by CraftyCoach - Norm Lanier on January 9, 2009
I have people all the time ask me how they can get more traffic. If you look closely at this blog then you’re looking at a basic how-to. I don’t claim by any means to be a blogging expert, yet in the last month I’ve had 1,988 unique visits to my blog in the last 30 days and 4,165 individual page views.
How do you get people to read your blog – WRITE SOMETHING INTERESTING. Sometimes what I write is very tame but useful and sometimes when I write I know I’m going to tick-off a bunch of people. I’m OK with that because if you feel passionate about something you can’t worry about whether you’re going to offend someone. In all likelihood if you write anything interesting you will annoy someone. Are there people that will stop visiting my blog because they don’t like what I say – yes – but those that do come back with be more loyal because they know I don’t candy-coat anything.
I even leave up negative (not abusive) comments because leaving them up makes my blog more interesting. My last post Is Your Art a Business or Hobby? has generated a lot of comments. Most positive, some negative, but all interesting. I fueled the fire by posting on Twitter that my last post was generating some interesting debates. I originally wrote “interesting comments” but then I realized debate is a much more interesting word. In my post To Stand Out You Have to do Something Outstanding, well it holds true with blog post also. You can’t be interesting if you sit on the fences worrying about whether you will offend someone.
by CraftyCoach - Norm Lanier on December 13, 2008
(You poor people will have to suffer through all my typos and grammatical errors till my editor (wife) returns from her girl’s weekend trip but I wanted to get this out)
I’ll admit it… I Love Twitter. I can easily communicate with all the people that follow me and I can do it all in 140 characters or less. Twitter is one of the web 2.0 sites that people on Etsy really recommend for promotion. The problem is most are doing it wrong – REALLY WRONG.
There’s a really interesting site http://twist.flaptor.com that allows you to compare how often people use a word on Twitter.
In this example people are talking as much about Etsy as the are about sex. The funny thing to me is that they seems to trend in the opposite directions. I don’t have a clue what that means. Maybe there’s another story for my blog in their but that’s beside the point. The real problem is that most of those people aren’t talking about Etsy, they’re pimping Etsy.
Do a search for the word Etsy on twitter and most of what you will see is something like “Holiday Stocking Stuffers– buy two get one free” or “Cute snowmen Christmas card” with links to their latest offering. If you open that persons Twitter page you will often see nothing but pitches for whatever they just added to their shop, or the sale they are having, etc. The way I view Twitter is that it’s like TV… you have to entertain and relate with people most of the time. If you do then they won’t mind the occasional commercial.
Let’s put this in real world perspective. Say you’re at the coffee shop and someone notices a t-shirt you’re wearing that says Disney World. They say “Oh I love Disney too. BTW I have an Etsy shop and today I’m having a sale on Mickey Mouse Coffee cozzies.” Then everyday when you go into the coffee shop they’ve left messages for you that tell you about the peace coffee cozzie they just posted on their Etsy store etc. Sucks huh?
Let’s turn that conversation around. “Oh I love Disney too. Did you know there are hidden Mickeys all over the Magic Kingdom. If you go to this site they have a list of all of them.” A week later you see that same person in the coffee shop and they say “That was an awesome site, you know we’re going next summer and we will look for all the hidden Mickeys we can find.” You say ” I wish I could go but the summer is a busy time for me since I’m a travel agent. Here’s my card, if you need some restaurant recommendations or anything just let me know.” Kind of night and day huh?
You see that’s why if you follow me on Twitter I’ll ask you how I can help you with your craft marketing. If you do ask then I’ll try and give you something helpful you can use. i post useful information on Twitter and I ask people questions. If you look at my Twitter profile it links to my blog where I give more useful information… and oh, BTW there’s a link to my Etsy shop on the blog. Every day I post parts of what’s going on in my life on Twitter. People feel like they know me and when I decide to occasionally have a Twitter only special for my Etsy Guide (<- super subtle plug for my guide) people don’t mind a bit 
There’s an old saying “People buy from people they like”
Help people first… communicate with them not at them… and when they need something you make guess who they are going to buy from?
P.S. If you think others on Etsy should see this post leave a comment Here on Etsy so it stays near the top of the Etsy Bussiness Forum.
by CraftyCoach - Norm Lanier on October 27, 2008
When you make a sale is it the beginning or the end of sales process? If you aren’t developing relationships with your customers by continuing the conversation after the sale then you are missing a huge opportunity. One of the common questions I get is how can I get more sales. To this I often respond “Do you send updates to your previous customers?” The response sadly is usually “No”. So let me ask a question, do you think it’s easier to sell to new customers whom have never heard of you or to sell to someone that owns a piece of your work and already knows the quality you produce?
Now what I’m talking about is not spamming people but asking each of your customers “would you like to hear about my new work”. Only when they have requested that they want to get updates from you should they be put on a list. Also they should be able to remove themselves from the list easily.
People like doing business with people they like so make the conversation fun. Talk about your work, your family, what makes you tick. If you’re a faceless website with no personality then why would they buy from you instead of from some big-box store? If you really want to blow your customers away, call them about a week after they’ve received their purchase and asked them how they like it. When was the last time that happened to you? What would you think about the crafts person that did that?
In this day and age of isolation people are starving for interaction with real people. Let the conversation begin with the sale, not end.