March Roundup

March turned out to be my most successful month on Etsy. This came as a total shock to me, as I completely ignored Etsy for the first two weeks as I frantically crafted for my first craft fair. Here's how the monthly stats come out:

Sales: 15

New hearts: 60

Hearts:Sales ratio: 4

I think that the hearts:sales ratio is really interesing - it's actually pretty low. I used to do a lot of pimping my work in the promos forums, and whilst that got me a lot of hearts and views, it didn't actually get me sales, and so I stopped.

Given that I had such a successful month, what was I doing differently?

1. Better photos. I have gotten very picky about my photos. Even the ones I'm currently using, I'm not completely happy with them. I've started only shooting in natural light in the morning (I've been late to work a couple of times taking advantage of the rare sunny days in Edinburgh!). I take photos against either white simple white computer paper, or for my newer amigurumis, a roll of white card. I really want to invest in a light box, but not for a couple more months. I usually don't use flash, but I've been finding it useful every so often for evening out light tones during the day.

2. New products. This month I created a lot of new products. I started making a whole lot of felt badges, which I am completely addicted to making. I also made up new felt ninjas, and this week I'll add some new crochet beasties to the mix. A reasonably high proportion of my sales have been recently listed items - items that weren't even a week old in my shop. That to me is amazing! Having said that, I also sold the two oldest things in my shop, so I guess I can't make too many comparisons. But the message I'm getting is that adding new things to the mix is really great, and to keep doing it.

3. List every day. At least. Since the mad crafting rush for the craft fair, and the subsequent disappointment around sales there, I was left with a lot of stock on my hands. I spent ages taking photos of it, and have been able to list a new item every day. At the weekends, I have been listing two. And I have also been listing across categories - my felt brooches are in accessories, and my amigurumis are in toys - I'm hitting up a lot of different etsy spaces, and the results are effective. I don't know why, but listing new items seems to be more effective than relisting, but it could be that the newer stuff is simply better.

4. Focus my social networking. I didn't go near a laptop for two weeks. My views definitely suffered. The last couple of weeks of March, I started focusing my efforts on Myspace, Flickr and Twitter. I commented my etsy mini on around 100 myspace pages, and I uploaded approximately 30 photos to flickr, which I then tagged and added to the relevant group. I also commented on a couple of other people's photos. I reinvigorated my twitter account, and have about 60 people following me. I have received feedback on the Etsy forums that I "tweet" well, and have also made a sale because of twitter. And the best thing? It's really low maintenance. I'm not doing anything that I wouldn't already be doing. Myspace takes an hour every two weeks, Twitter take the time that you are waiting for pages to load anyway (I use twitterfox), and flickr only ever gets pictures that I would have to edit for listings anyway. I use the flickr organizr tool to streamline my photo management, and it probably only takes about 20 mins a day. I have to admit that I still browse the Etsy forums, but only whilst I'm at work, so I'm not losing any important "crafting time".

5. Blog better. I've been putting more focus on my blog and posted articles that are relevant, and hopefully informative. I gave my thoughts on Alchemy, how to Twitter better, and the joys of marketing here. By making my blog more useful, hopefully its readership will grow.

So that's what happened to give me a spectacular March. I only hope that my expectations have not been so high that April will only disappoint. I have set myself a number of goals for April.

12 sales

50 new hearts

consistently maintain approx 25 items in shop (and not let it drop below 20).

Wish me luck!

Multi-Avenue Promotions

I have frequently extolled the absolute necessity of promoting your Etsy store outside of Etsy. The last couple of days for me have been absolute proof of that. Last weekend I made a sale that started with someone spotting something I made on the front page and blogging about it. I discovered this, and then commented on his blog, we had a nice little conversation, and a few days later, he made the purchase. I really don't think that he would have had I not commented on his blog and blogged about him. Then, a few days later, I made a sale thanks to my frequent twittering, and this morning I woke up to three more sales to someone who counts me as a flickr contact. If I'd only stuck to promoting within Etsy, these sales would never have happened. But, and this is the best bit, they really didn't take that much effort from me. I love flickr anyway, and have happily lost hours whilst looking at other photos and sorting my on. Twitter, as I've already blogged about, is such an easy way to connect with people.

So, what makes effective flickr marketing? Easy. Add your photos to groups. Add contacts. Make comments on photos. Repeat. Just beware that you don't lose three hours of your life there - so easy to do!!

