Four Unique, Original and Fun Ideas that will Get You

Clicks and Customers in Your Etsy.com Shop

by Anna Marshall (indiegeek.etsy.com)

Did you ever wonder just how you were going to turn your crafts into a business?

You thought you might go flea marketing, but the cost of a table was out of sight. And a booth? For that price, you could fund the budget of a small African nation, with money to spare.

You’ve thought about the Internet, but dismissed the idea out of hand because you couldn’t figure out how to bring customers into your “shop.”

Or could you?

The Internet has changed the way customers buy and shop and, using proven techniques to bring your clientele into your Web Site, you could have a bit of that multi-billion dollar pie for yourself.

The first thing any customer sees is the entrance to the shop or, in this case, the home page of the Web Site. This means that the first of the Four Crafty Ways is:

• How to Give Your Etsy Shop a Standout, Memorable Tagline

You probably already have a shop if you’re reading this and you can’t change your shop name, but I’m going to show you how to give your shop a great tagline.

Bad Name: KatesGems – Affordable, Beautiful, Jewelry

Good Name: KatesGems – Dainty Bangles and Baubles for Enchanting Fairies

What’s wrong with the first one?

Women don’t want to feel like they’re wearing something affordable. They want to wear something elegant, that makes them feel stunning.

What’s good about the second one?

People buy based on how a product makes them imagine they’ll feel. Women want to feel like enchanting fairies. The alliteration of bangles and baubles, the colorful language, makes them sound interesting.

People buy based on emotion, and they back it up with logic. When they see your jewelry and imagine the attention and compliments they’ll get, they’ll back it up with the fact that the jewelry is cheap or it’s on sale or they can’t get anything like it anywhere else.

• Write Descriptions that Get Your Etsy Customers in a Buying Mood

The most important tip I can offer here is this: Make sure you get your customer IMAGINING her life with your product in it.

If you’re selling prints, talk about how cute your print would look above a crib in a nursery. Frame your prints, and take a picture of them hanging in a nice room. Make the customer think, “That would look great in baby Sophie’s room.” When they already have a spot picked out for it, you’re going to make a sale.

Make sure your description doesn’t have huge blocks of text:

• Break it down as much as you can.

• Use numbers or bullets.

• People find it easier to read this way.

Write a little story regarding your item. If you’re selling prints, make a really short, two or three sentence story about the characters in your prints, or the setting of the print. Then your item becomes a beautiful idea as well as a beautiful piece of art.

• Write Great Tags

Tags are the directional signs on the Internet. Customers are always complaining that they can’t find what they’re looking for on Etsy, and half the items I look at are only using two or three tags, and I’m pretty sure those two problems are related. USE ALL YOUR TAGS!

Put the type of product it is in your tags (print, jewelry, painting).

Put all the colors of your product in your tags. Try to be specific about colors! Teal is better than blue, and lime green is better than green. You stand a much better chance of being found with less generic color tags, because you won’t be buried as quickly.

Use synonyms. If your print has a cat in it, use these tags: cat, kitty, kitten, animal.

• Write Eye-Catching Titles

Make sure your title is interesting, inspires curiosity, but also explains what your product is.

Here are two examples, using a print of a girl under an apple tree:

• Good Title: I’ll be waiting for you in my father’s orchard, under our tree. 5×7 print.

• Bad Title: Print of a Girl Under An Apple Tree.

The good title tells a story, an idea. You want to find out more. The bad title makes the print sound dreadfully boring and lifeless.

Once again, you’re selling a beautiful idea as well as a piece of art, and you can’t go wrong with that.