Easy ways to promote your handmade online shop
Quick and easy way to promote your handmade online shop
There are hundreds of ways of marketing your creative online
shop, but in this blog post I wanted to pair it down to the bare minimum that
can be done if you are short of time and it doesn’t cost a penny (just your
time!). I know everyone’s time is precious, so I’ve looked at what can be
realistically achieved in 5, 15 and 45 minutes of marketing a day or a week –
and you’ll see it’s quite a lot!
If you have 5 minutes …
1. Share your own handmade products to your own social media accounts
Every time you add a new item (or choose an existing item)
share it via social media share buttons (in each shop & each product) to
your social media. This is the easiest way to let your potential customers know
where you are and where to buy your products.
All social media are included, so mix it up a bit and share
on different media at different times. In our latest website upgrade, the
integrated social media share buttons pull out the product picture, URL and a
brief description, which you can amend if you wish. This is the easiest way to
promote your shop.
2. Link your WowThankYou shop from your social media profiles
Add a link to your shop in your social media profile. Both Twitter and Facebook will allow several links in their profiles, so choose what suits your business and marketing strategy.
If you have 15 minutes spare…
1. List a new handmade product to your WowThankYou shop
There are no restrictions on how many products you can have
in your shop and we don’t charge for re-listing your items. By adding new
products regularly, you’ll not only gain more organic traffic to your shop, but
you also get a large slice of the WowThankYou website traffic too. All new
products are displayed on the ‘What’s new’ page, which is linked from the home
page.
Whilst your product on the ‘What’s new’ page will get
‘pushed’ down as new products are listed, it will stay in categories for much
longer as there are less products there. Our home page gets the most traffic
and shops often sell products immediately when they are listed, simply because
they appeared on the home page.
You get also more visible to our WowThankYou team and are
more likely to get included in. We search for the best products across the
website, but we also keep an eye on new products to include in weekly
customer’s newsletter and social media.
2. Create your own Handmade Gift Guide Collection
Fancy being your gift guide curator? By default, you already
have access to a customer type of account, which includes the ability to create
Wish Lists and Gift Collections. Whilst including your own products is the
sensible thing to do, you can also add other products that compliment your own
work. Each collection can be themed (e.g. Blue Collection, Summer Treats, Gifts
for Mums etc.) and you can add as many products as you like (and edit them later).
Each Gift Collection has its own URL link with it’s own page, which you can
easily share with your followers, use on your blog or social media.
3. Add a link to your WowThankYou shop to your business or personal e-mail signature
This is a simple, but effective way to let people and your potential customers know where they can find your work. Most e-mail providers will allow you to do this without any technical knowledge and all you need to do is to cut and paste your URL link from your WowThankYou shop.
4. Add a link to your WowThankYou shop on your own website or blog
Depending on how you want to promote your shop, you can
create a new page with a tab labelled 'Shop' and link it directly to your own
shop on WowThankYou.
Alternatively, you can add the link to any page, blog post or footer, where you consider it to be appropriate. It's up to you whether you promote your link to WowThankYou shop or not, but even if you place the link in one of your blog posts and don't promote it to your own customers, Google still sees the link which helps overall with people finding you in the google search.
5. Add a new board to your Pinterest profile
Pinterest is great creative resource, but it’s also a search
engine on its own and it can help to increase traffic to your WowThankYou
online shop. The easiest thing to do is to create your own Pinterest Board for
your shop on WowThankYou and gradually pin all your products there with detailed
descriptions as you go. You can use the Pin share button which is available on
each product page.
6. Create a discount code for your shop
This feature is in your shop admin panel. You can select the
amount, valid time or whether it’s a one-off or on-going discount. Share the
code with your customers via social media, newsletters or the normal way you
promote your shop.
7. List your creative business in our directory
Handmade Business Directory is UK based creative business
directory. Benefits include a comprehensive business listing (including your own
website, social media links, listing on a map, photos, full business description
and logo). This provides extra visibility for your business not just your WowThankYou
shop.
If you have a WowThankYou shop subscription, your listing is
already included. Here is where to add your business listing to our HandmadeBusiness Directory which comes free with your shop account subscription.
The Handmade Business Directory is open to anyone with a
small to medium creative business in UK, whether you are running a sewing
business, designer boutique shop, tearoom or a creative services agency.
You can find out more and add your business listing here.
If you have 45 minutes …
1. Have your own feature interview published on WowThankYou blog
If you have a little bit more time to spare, why not answer
a few questions and have a feature interview published all about you and your
creative business. This might be an 'indirect' way of selling your handmade products,
but it's very effective. People - your potential customers – always want to
know more about you, the story behind your products and your creative journey.
Your WowThankYou shop can do a great job at showcasing your handmade products,
but a whole page on a blog (with a link back to your shop) will do much better
job of giving the full story.
Notes on completing:
Write as if you were talking to your friend. This is a
‘chatty interview’ so keep it relaxed, you are definitely not writing for a corporate
company!
Think about the reader! The blog is aimed at people who are
interested in handmade products, people who like to find out something unusual
and they are your potential customers. Don’t try to just ‘sell’ your business,
tell a story – an interesting story – that will engage your reader.
Please write original content, don’t just cut and paste your
previous website or blog posts. This is very important as Google will match
this a duplicate content (yes, even when it’s on a different website and was
written a long time ago!) and ‘push it’ down the search results.
There are no restrictions on the length of your interview –
somewhere around 500-750 words is just perfect. You are welcome to include
pictures of you (in your work area) or we will select a picture from your shop.
Your interview questions:
Hello! Great to have you here, the kettle’s just boiled –
what would you like to drink?
So, tell us a bit about yourself and your business.
What inspired you to start your creative business? How did
it all begin?
How has your business changed and developed since it
started?
Where do you draw inspiration from for your designs and
product range?
What are you working on at the moment? Anything new coming
up to your on-line shop?
So, where does all this takes place? What’s your workspace
like?
What do you like most about running your own handmade
business?
What are your hopes, plans or ambitions for the future?
Thanks, so much for your time and chatting to you about your
business!
(we will automatically link the interview to your shop)
How to submit your blog post interview
Cut & paste the questions to a word document
Answer all the questions following the instructions above
E-mail it over to us via Contact Page or a ‘Help’ Button in
your WowThankYou shop admin panel (usually located in the right bottom corner
of your screen)
We will then publish it on the main blog with a link to your
shop and any photos you submit. The post is then regularly promoted on our
social media and in the WowThankYou customer's newsletter.
2 Write your own blog post
Write a blog post (on your own website or blog) about your new products or behind the scenes of how you designed a product and link it to your actual product in your WowThankYou shop. Even if you don't actively promote this blog post, Google will see the link and your WowThankYou shop will get more authority and a better chance of being found in an organic search.
There are of course many other ways how to promote your WowThankYou shop, but I hope this blog post inspired you to start. If you pick up just one little thing, one little way to promote your shop, it will all build up over the course of time.
Magdalena