Your marketing options for your Etsy shop are endless. But there’s also a lot out there that don’t work. And we’re going to talk about 4 of those today.
One of the issues when you run a product based business is that so much of the advice out there is for serviced based businesses. And it’s easy to try to adapt that advice to us. But that doesn’t always work. And sometimes we hear advice that’s great for makers and product businesses, but we don’t always apply it in the right way.
So here’s the list.
The first thing and the single biggest mistake I see sellers making is posting in Etsy Facebook groups for marketing.
Best scenario? Nobody sees your posts because there’s 40 thousand other makers in that group doing the exact same thing. Which is posting and running. Nobody is engaging because nobody is in that group that is actually your target market. So nobody cares about your post or your products.
Worst case scenario? You get some traffic from those posts. But guess who the traffic is? Other Etsy makers that aren’t in those groups to buy. They’re there to advertise. So they click on your shop to see what you’re doing right. Wha you sell. How you price. HOw many sales you have. But never buy anything.
And that means your conversion rate goes down. And that means your shop is hurt in etsy searches. Because Etsy doesn’t want to promote listings that have bad conversion rates. So you don’t show up in real buyers searches anymore.
Now if you’ve been doing this. It’s ok. But stop right now. Unless your target market is other Etsy sellers…like you sell craft supplies. THen marketing like this is either going to be a huge waste of time or it’s going to hurt your rshop.
The second thing I want to talk about is your Instagram account. One of the biggest mistakes I see here is using hashtags that attract other Etsy sellers instead of your target market. If you have more makers and business accounts following you then real people and real buyers then this is something you want to focus on now before you continue to grow your account.
Because what happens is that Instagram sees a bunch of makers following you and your account and the algorithm assumes that that’s who you WANT to follow you.
But just like the FB group mistake, makers don’t buy from you. That’s not why they’re on Instagram as a business account. So the Instagram algorithm isn’t helping people who would actually buy from you find you. So the answer to this is a lot of keyword research into what your target buyers are using and following for keywords.
If you need help with this, I pay for a service that I love and that saves me a ton of time. Find that by clicking here.
The third mistake is complicated email opt-ins. I did this when I first started my email list. I was listening to a lot of podcasts from business owners that coached other service providers. The recommendations were always to have a digital freebie or checklist or challenge to get people onto your email list. So that’s what I did.
But you know what converts for product businesses and is way easier? A coupon for your buyer’s first order. It takes minutes to set up and has given me thousands more email subscribers than any other opt in offer ever has.
The last thing marketing mistake I see is Etsy sellers directing their social media traffic to their website before they are getting consistent Etsy sales. I talked a lot more about this in the last episode that was all about why you don’t need a website. And this marketing mistake is another reason you can add to that list.
Etsy (and any other platform for the most part) really loves it when you send them traffic. So when you build a website too early (AKA before you’re getting super consistent sales on Etsy) then you lose out on this little Etsy bonus.
Now there will be a time when it’s good for your business to quit sending traffic to Etsy. I started sending traffic to my own website this year instead of Etsy. But I had over 200k in revenue on Etsy last year and so it was time to start making sure my email list (which had 2000 people on it and could start supporting my website financially) knew me as a brand. Not as an Etsy shop.
But this isn’t something you should rush. Get Etsy to start sending you a ton of traffic first. Then move onto your own website. You’re going to be much more profitable doing it this way. Listen to my last episode (episode 23) to learn more about that.
So there are your top 4 marketing mistakes that I see etsy sellers making. Most sellers have done one or all of them. I definitely did! So if you are guilty of making some of these mistakes don’t worry. But pick a few things to change and test so your marketing can be more effective.
Want some help? Grab JumpStart, my marketing guide that gives you over 100 free and cheap ways to market your Etsy shop. Bonuses include an Etsy ads guide and a weekly private podcast that tells you what to talk about on social media each week which is a huge timesaver!
