging so you may want to enlist some PR help if you have any budget. (If you don't, there are at least some great PR books out there on how to run reviews programs).

    There's also always work you can do with your blog -- SEO, commenting on other blogs to drive traffic to yours, engaging your readers more, etc.

    Here's a link to a campaign done by the animators for the movie Coraline. I found it really inspiring: https://evilbuttons.blogspot.com/2008/12/50-coraline-boxes.html
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