And for twitter - talk about your life, talk about your products, add links to your blog and new listings. Tweet to other people, get involved.

Oh, and finally, isn't my new "I heart geeks" badge awesome!! I love it, and really wanted to keep it.

Treasury Time!

Just a quick post of Friday night to say thanks to DogmawGlass for including me in their Orange treasury - woohoo!! DogmawGlass makes gorgeous glass beads - definitely check out their store!!!

Twitter Tastic!!

I'm not posting or listing anything today - the light is horrible and I can't get a good photo of things I've made. Instead, let me talk about my latest online obsession. Over the last couple of months, I've started using Twitter. Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that I first read about it in the storque, etsy's news area, and thought, hmm, that sounds fun. Well, okay, I first really signed up to twitter about six months ago, but at that point, I couldn't really see the point. Twitter seems to be reaching a really interesting critical mass at the moment - problogger uses it to connect to his readers, and dooce just blogged about it this week as well. I'm really enjoying my little twitterfox that pops up and tells me the antics of some fairly random crafty and fashion peeps all over the world. Following a post of on the Etsy forums, people started adding each other as friends - I currently only have about 50 "followers", as opposed to my 500+ myspacers. But I wouldn't want to have 500 twitter people - then I would be deluged with "tweets". Tweets are 140 character long messages that people send via twitter to provide updates on their life. It's amazing how informative a 140 character post is. Jellypotpie provides frequent updates on her running. paintgranny tells us about her weather. Delightfully tells us about new sales and cheers everyone else on with theirs. I talk a lot about lost crochet hooks and jaffa cakes. We all provide updates on our creative processes, new listings, and new blog posts. The joy of twitter is not just the public posting, but the ability to reply straight back to people directly - conversations start, relationships build, and connections get stronger. I would like to think that this is all part of a bigger strategy to build up customers, rapport and more. But in the meantime, it's not much effort, and rather addictive.

Follow me on twitter.

50th post!!

Yes, I can't quite believe that I've made it to my fiftieth post. Not quite as exciting as my 50th sale, which will be quite some celebration. Yesterday I was lucky enough to celebrate my 30th sale, and that lucky chappie will be receiving a little extra gift in his envelope when he opens it. Actually, he was a really great customer, a couple of convos about the item in question before buying it, and I just really liked ho he took the trouble to get in touch. Big smiles.

Yesterday, I was supossed to be making more amigurumis, as they are by far the most popular thing in the shop. But I realised that what I really wanted to do as to stack my felt up and to vaguely tidy my thread box. I've included a before picture, but I forgot to take the after picture - doh! But bringing some order to my life made me a wee bit happier.


Today, I also neglected the amigurumi ducks (nearly finished, honestly) in favour of making something entirely new. Please welcome this tiny little felt car! I think it's adorable. I saw something similar in an Aranzi Aronzo book, but I wanted to go smaller and use buttons and some embroidery, so ended up with this little cutie. I really want to make a whole heap more of them now. The only shame is that his buttons don't actually turn, otherwise Ori and I could race them round the flat!

Tonight I'm having a late Easter dinner. Roast lamb, all the trimbings, and a rhubarb crumble for dessert. I've never actually made a rhubarb crumble, so I have to admit to being slightly worried about it. Mainly that I don't actually have enough for the crumble, to be honest. I wasn't really thinking when I picked up the bunch, and now this could be a disaster!

I got blogged!!

Just a quick one as I'm tired after a hard day's shopping (what, I'm allowed, I'm pretty sure Lent's over). I got a google alert today that someone had written about my wenis badge - turns out a certain Rob Williams noticed it on the etsy site, and provided some further background on the word wenis. I always thought it was just a mix of weiner and penis - who knew? Anyway, it's pretty cool that he blogged about it, so I'm happy.

the grass is always greener!!

No matter what I'm doing, it seems I always want to be doing something else!! I am a firm believer that variety is the spice of life, and the fact that the last three things that I have listed in my store have been felt brooches (and aren't they lovely?), makes me want to start listing more amigirumi crochet. Not that I have any! Right now I'm putting together some whales for my mum to send some friends, and right after that, I'll get back to making some cute things for the shop. I can't believe that I can't just be happy with my new product line - always thinking of the next thing!